Plinky thief
You guys ever heard of Plinky? It's this website that posts a question every day and its users log on and answer it. Well, I thought I'd steal the idea and post a question on here every day to get into the habit of blogging again. Lee tells me I don't blog enough. And I tell him that people don't want to read my posts 'cause he's the funny one. But apparently I have more time. Yeah. Right.
So, here's the first question. Which I totally stole from Plinky. If you feel like it, leave your answer in the comments. And your answer can just be the book title if you want. You don't have to write a Leessertation.
Question: Name a book that changed your mind or opened your eyes.
My book: The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It is a book about a father and son's journey through post-apocalyptic America. While I was reading this book, and for a long time afterwards, I would stay up all night unable to sleep, in anguish, thinking about Sofia and what I would do to protect her.
5 comments:
The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. I read it before 1984 -- and it left me with a healthy questioning of authority figures. (Pegs -- I also recently read The Road and was haunted by it. Strange book.)
Derek's Leesertation.
Fiction: Pride and Prejudice. Before I read it, I thought it was the quintessential fluffy, girl book/romance novel. Which I guess it still is. BUT, it's also one of the funniest, sharpest, and most brilliantly written books I've ever read. Jane Austen is a genius. Also up there on my list of novels that I used to think would be boring but was actually fantastic: Madame Bovary. Check it out.
Fiction, part II (from when I was a teenager): Catcher in the Rye. I know, it's trite. But still, it was wonderful and, yes, eye-opening to read a book like this at 15 - one that challenged so many things that a good Catholic/Episcopalian mama's boy had previously heard from authority figures and one that not only acknowledged but also indulged the existence of teen angst (all those phonies!). Plus it had curse words, which is just cool. At the same time, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone over the age of 21. You'll either find it boring, or you'll wind up killing John Lennon.
Poetry: Philip Larkin's Collected Works. The guy may have been a complete and total asshole (he was), but he also wrote poetry that is both strikingly beautiful and surprisingly accessible and fun. He is the anti-T.S. Eliot, in the best possible way.
History: Robert O. Paxton's Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944. I just finished reading it for the fourth time, and it is just one of the most inspiring historical works I have ever read, in content, style, and methodology. I mean, what can I say? When your work becomes synonymous with a fundamental shift in how people view a historical topic and your name becomes a part of a historical concept (for the few of you out there who are not historians of World War II France, you should know that we are still working through the effects of the "Paxtonian Revolution"), you are someone capable of changing minds and opening eyes. I want to go to there.
"Where's Waldo in Hollywood"
-it was in this 6th publication of Waldo's zaney adventures that I realized: a) Waldo's world of Hollywood has far less freaks than the real Hollywood (which is quite scary), and b) I'm tired of Waldo (I know, it took me 6 books to finally get tired of him). I like to play the "where's the businessman" when walking around in hollywood...trust me, it's far more difficult...there's like 3 waldo's panhandling on hollywood blvd.
I think it was a book with pictures, lots and lots of pictures.
Actually it was Catch 22. It made me think, at least momentarily, that perhaps I was not as screwed up as some other people. Sadly, reality soon proved otherwise.
Dad
A Confederacy of Dunces. I’ve never looked at hotdog carts or hotdog venders the same way.
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