Feature & Follow (July 27) – Required Reading

Welcome to the Feature & Follow Hop, hosted by Parajunkee’s View and Alison Can Read!

If you’re here for the first time, I’d love if you could follow via email, RSS, LinkyFollowers or Networked Blogs. Just let me know your follow method of choice in the comments, and I’ll be happy to return the favor.

And if you’re not new, welcome back! Repeat visitors are the best thing in the world after chocolate for breakfast.

Come on, you know you’ve had chocolate for breakfast and that it’s awesome.

Today’s question is:

What was your favorite required reading in school?

Ummm…so this is hard because my school didn’t require…how shall we put it…good books. 

Lord of the Rings? No.

Anne of Green Gables? No.

Chronicles of Narnia? No.

Little Women? No.

Anything by Jane Austen? No.

I had to read things like The Grapes of Wrath (which was so boring, I actually broke out the Cliff’s Notes, which I am pretty adamantly opposed to) and Tess of the D’Urbervilles (which…okay, I have a story about that one, but it’s long and I won’t get into it now). I know they are considered classics and all the Classic Lit people are going to come and beat me now, probably with a copy of The Grapes of Wrath because it’s just so darn BIG, but you can’t ever convince me that either of those books is good.

Tess, in particular…well. I have a story about how this book caused a group of otherwise highly intellectual straight-A high school seniors to turn rebellious and a little bit crazy. But now’s not the time.

[One day, I need to write an entire post — or maybe a series of posts — about my senior year AP English class and our spacey teacher. It’s mind boggling, folks.]

I also don’t like The Great Gatsby. There, I’ve said it.

Anyway.

I remember a whopping two, yes, TWO, books that I was required to read that I actually liked. Both of which I read in that weird and somewhat surreal AP English class.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. (The superior Bronte sister, in my opinion.)

I love how untraditional this story is, how neither of the main characters is particularly attractive or swoon-worthy, how neither of them really feels like they need romance to be complete as a person.

And yet, it’s somehow a beautiful love story. Complex and emotional and fabulous.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

Dystopian before dystopian was a thing. I honestly couldn’t tell you what it was about this book that I liked. Just that I really, really liked it.

Also, I gave my presentation on this book in a leather miniskirt and black fishnets, to be in character. Because my English class was so weird that that was normal.

Thankfully, there are no pictures. Just thought you’d like to know.

Top Ten Tuesday (May 8): Favorite Book Quotes

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the folks over at The Broke and the Bookish. It’s a fun time for us all to indulge our inner compulsion to make lists about everything.

We all have that compulsion right? Right???

Anyway, the topic for this week is a doozy. I have to be honest. It’s so hard, I very nearly skipped it. But I can’t allow myself to be defeated by a challenge, so I’m rising to the occasion.

This week’s topic is my Top 10 Favorite Quotes from Books, but I have to say a few things about it before I start my list. First of all, these may not actually be my top 10 favorites. Why? Because I don’t have time tonight to re-read every book I’ve ever read and jot down my favorite quotes from all of them, and then narrow that extensive list down to a top 10. So instead, I looked up quotes from books that I remember being very quotable, and pulled some of the best ones.

You’ll also notice that all my quotes are from classic literature or fantasy. I love me some modern YA writing, but when it comes to quotes, I always prefer the eloquent and somewhat poetic writing style of older books and fantasy novels.

As an additional disclaimer: I could do this entire list with quotes from The Princess Bride. But that probably defeats the purpose of the list. So I’m only going to use a couple, and those couple are going to be unique to the book. As in, I will only use quotes that were not in the movie, even if they are amazingly awesome quotes. Because I don’t want anyone — anyone — to think that if they’ve seen the movie, they don’t need to read the book. Trust me, you need to read the book. Also, by the way, all the best lines in the movie are from the book.

So here they are! In no particular order, because just picking 10 quotes in the first place was hard enough. Putting them in an order would be excruciating.

My Top Ten Favorite Quotes from Books:

“People don’t remember me. Really. It’s not a paranoid thing; I just have this habit of slipping through memories. It doesn’t bother me all that much, except I guess that’s a lie; it does. For some reason, I test very high on forgettability.”

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

“Enough about my beauty.” Buttercup said. “Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I’ve got a mind, Westley. Talk about that.”

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

“I want to do something splendid…something heroic or wonderful that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead. I don’t know what, but I’m on the watch for it and mean to astonish you all someday.”

– Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

“It’s all connected. When you save any part of the world, you’ve saved the whole world. In fact, that’s the only way it can be done.”

Golden Fool by Robin Hobb

“When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool you end up looking like a moron instead.”

Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

“It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterward were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.”

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.”

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

“Want for nothing but patience — or give it a more fascinating name: Call it hope.”

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Starting out

I’ve loved to read ever since I could read.

In elementary school, I devoured series like The Boxcar Children and The Baby-sitters Club.

In middle school, I ventured into the world of science fiction with Michael Crichton.

In high school, I dabbled in a variety of genres, from classic literature like Les Misérables, Jane Eyre and Lord of the Rings, to the legal thrillers of John Grisham, to the sweet and semi-sappy romances of Maeve Binchy.

The only limitation I put on myself was that I didn’t want to read anything that was actually written for kids my age. I viewed Young Adult Fiction with distain. I thought the only people who read it were kids who didn’t know any better. I was Above It All.

Then in college, a friend gave me a book for my birthday. It was a gag gift, since it was a series I had made fun of for years (and it wasn’t even the first book in the series). He knew if I owned it, I’d have to read it.

The book was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

I read it.

I loved it.

Fast-forward to over a decade later. I now read what I want. Sometimes it’s books about teenagers, written for teenagers. Sometimes it’s books written for adults about housewives, detectives, spies, reporters, librarians. If it sounds interesting, I’ll read it.

I finally realized that it’s not “mature” to look down my nose at a book simply because of its intended audience. Likewise, I was not winning any brownie points in life by only reading books written for adults (and let’s face it, there’s just as much — if not more — garbage out there targeted at adults as there is for kids).

This year – 2012 – I decided to start writing down my thoughts about the books I read. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I always end each book I read with my head swimming with thoughts, and often no one to share them with. So I’ll share them with you (whoever you are).

You may not agree with me. That’s fine. I don’t agree with anyone on books (or most other things) 100% of the time either.

So here we go.