Day 15- Favorite book dealing with foreign culture.

Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi

Thank you Dr. Holly Stave for introducing so many of us to this text.

Day 14- Book that should be on hs/college required reading list.

The Giver — By Lois Lowry 

I realize many of you read this in grade school. I really think it should be required reading in college (your junior or senior level years) after you have been saturated by grade school teachers, high school puberty, the newness of college and you are starting to formulate your own thought pattern with which you will most likely practice as you start your adult life. The way you have been taught to view the world versus the way the world is presented to you will be something you will give more attention to than whatever random thing fills your coffee break later that day.

Day 11- The book that made you fall in love with reading.

The Speckled Band (A Sherlock Holmes Story) by Arthur C. Doyle

I believe it was followed by countless Choose Your Own Adventure books in grade school.

Day 10- The first novel you remember reading

Children’s novel? The Boxcar Children series in 2nd/3rd grade

Adult (theme) novel? Superstitious by R.L. Stein in 7th grade (yes, he wrote an “adult” novel)

Day 09- A Book you’ve read more than once 

(rewrites: Books you’ve read more than once?)

Perks of Being a Wallflower — Stephen Chbosky 

The Harry Potter Series — J.K. Rowling

Bastard Out of Carolina — Dorothy Allison

The Men With the Pink Triangle — Heinz Heger 

The Wizard of Oz — L. Frank Baum

Wurthering Heights — Emily Bronte

“2BR02B”  — Kurt Vonnegut (in Public Domain, you should read it)

Good Omens — Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett

Day 08- An unpopular book you believe should be a bestseller —

This is kind of an odd question. I suppose Trash would count if bestseller was viewed by numbers only.

Trash — Dorothy Allison

In 14 gritty, intimate stories, Allison’s fictional persona exposes with poetic frankness the complexities of being “a cross-eyed working-class lesbian, addicted to violence, language, and hope,” rebelling against the Southern “poor white trash” roots that inevitably define her. Bridging the bedrooms, bars and kitchens of its narrator’s adult world, and the dirt yards and diners of her ’50s South Carolina childhood, this magnetic collection charts a fascinating woman’s struggle for self-realization and acceptance through a sensual, often horrific tapestry of the lives of women to whom she is connected. In the mythically resonant early pieces, the conflicts of her foremothers, like Great-grandmother Shirley, “the meanest woman that ever left Tennessee,” embody a grim legacy of drudgery that presages the seeds of her own rage and cavernous hunger, later finely played out through various love affairs. With a keen feel for the languid rhythms of Southern speech, Allison ( The Women Who Hate Me ) masterfully suspends the reader between voyeurism and empathy, breathing life into a vast body of symbolic feminine imagery.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Day 07 - A book that is hard to read…

If discussing characters/flow, I always get a bit tripped up on Russian literature. I (still) have to make name charts for each character explaining which name each person calls them. 

If discussing a book that is in English that I have started and have to work through piece by piece, I would most definitely choose House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (pictured above). It is has far too many patterns to read straight through and I’m too intrigued by the patterns to read it straight through. 

Day 02-Least Favorite Book 

Far from the Tree by Virginia Deberry

I remember reading this in “Literature of the American Family” my freshman year in college. It was recommended to the professor and she added it to our syllabus. The majority of the class didn’t care for the book. I want to say it was possibly the writing but I don’t even remember. I just remember very vividly that I didn’t care for the book.

30 Day Book Challenge: 

Day 01-Your favorite Book

In Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie states that his favorite book is whatever book he last read. I’m similar. Whatever passion, interest or insight is curled up with me for a moment of silent reflection is usually my favorite book at any given time.

If it was the cliche, “You are stuck on an island and can only bring one book, what would it be?” type of question, most likely I would grab Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keys or To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. They were two of the first books to ever really stick with me and creep into my thoughts long after completing them.