My relationship with and memories of reading are not exactly the average experience. For one, my mom is a high school English teacher, so I had assigned reading lists even over summer vacation. But the major factor was that I spent a lot of time in hospital rooms as a child and teen. My go-bags always included a book or two because I knew my entertainment alternatives were daytime soap operas or health magazines. Consequently, there are very few genres that I haven’t read or aren’t familiar with, and I don’t consider myself a picky reader.
Because of this, I think it’s easier to decide what I’m not going to read as compared to what I will read next. Westerns, romance, and biographies are the genres I read the least, but I wouldn’t say that I don’t like them. I think the introduction in our textbook makes a fantastic point in saying that we need to “recognize the novel’s specific appeals while at the same time considering its various genre appeals in their broadest conception” (17). Even though I don’t necessarily go looking for a western or romance, I don’t mind when elements of those genres find their way into the other genres I’m reading.
Favorite Authors/Poets
Willa Cather
Billy Collins
Brian Jacques
Sofie Kelly
V. E. Schwab
William Shakespeare
Samantha Shannon
Simone St. James
John Steinbeck
Kurt Vonnegut
Favorite Books/Works/Series
Black Beauty
The Book Thief
The Cartographers
Curses, Boiled Again
Heirs of the Force
If We Were Villains
Legendborn
A Little Princess
Macbeth
Nancy Drew
Redwall
Symphony for the City of the Dead
Top TBRs
America Fantastica - Tim O’Brien
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America and the Women who Stopped Them - Timothy Egan
The Fifth Season - N. K. Jemisin
Ghosts of the Orphanage: A Story of Mysterious Deaths, a Conspiracy of Silence, and a Search for Justice - Christine Kenneally
Gwen & Art Are Not in Love - Lex Croucher
Half Sick of Shadows - Laura Sebastian
Little Miseries - Kimberly Olson Fakih
The Mask of Mirrors - M. A. Carrick
Hi Emma,
ReplyDeleteMy mom’s mom was a high school English teacher. Reading seems to run in families. She had me read The Root Cellar by Janet Lunn. It is a historical fiction book for tweens.
If you like Steinbeck, you’ve probably read The Pearl, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath. Have you ever read Tortilla Flat? If you like books that describe landscapes and environments in great detail, you might like it.
Hi Emma. I read a lot as child too. My parents worked third shift and slept all day. During the summer breaks reading was my only form of entertainment. Hope you have a good semester.
ReplyDeleteExcellent reading profile! Sorry you spent so much time in hospital rooms but I am so glad books were able to keep you company!
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