My sentiments exactly Billy! How can I possibly choose one favorite book from all of the books that have become a part of my life.
If forced, I might be able to come up with a Top Ten list of favorite books that have shown me 'other worlds'... but even that would not be fair to an entire bookshelf filled with books that provide witty quotes and references for a multitude of conversational tidbits.
Which books would make your Top Ten List?
scroll down for my latest selections...
scroll down for my latest selections...
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February 6, 2014Well, I guess a year is long enough to wait for my next Top Ten revelation.
When we decided to drive around America for a year, with our children in tow instead of a French poodle, this book became a part of me. We drove the same back roads, met the same country folk and ate the same regional cuisine. Published in 1962, his observations were still valid when we made our trip 1999-2000.
"From the beginning of my journey, I had avoided the great high-speed slashes of concrete and tar called 'thruways," or super-high-ways."…You are bound to the wheel and your eyes to the car ahead and to the rear-view mirror for the car behind and the side mirror for the car or truck about to pass and at the same time you must read all the signs for fear you may miss some instructions or orders. No roadside stands, selling squash juice, no antique stores, nor farm products or factory outlets. When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing."
Enjoy!
January 9, 2013
A boy who finds himself on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger faces his fears and observes those fears as they transform into a sheer will to live. His spiritual curiosity is intriguing and caused a few paradigm shifts for this reader, which seem to happen when ones world becomes bigger. At the end of the story, the reader is required to make a choice. A thought provoking choice of preference which explains why so many high schools have this book on their reading list.
The writing is exactly 100 chapters filled with beautiful figurative language, layers of narration, and real or perceived allegories, at times graphic, although pure storytelling about the unimaginable. While reading this book I kept wondering to myself how a movie would be possible but Ang Lee has managed to visually carry one through the story and stay true to the book for the most part.
Do yourself a favor...read the book and then see the movie. In that order please.
March 1, 2012
At the beginning of the book, George had just witnessed a lynching in front of an angry white crowd. The seventeen year old boy, Pete, was a friend of his and was hanging from a tree for something he did not do. "When they did a lynching, they made us leave the body hanging, to put a terror in the colored folk."
The ride home, he angrily told his father he would never work for or talk to another white person again.
"Some of those white folks was mean and nasty. Some were just scared. It doesn't matter. You have no right to judge another human being. Don't you ever forget."
In the book at this point, George states, "I didn't know it then, but his words set the direction my life would take even till this day."
That non-judgemental attitude is what drew me in from the very beginning of "Life is So Good". Throughout the book, I never felt like George had a chip on his shoulder, which would have been understandable at a few points in his life.
He has an adventurous soul and during his travels south to Mexico he experienced a refreshing new reality...
"I didn't ask no questions 'cause I didn't know how to say "Jim Crow laws" in Spanish. But I was beginning to see that things was different down there than they was in Texas. Pretty soon, even though we was white and colored, we got to talking like we was just people."
George Dawson talks alot about his teacher, Mr. Henry, who taught George for three years and explains to Richard Glaubman...
"He's inspired people. But that's not all. His work ethic and commitment help our younger students. Many of them never had that and didn't succeed in school. They see him coming to learn and that tells them something. These students get here early just to sit near Mr. Dawson where before they were often late."
A positive outlook through difficulties is hard for any age, but somehow Mr. Dawson's honest account of his 101 years at the time this book was published is beyond positive, it truly is inspirational.
Check out my Amazon Store for your very own copy!
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October 7, 2011
"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked jazz music.
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way."
I was was hooked with that opening paragraph of the book,
Blue Like Jazz,
by Donald Miller...
who, like Steve Jobs,
audited classes at Reed College.
Many of his recollections mentioned in the book occurred on campus of the liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon,
where the student body mantra of diversity and inclusion seems to fly out of the window when the term "Christian" is mentioned.
(My words not the authors!!!)
This book helped me understand why just the mention of the word Christian often has such a negative connotation in our world.
My favorite part of the entire book takes place on campus of Reed,
where they build a confession booth during the infamous Ren Fayre;
and it is was embarrassing...
how easily I fell into a judgmental "goodie two shoes" role...
at the mention of a confession booth...
as my eyes moved along the page.
I honestly felt a slap in my face as I finished reading about their surprising intentions...
filled with take-your-breath-away love.
A buddy,
Tony the Beat Poet,
asked him to explain why he believes in God...
and his response was...
penguins.
Seems penguins have this internal radar that leads them back to their eggs...
"I have a radar inside me that says to believe in Jesus."
The teacher in me loves the simplicity of that.
I know...
this is deep talk...
but this was, and is, a book that helped me have a better understanding and explanation of my faith in Jesus.
If you want to buy a copy...
you can check out my amazon store...
on the Shopping tab above...
or find one at a library near you.
I hear there is a movie in the works!
Growing up in a small southern town during the 60's as a young child...
I was innocently unaware of any racism...
however, Aibileen speaks the truth when she mentions a time when all children become aware of a secret line drawn in the sand...
which separates.
This fabulous article in The Telegraph...
does a much better job of describing...
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.
Click here...
to purchase the kindle version because...
oops...
I am already too late!
They have already changed the cover of the book...
with pictures of the actresses in the soon to be released movie!
If you want the actual book, it is there as well...
just don't look at the cover.
This book has stayed with me...
and still causes me to be aware...
not covering up...
but longing to do my part in the healing process of my southern world...
which is exactly why it remains one of my Top Ten!
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May 3, 2011
When I finished reading this book I felt just like Elizabeth Bennet in the opening scene of Pride and Prejudice...
you know the one where she is walking through the field and reading...
and after she finishes the last page...
she slowly closes the book...
and sighs, rubbing her hand along the cover lovingly...
In addition to all of that, I was weeping ("I'm a major weeper" - name that movie) and hugging the book longingly ...
not wanting it to end...
wanting more of...
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,
Betty Smith
This novel is a rich experience of what life was like for the poor living in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn from 1902-1919. Francie, the young girl tells her story of growing up...
"Growing up spoiled a lot of things."
Her parents, even through their weaknesses and difficult circumstances...
give Francie incredible gifts...
her mother teaches her the value of hard work...
and impressed the importance of reading...
every day she read to them from two books...
Shakespeare and the Bible...
until Francie and her brother were able to read for themselves...
at which time Francie decides to read one book a day...
which only led to isolation and loneliness...
when other youngsters heard her speak...
"Wait here and I'll go in and begat my rope and we'll play jumping."
Her father, the free spirit, taught her to embrace life...
and that sometimes you just have to do the wrong thing...
"But it's a wrong to gain a bigger good."
He valued education and sporadically went to great lengths to give his children opportunities he did not have...
The family relationships are touching and sometimes heartbreaking...
as she figures out at a very young age...
how to live amidst her circumstances...
"Home at last and now it was the time she had been looking forward to all week: fire-escape-sitting-time. She put a small rug on the fire-escape and got the pillow from her bed and propped it against the bars. Luckily there was ice in the icebox. She chipped off a small piece and put it in a glass of water. The pink -and-white peppermint wafers bought that morning were arranged in a little bowl, cracked, but of a pretty blue color. She arranged glass, bowl and book on the window sill and climbed out on the fire-escape. Once out there, she was living in a tree. No one upstairs, downstairs or across the way could see her. But she could look out through the leaves and see everything."
Where would you "escape"...
to be taken to "Other Worlds"...
through reading?
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Scroll down for Other Favorites...
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March 7, 2011
After contemplating...and...finally choosing my number one favorite book in the whole wide world (see below), I decided that the other nine in the top ten would be in no particular order but rather be mentioned randomly as life presents...
well, a reason to reveal that particular book. One of these moments occurred this past weekend while having dinner with dear friends from college and any husbands that were brave and patient enough to endure the hours of catching up and remembering...
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,
Rebecca Wells
As we sat around the table, someone had the audacity to point out that we have known each other for over 30 years!!! How is that possible? We are barely that old ourselves...
At that moment, I realized that these fabulous, beautiful ladies wrapped around the table were my Longhorn Ya'Ya's...
We met in college and have kept in touch over the years, needing only a few hours together before we are sitting back in the dorm...
or in that fountain (you will never know that whole story)...
or in our first apartment in the real world...
or sitting around the pool during the spring break that we no longer had...
or crammed into the hotel room of whoever was traveling to a cool place on business...
or back in Austin for a big game...
As I read the "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" I admired how close these ladies were and how they remained "young" even as they...
[OMG! (Just to be clear, that stands for Oh My Goodness!!!)
I just googled synonyms for 'age', the verb...
how depressing...
| decline, deteriorate, develop, get along, grow,grow feeble, grow old, grow up, mature, mellow,push, put mileage on, ripen, wane |
No wonder no one wants to AGE!!!
I do like ripen though!!!]
Instead of this negative approach, I am in complete agreement with Picasso...
"It takes a very long time to become young."
He even agrees with me on ripen...
"We don't grow older we grow riper. — "
I think the original Ya-Ya's would agree...
Thanks to my Ya-Ya's for joining me in our journey to become young and riper.
Now, who's in charge of planning your trip to visit across the pond?
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February 23, 2011
My most favorite book in the whole wide world, dum, da, dum, dum...Charlotte's Web.
I need to clarify that the fact that it has been one of my favorites for the longest amount of time finally helped me make this excruciating decision.
The first time I read this book cover to cover was as I read aloud to a group of second graders my first year teaching. I went to the librarian and asked her for a recommendation...
the rest is history...
Each day my students hung onto every word and grew to love Wilbur and admire Charlotte. Towards the end we needed kleenex at the reading circle as sniffles were heard and I watched one tough "he-man, woman-hater" wipe away his tears. Of course, I am such a crybaby, I held a tissue in my hand through the entire book and the students just patted my feet...
Two years later, the same librarian gave me my very own hard back copy of "Charlotte's Web" as a wedding gift. One of my favorite gifts by far...
On the inside cover she wrote..."This story is like a good marriage--filled with love and loyalty. Remember!"
Wow, need I say more.
