Book-it, Baby

Robin over at Pensieve (and yes, I originally started reading her blog - which I found through the Ultimate Blog Party - simply because of the title… any blog that references Harry Potter in the title is a blog I’m gonna like) has a meme about books, and I’m still avoiding my textbook, so I’m in!

So here’s the meme… apparently, you can’t reference the Bible. Ok. From what I can tell, that’s the only rule.

1. One book that changed your life: “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee (also my very favorite book ever). I don’t remember when I read it for the first time, but what impacted me the most wasn’t the race relations story - powerful though it is - but the story of Boo Radley. As a self-absorbed 1980s teenager, it hadn’t previously occured to me that the outcast, the odd, the unlovely might also be the hero.

When I was pregnant with Eliza and before we discovered she was a girl, I had convinced Mike to name the baby Radley if it was a boy.

(As an interesting side note… I’m reading the questions and answering them before reading Robin’s answers… she also liked Mockingbird. I am ashamed to say my journalism teacher husband has never read it. But he did his dissertation on race relations. Go figure.)

2. One book you’ve read more than once twice: “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austin. “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret?” by Judy Blume. Quite frankly, several of the Blume books. I can hardly wait to buy them for Eliza… and read them again myself.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: I think if I’m stuck, I should get more than one. I’d like a nice camping handiman book since I’m a city girl who would be in big trouble alone on an island. My copy of “The Great Deluge” since I never managed to finish it. It’s nice and think, and it would be a good way of counting the days by pages read. And, I think, because it would remind me that things are hard all over … for those days when the pity got the best of my party. And the complete works of Lewis Grizzard. Terribly dated and chauvenistic and Southern, it would make me laugh and think of home.

4. One book that made you laugh: A lot of the books I’ve already listed are funny. But others… does anyone still read Erma Bombeck? She was brilliant. And books by comedians… I know they’re all just written down versions of their stand-up acts, but if they were funny onstage, they’re funny in print. But you also have to read Joan Hess… an Arkansas girl who cracks me up. (I’m gonna have to put the new one on my Amazon list.)

5. One book that made you cry: Ok, clearly, I’m never gonna pick just one book. Whatever. Everything by Nicholas Sparks. When we moved to Florida, and I was still upset about the move and the missing, and Mike finally said I couldn’t read any more NS books for a while. And Mike never says I can’t do something, so you know it was really bad.

I sobbed like the world was ending when Dumbledore died.

And I started crying through books when I was young. “Sounder.” “Where the Red Fern Grows.” I mean, come on.

6. One book you wish you had written: Any good romance novel. My not-so-secret if I could do anything wish would be to write romance stories.

7. One book you wish had never been written: Can’t think of anything. All books are good, aren’t they?

8. One book you’re currently reading: In all honesty, when I finished my last book, I specifically didn’t start anything new because I need to be studying this textbook. But I have a stack waiting for me that’s huge.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Come on… there are tons of them.

And now, I’ve gotta go see who gets kicked off “Idol.”

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