Sunday, December 8, 2013

Snowy Day Thoughts

Yep, it's snowing today in Baltimore. The Ravens are slip, sliding around on the football field. Sane folks are all staying inside.

On Friday, my daughter got married! Here's a pic of the new family...





I don't do tagging games, but I DID have to consider the 'ten books' question floating around on Facebook... Which ten books influenced/stuck with me?

1.The Bible. It was the first book I read back when I started reading at five. We lived in tiny, tiny towns in Arizona and books were scarce. But a ministers home had multiple copies of the Bible.

2.Dick and Jane. A few years ago WalMart carried hardbound copies of Dick and Jane and I confess I bought them. My two granddaughters read them when they were around six. There's just something about Dick and Jane...

3.Little Women. This was the first book I read that centered around GIRLS. It was so amazing to me that someone had written a book with girls as the central characters.

4.Little House on the Prairie (and all the others in the series). What a gift Laura Ingalls gave to us! I still re-read them every year.

5.Last of the Breed by Louis L'Amour. I love all of his books but this particular one...just stunned me. And the ending? Whoa...I never expected that!

6.Windflower by Laura London (Tom and Sharon Curtis). After all these years readers of the Windflower still wait in vain for a sequel. It was the absolute quintessential pirate novel. I've read lots of others...but never one to equal this one.

7.Morning Glory by Lavryle Spencer. There are love stories. And then there are LOVE stories. This one, set in the rural south in the 20s-30s is so unexpected and lyrical. Yes!

8.Sprig Muslin by Georgette Heyer. I own all of her books and there are others that I favor more (These Old Shades, for instance), but Sprig Muslin was the first of her books I ever read. I discovered the book at the library after we moved to Houston. I didn't know a soul, had three small children and my husband worked two fulltime jobs to support us. I was incredibly lonely. I vividly remember sitting on the closed toilet seat in my bathroom with the door closed so I didn't wake anyone up and LAUGHING so hard I slipped down between the toilet and the tub. Georgette Heyer gave me the gift of laughter when I needed it soooo desperately.

9.The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart. And of course the rest of them! I've thought a lot about why this book touched me so profoundly. I believe it was because of her scholarship and the way she wove the bits and pieces of the legends into her books to form a wonderful whole. I marvel at the details every time I re-read them.

10.Midnight Man by Lisa Marie Rice. This was the first erotic romance book I read. I was electrified by the possibilities. And then...I read the material in the back of the book about E-BOOKS! Books I could read on the computer! Hey...maybe I could even WRITE books. Yeah, that was the starting point. And look at me now!


anny

4 comments:

  1. I have every Georgette Heyer. Most are from the 1940's with hard backs and paper covers. She was a fantastic author. I particularly liked Sylvester

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    1. All mine are paperbacks. Old ones falling apart. They've been re-released here in the states in a larger format so I'm slowly replacing them!

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  2. Oh Anny! Little Women! The Little House on the Prairie series, Louis L'Amour, Mary Stewart's fantasy series... wow! We read alike!
    Congrats! What a lovely picture.
    My daughter sent me photos of the snow too. Pretty!

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    1. There's a certain group of women...I would say those from 45-65...who read the same group of writers. Younger women have NO idea who we're talking about. They just don't. They grew up in a different world. How sad they missed some of the best.

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