Book Tag

1. One book that changed your life?

Without a doubt, To Kill A Mockingbird, which I read in 10th grade. It was here I learned one of my favorite words, "elucidate," for which I had been searching forever. It also began my love affair with the mythical and perfect hero Atticus Finch, especially when imagined as the dark haired, square-jawed, bespectacled, tall and handsome, white suit-wearing Gregory Peck. He ruined me for all other men. Sigh. . .

2. One book you have read more than once?

C'mon, I was an English teacher, what book haven't I read more than once? Actually, though, there are several:

Fahrenheit 451 and lots of other Ray Bradbury. I always loved teaching that one to my gifted classes and getting their sweet little middle school souls stirred up about censorship. His craftsmanship is wonderful, and though he writes science fiction/fantasy, the man is a romantic at heart. When I had him sign my copy after an engagement at the Novello festival quite a few years ago, I was tongue-tied.

Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain. It's one of his lesser known works, which begins with a series of letters written by Satan, reporting on a visit to the "Human Race Experiment." I like this one better than most of his better-known works.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?

An anthology of great short stories, most definitely. Essays by Emerson,Thoreau, Whitman, and the like. The works of Robert Frost. Maybe some C.S. Lewis thrown in for good measure. And something to make me laugh--Ogden Nash or James Thurber, perhaps? Oh, wait, did that say ONE book?

4. One book that made you laugh?

I too laughed quite often through Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, especially when he scatters his mother's ashes--or at least attempts to. And anything by David Sedaris makes me pee my pants, which actually isn't that hard to accomplish after birthing three babies, but I do find him hilarious.

5. One book that made you cry?

I didn't cry, but I was very upset when the protagonist was killed off in the final pages of Cold Mountain. And the legendary tear jerking book in my family is a young adult novel, A Day No Pigs Would Die, by Robert Newton Peck. Still gets me.

6. One book you wish had been written?

The book that makes my family's storied and disfunctional past into a poignant and significant American narrative of triumph and survival, which is then adapted to the screen and makes enough money to keep me and my sister in flea-market junk and high-end shoe shopping cash forever

7. One book you wish had never been written?

The Heart of Darkness blows. Also anything by Herman Melville. And no, not even with Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab.

8. One book you are currently reading?

Change Me Into Zeus's Daughter by Barbara Robinette Moss. So far it reminds me very much of The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio--huge family, drunk father, long-suffering mother, no money. I'll see how the similarities hold up as the story unfolds.


9. One book you have been meaning to read?

The Ironic Christian's Companion by Patrick Henry. No, not THAT one.