Book that changed your life: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis. My folks read to me constantly when I was little, and I read a decent amount on my own. But, when I grew out of Dr. Seuss, I began to falter in my reading habits. Sure, I’d read - but, I was no longer passionate and enthusiastic about what I read, and found myself sitting in front of the television more and more instead. My folks, I’d like to think, noticed this void… this absence of enjoyment and intellectual curiosity… I’d like to think they noticed this because, one Christmas, they bought me the set of The Chronicles of Narnia out-of-the-blue. I’d never heard of those books, and it took some coaxing from my mother to get me to pick up the first of those seven books. But, once I did, I never put them down. I once again discovered the joy - and pure necessity - of reading… a vital sensation I cherish to this day.
One book you have read more than once: The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy. Sleep-deprived, I’d once found myself shifting, zombie-like, through a bookstore when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a pretty cover. "Never judge a book by its cover." But, alas - for that brief moment - I did. The cover design had caught my attention, and I suddenly found myself in line waiting to buy it, drinking in the first rich pages of thick imagery. It remains, to this day, my favorite novel.
One book on a desert island: A large, accurate, colorful atlas: the ultimate picturebook, and guide to the imagination. Plus, if large enough, it doubles as a source of shade.
One book that made you laugh: Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris. I only started reading his works two years ago (the bandwagon had passed me by seven or eight times over). But, when I finally settled down one evening and read the SantaLand Diaries, I’m pretty sure I fractured a few ribs. Who knew laughing could be so hazardous?
One book that made you cry: It takes a lot to make me cry, and a book has yet to turn on the tear factory. But, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles came close. It’s just so damn sad!
One book you wish you had written: Waiting for the Barbarians, by J.M. Coetzee. Magical and reachable, in an almost unsettling way - particularly in our current times of… tension.
One book you wish had never been written: Big Chief Elizabeth, by Giles Milton. A severe excess of unnecessary hyperbolic drama made this seem less like a non-fiction account of the first English attempts to colonize the New World and more like "The Three Stooges" on meth.
One book you are currently reading: Catherine of Aragon, by Garrett Mattingly. Confession time: Tudor history is a hobby of mine, and makes up the bulk of my most recent non-fiction pursuits.
One book you have been meaning to read: The Koran. (Hey, why not?)
Posted by James at August 30, 2006 07:47 AM