It's So Random
February 01, 2010
I took this meme from Dani Torres’ blog, A Work in Progress. I’m not going to tag anyone, but if you want to jump in, feel free. I love to hear about what everyone else has on their shelves.
Here are the rules:
1. Go to your bookshelves...
2. Close your eyes. If you're feeling really committed, blindfold yourself.
3. Select 10 books at random. Use more than one bookcase, if you have them, or piles by the bed, or...basically, wherever you keep books.
4. Use the books to tell us about yourself—where and when you got them, who got them for your, what the book says about you, etc.
5. Have fun! Be imaginative. Doesn't matter if you've read them or not. Be creative. It might not be easy to start off with, and the links might be a little tenuous, but I think this is a fun way to do this sort of meme.
6. Feel free to cheat a bit, if you need to...
I had fun wandering through my house, closing my eyes and grabbing books from our many shelves. Here are my 10 books in the order I picked them off the shelves.
1. Fodor’s See It New York City. This is a guidebook I bought before my family and I visited New York City at Christmastime two years ago. I usually borrow guidebooks from the library, but I couldn’t resist buying at least one to have in our travel library.
2. What Is My Horse Thinking? (Lesley Bayley). Bought when I first got my horse and I was trying to learn quickly. Focuses on horse body language and what it means.
3. Sleeping at the Starlite Motel (Bailey White). Starlite followed White’s Mama Makes Up Her Mind (which I also have). My introduction to humorous, essay-type writing. I believe I got this through Book-of-the-Month Club years ago.
4. The Franchise Affair (Josephine Tey). Tey is a mystery writer, and I discovered her as a teenager, after I had plowed through all of Agatha Christie’s books. I haunted the used book store until I found all of Tey’s novels. My favorites featured Alan Grant--I had a literary crush on him!
5. An edition that contains Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood and The Writing Life (Annie Dillard). I read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in high school, but I have this book on my “To read in 2010” shelf because I want to read The Writing Life.
6. A Pocket Full of Rye (Agatha Christie). I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for Agatha, and I have some type of mystery-induced amnesia, because even though I’ve read each of her books several times, I frequently can’t remember “whodunit.”
7. Uncle Fred in Springtime (P.G. Wodehouse). I love Wodehouse—also discovered him when I was a teenager, and have read many of his 90-some novels. Funny and clever and silly!
8. The Dance of Intimacy (Harriet Lerner). Also on my “to read” bookshelf. I like Lerner’s books, and haven’t read this one yet.
9. Two-Part Invention (Madeleine L’Engle). This book, subtitled “The Story of a Marriage,” chronicles L’Engle’s long marriage to Hugh Franklin, and his death from cancer in 1987. I read it first when I was working as a temp for a company relocating their headquarters. (I had a lot of free time while I waited for phone calls or mail to open and forward.) L’Engle’s most famous book is A Wrinkle in Time, but my favorites of hers are her nonfiction “Crosswicks’ Journals,” of which this is one.
10. The Mismeasure of Woman (Carol Tavris). This book is on my Mother’s/Women’s issues shelf. It examines how men have been treated as the normal standard and women are “abnormal,” and how that affects things like social sciences, medicine, law and history.
There you have it! Hope you’re having a happy, book-filled Monday.
8 comments
Love the variety represented here! And of course, you mention some old favs as well!
ReplyDeleteMost of the books I keep tend to be old favorites I want to go back and read again someday.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting idea.... you even mentioned a couple that I've been planning to get to. Oh I wish the days were longer!!
ReplyDeleteI know! I could spend hours reading every day if only my pesky responsibilites would quit getting in the way!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fascinating look into your life... I feel I know you so much better now. :) You've made me curious to read numbers 9 and 10, and I can highly, highly recommend Dillard's Writing Life, as well as For the Time Being, my favorite of hers. :)
ReplyDelete(I may have to try this meme, myself.)
It's true that what a person reads does offer a peek into their inner world. I'm looking forward to Writing Life, and I'll have to add For the Time Being to my list of books to read. I'd love to see your 10 random books, too!
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed reading about your books... my husband thinks the books in our home may eventually crowd us out one day! Haven't read "The Writing Life", but did read "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott... worth reading!
ReplyDeleteI loved "Bird by Bird"! And the book situation is about the same in our house. My husband and I are both readers and we like different things, so we have lots and lots of books.
ReplyDelete