A List? Are You Serious? But It's About Books!

Our blog friend Cheryl has a wonderful list today! So I am being a little copy cat and pilfering it from her (Thank you dear Cheryl!). What is more powerful than the written word? Hardback or paperback? I do buy an occasional paperback for travel reading but always prefer hardback. I keep the well loved ones for our small library here at Rabbit Run and donate the others to various places...local libraries, hospitals, the VA. There are so many wonderful sources from which to purchase gently used hardbacks or even new ones that just happen to be a bit older.

2.Buy on line or in a store?

I love Amazon and can always find some great deals through their booksellers program. But you know? There is nothing like spending some time in a bookstore. The peace and quiet...all those books and periodicals at your fingertips. There is often a coffee shop with pastries and the smells...ooh.

And I adore a musty old bookstore...like the ones found in big cities. There is just something really magical about places like that. You never know what you are going to discover!

3. Favorite bookstore?

I love all sorts of book sellers but here we have one called Books & Company. They have the most wonderful programs, music and children's events on the weekends and wonderful authors speaking and book signing. There are now 2 B&C stores here and the newer one has a magnificent fireplace upstairs near the children's area. This area also has perfectly cozy window seats and on a Winter's day it is sheer Heaven!

4. Bookmark or dog ear?

BOOKMARK!!!! Dog ear a wonderful hardback book?? Argh....

5. Keep, throw away, or sell? Keep the ones that mean the most to us, donate the others to hospitals, libraries, etc. NEVER throw a book away!! Ack!

6. Short story or novel? Both can be just wonderful!

7. Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?

I really like to make it to the end of a chapter....unless I nod off earlier! I used to fall asleep with a book at my side, wake up in the middle of the night and finish the chapter!

8. New or used?

Great deals can be had on both!

9. Morning, afternoon or nighttime reading? It depends...is it the weekend? Are we on vacation? Why am I asking you all these inane questions? Night time usually because it is quiet and still and the chores of the day are done.But there are some mornings when a book calls to me! But, ask me about my decorating books? I am always scouring them. Morning, Noon and night time. They are my inspiration and relaxation!

10. Stand Alone or Series? Most of my very favorites are stand alone books. I do read Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series now and, of course, there is Harry Potter.

11. Favorite Series? Harry Potter is wonderful! The Little House series, Junie B. Jones...I know, I know. These are children's books but they are so special! OOH! The Chronicles of Narnia!

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For a little more grown up reading, I love 2 series that Lawrence Block writes. His Matthew Scudder mysteries and Bernie Rhodenbarr "The Burglar Who...." mysteries are such fun. I love it when Bill reads them to me at night...so relaxing and cozy.

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Francis Mayes books on Tuscany. Do they count as a series?

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Peter Mayle's books on Provence/France. Ooh La La!

12, Favorite Books Read Last Year?

Marley and Me, The Glass Castle, 1,000 Places To See Before You Die.

Sarah Vowell's books, Assassination Vacation and The Partly Cloudy Patriot. From Amazon...I want to hang out with Sarah Vowell. More to the point I want to take in some museums and historical landmarks with her and listen in on her conversations with curators, docents and misinformed teenagers (is there any other kind?). The great thing about Vowell is that in reading one of her books you feel as though you ARE hanging out with her and the assorted lucky friends and relatives who accompany her around America's historical sites.

13. On your “to read” pile right now?

Einstein: His Life and Universe, The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I.

14. Favorite books of all time?

Whew. That is tough isn't it? Straight away I must say The Diary of Anne Frank. The most powerful and moving book of all time. A must read for every person on the planet.

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To Kill a Mockingbird....another must read. Hands down one of THE best examples of American literature.

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The Little House in the Big Woods. My childhood favorite.

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Of Mice and Men and Travels With Charlie. 2 very different books written by John Steinbeck but they each speak to me. One of my greatest joys was being able to talk to Gary Sinise about his (He directed, produced and starred in) film version of Mice and Men. It is spellbinding. If you have not yet seen it, it truly seems to hold true to the book. It was highly endorsed by Steinbeck's widow, Elaine whom Gary came to know well. Or, pick up the audio book of M & M with Gary's narration. It is nothing short of brilliant.

"Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place. . . . With us it ain't like that. We got a future." Travels With Charlie...."If I were to prepare one immaculately inspected generality it would be this: For all of our enormous geographic range, for all of our sectionalism, for all of our interwoven breeds drawn from every part of the ethnic world, we are a nation, a new breed. Americans are much more American than they are Northerners, Southerners, Westerners, or Easterners.... It is astonishing that this has happened in less than two hundred years and most of it in the last fifty. The American identity is an exact and provable thing."

You can also find the wonderful audio book of this classic narrated by Gary as well. T With C is filled with humor, humanity, *dog-manity* from Charlie, Steinbeck's standard poodle, and adventure. His tales are heartfelt and honest - never flippant or cruel. He saw goodness in most and overlooked shortcomings of the people he met.

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Blue Highways: A Journey Into America by William Least Heat- Moon.

His journey into America began with little more than the need to put home behind him. At a turning point in his life, he packed up a van he called Ghost Dancing and escaped out of himself and into the country. The people and places he discovered on his roundabout 13,000-mile trip down back roads ("blue highways") and through small, forgotten towns are unexpected, sometimes mysterious, and full of the spark and wonder of ordinary life.

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Peter Jenkins' A Walk Across America and The Walk West.

Twenty-five years ago, a disillusioned young man set out on a walk across America. This is the book he wrote about that journey -- a classic account of the reawakening of his faith in himself and his country.

"I started out searching for myself and my country," Peter Jenkins writes, "and found both." In this timeless classic, Jenkins describes how disillusionment with society in the 1970s drove him out onto the road on a walk across America. His experiences remain as sharp and telling today as they were twenty-five years ago -- from the timeless secrets of life, learned from a mountain-dwelling hermit, to the stir he caused by staying with a black family in North Carolina, to his hours of intense labor in Southern mills. Many, many miles later, he learned lessons about his country and himself that resonate to this day -- and will inspire a new generation to get out, hit the road and explore.

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Anything by Bill Bryson. Notes From A Small Island, A Walk In The Woods, his African Diary, Made In America, The Mother Tongue, Neither Here Nor There, I'm A Stranger Here Myself, In A Sunburned Country, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, A Short History Of Nearly Everything...pure delight on every page.