Yay! It’s time for Wednesday Ramblings. Be sure to check out my partners in crime for this tag team: Bronwyn Green, Kellie St. James, Jess Jarman, Kris Norris, Jenny Trout, Leigh Jones, and Gwendolyn Cease! This week we’re looking at some of our favorite books.
I’ll be honest. A version of this post was published earlier on my blog under the Monday Musings blog group. However, I have made a few additions. Read on.
Ooh, where to start…
How about here? Tolkien! Both The Hobbit and the trilogy. Hobbits, dwarves, elves, glowing blue swords. Throw in a ring, a dragon, some Cracks of Doom and beautiful writing and you have an epic.
What about The Stand by Stephen King?
He can rock a killer plague like no one else. This book is really a foundation piece for me…good versus Evil (and yes, that’s with a capital E and pronounced Eville!).
Then there’s Rebecca. Who doesn’t get the shivers from Mrs. Danvers? I never dream of Manderly, but I sure wish I would.
To Kill a Mockingbird. I won this gorgeous copy in a library reading contest. I even named one of our horses Scout (although DH also pointed out that was the name of Tonto’s horse). I finally introduced my 15-year-old to this one last fall, and she adores it as much as I do.
Then there’s Catch-22. This particular copy has been to both Vietnam and Laos–packed in my footlocker for one trip and DH’s for the other. Looks like it. Probably smells like it too. And looks like it smells like it.
Hotel Paradise by Martha Grimes. I can’t find my personal copy at the moment for a picture. It’s similar to Catch-22 above. Bought in a Bangkok bookshop for the flight home to Honolulu back in the day, it looks like crap. But it’s all love. The narrator reminds me of Scout Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird.
My latest fave was introduced to me by Bronwyn: Maggie Stiefvater. I like most everything she writes, but especially The Scorpio Races. And Shiver. And…well, pretty much anything by Maggie Stiefvater. She’s lyrical. When I grow up, I shall write like Maggie.
So those are some of my favorite books. If you haven’t read any of these, I encourage you to choose one of them and dive in. All of these books have inspired me in one way or another: Good versus evil, the power of one individual to change the world, suspenseful settings, irony. I like to think my own writing carries the stamp of some or all of these books. And the writing itself never fails to inspire.
How about you? Have you read any of these? Did you like them? If not these, what’s your recommendation?
Tess Grant 
To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the only books I’ve ever started and then couldn’t get through. Had it been for a class I would have finished it, but I tried reading it on my own in high school and… blegh. Maybe I’d appreciate it more now!
I have to throw in a bid for Carol Berg’s Transformation. It’s the first in a trilogy, but can also be read as a standalone. Absolutely beautifully drawn characters. It was also the first book I read that really sold me on first-person perspective.
I’ll have to give it a try. I’m struggling to understand well-done first person narrative, so maybe this would be a good choice.
I have that exact edition of Tolkien!!! It was a gift from my grandparents when I was in the sixth grade.
Thank you for reminding me to add The Stand to my reading list. I was reprimanded recently for not having read it. 😀
I got mine when I was a pinch older…maybe eighth?
I have never read To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s one of those ones I keep meaning to get around to! 😀
It’s so worth it!
Maggie is an author on my to read list thanks to Bron. 🙂
Ooh! Start with “The Scorpio Races!”
Again, huge King fan… and I will read The Hobbit one of these days, damn it. Some of the others…they were ‘required reading’ in high school and unfortunately, that colours them, lol.
I love The Stand! That book blew preteen me away when I read it. I should go back and reread it, but I feel like I remember every little bit.
I just read To Kill A Mockingbird and so loved it. I couldn’t understand how I missed it before now, but most probably I wouldn’t have enjoyed it when I was younger. It has such depth.
Oh, The Stand! Loved, loved, loved that one!
To Kill a Mockingbird was my top favorite book, now second to Water for Elephants. I’ve read several of these you mention, and I am adding to my library list to check out the others. Thanks. I need some good summer reading I can pick up at FADL.