"I declare after all there is no enjoyment
quite like reading."
Jane Austen
In my last post I mentioned a book list posted by Brenda of It's a Beautiful Life. I've had a fun couple of days pondering my own responses to her prompts, and here they are. I'd love to read your book choices, too, either in the comments or on your own blog. Or even your answers to one or two of the prompts.
1. A favourite (or two or three) from your childhood: The Bobbsey Twins series, Nancy Drew series, Eight Cousins and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Nurses Who Led the Way, The Secret Garden, Pippi Longstocking
2. A book you read once that you can't stop thinking about: Time at the Top by Edward Ormondroyd - This was my first foray into time travel and it fascinated me. The book had an unusual yellow binding so it was easy to find on the O shelf in our school library. I did read it many times, not just once, and still think about it from time to time.
3. One book that shaped your life: Hidden Art by Edith Schaeffer
4. A book you couldn't put down: Our Woman in Moscow by Beatriz Williams
5. A book that deepened your thinking: Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle, Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, A Long Obedience by Eugene Peterson
6. A book with a favourite heroine: I've always liked Emily, found in L. M. Montgomery's books. Emily of New Moon is a more complex character than Anne of Green Gables, much as I admire Anne.
7. A book that creates a safe place when you need rest in your soul: Anything by Miss Read
8. A book that lifts your spirits and makes you feel happy: The Enchanted April, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
9. Something you want to read but haven't got to it yet: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I've read others of his, but not that one.
10. A book you like to read over and over: Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier in the summer, and Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher in the winter.
11. A book you just finished and loved: Startle and Illuminate: Carol Shields on Writing by her daughter and grandson, Anne Giardini and Nicholas Giardini
12. A book you just started and already know you like: Not sure what to answer here. I just started a so-so book, but I'm picking up The Reading List by Sarah Nisha Adams at the library tomorrow and I'm looking forward to that one.
"The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched
the patches of the universe into one garment for us."
Faber in Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury