I look at six books as having kindled my interest in reading. Not necessarily the six best books I've read, but six books strategically-timed (at various stages of my life) that shaped my reading tastes. Follow me after the jump .....
But first: Top Comments appears nightly, as a round-up of the best comments on Daily Kos. Surely you come across comments daily that are perceptive, apropos and .. well, perhaps even humorous. But they are more meaningful if they're well-known ... which is where you come in (especially in diaries/stories receiving little attention).
Send your nominations to TopComments at gmail dot com by 9:30 PM Eastern Time nightly, and indicate (a) why you liked the comment, and (b) your Dkos user name (to properly credit you) as well as a link to the comment itself.
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Last year, I saw in the open window of one my neighbors a wonderful vignette (for which I wish I had my camera) - a gray kitteh stretched out in the window sill, next to a little girl reading "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" - which reminded me of my favorite childhood author.
When Theodor Seuss Geisel attended Dartmouth College, he was was caught ...... drinking gin: violating Prohibition as well as school rules. As a result: the school insisted that he resign from all extracurricular activities, including its Jack-O-Lantern college humor magazine - which forced him to use "Seuss" as his pen name.
I considered Dr. Seuss my pediatrician in spirit. Interestingly, he neither had children of his own nor was comfortable around them: "You have 'em; I'll entertain 'em" was his comment.
My favorite work of his may/may not rank high on many other people's favorite lists: but On Beyond Zebra - about an extended alphabet - may be the original thinking-outside-the-box tome. Whatever of his works is your favorite: I think you'll still be able to find a copy for decades to come (or as long as children's minds seek adventure, whichever comes last).
Like many boys of my generation, Treasure Island holds a special place. "Young Jim Hawkins finds a treasure map" .... well, many young people can emulate. The Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson - who died at only age 44 in Samoa - offered a somewhat difficult read for a child, yet still managed to capture a sense of adventure. I mean, "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" - why, that's too good to restrict to Talk Like a Pirate Day, dontcha think? Long John Silver is not a fast-food chain to me, and I still recall some of the chapter titles near the end: "The Fall of a Chieftain", plus "And Last" .... concluding with the parrot Captain Flint, who constantly shrieks "Pieces of eight!" which ends the book.
At some point, a young tyke graduates from children's books into something more mature. And I recall that my first Young Adult book was one by the journalist William L. Shirer - his first venture into that field. It was published a year after the release of his seminal Rise & Fall of the Third Reich - the first major account coming just fifteen years after the end of WW-II - based upon Shirer's years as a foreign correspondent in Europe, and his research of captured Nazi documents that gave insight into how things operated in that era.
In his the final of his three memoirs entitled A Native's Return - Shirer says he was asked by Random House's Bennett Cerf to write a child's biography of Adolf Hitler (for ages ten to fourteen).
"How did you write for young people?" he wondered. "You couldn't be condescending. You had to respect them. But you had to keep it simple enough for them to understand".
After he analyzed young adult books by John Gunther and Pearl Buck: his writer's block left, and the result was 1961's Rise & Fall of Adolf Hitler which helped kindle my interest in history and politics.
I encountered him again in adulthood: when as mentioned he wrote his memoirs in three editions under the heading "20th Century Journey". And the middle volume The Nightmare Years - of the decade from 1930 (unemployed and living in Franco's Spain) to 1940 (when he left Germany after wartime reporting censorship became too ominous) - is the best non-fiction book I have ever read.
It covers much of the ground of the Rise-and-Fall - but instead of it being a dry, third-person account: this is from his diaries, highly personal and alive. If you'd like to read an overview of European history of the 1930's, try to find this in your public library.
While a freshman at a community college from 1974-1976, I had a work-study job at a local public library. That alone would be enough to kindle (or re-kindle) an interest in reading, as that was when books like "Jaws", "Ragtime", "Shogun", "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" were popular, and seeing our Reserved List quite long for each. Then there was one book that I was curious about reading, and when it finally dropped-off our Reserve List I took it out one Saturday. The weather was bleak, and so I began to read this 500+ page hardcover book after dinner. And I was getting frustrated with it after fifty pages.
You see, I had taken home the book Helter Skelter - the account from prosecutor Vince Bugliosi about the Charles Manson murders. And the number of aliases used by the members of Manson's 'Family' were making me dizzy, despite a Glossary of the characters in this book. And yet .... and yet ...... I just couldn't put it down, staying up to 2:45 AM to read it. The next day (Sunday) the rain didn't seem to have relented ... and so I mostly read the book, finishing the 500+ pages after dinner. I had never read a book that fast (nor since) and can see why that book had spent a great deal of time on our Reserved List.
Although I don't recall it appearing in the original printing: subsequent versions (including the paperback one) had this message on the early pages, before even the foreword: "This book Will Scare The Hell Out of You". I think it was the combination of many things that made it so compelling: the story of Charles Manson alone, how law enforcement didn't always work together, as a memento of the times, a geography lesson of Los Angeles, the way this case might never have been solved, the legal battle to keep Charles 'Tex' Watson from being extradited to California to stand trial ..... I was not then (and even less so now) a fan of 'true crime' books .... but I can see why this one best-selling one in history.
Vince Bugliosi ran twice for LA District Attorney (losing both times) then went into private practice. He is quite outspoken, writing books stating that he believed Oswald acted alone, that O.J. Simpson was guilty ... and a few others that we might be surprised to hear a tough-on-crime former prosecutor wrote. His book No Island of Sanity lambasted the US Supreme Court decision allowing the Paula Jones case to proceed against then-President Clinton, then in The Betrayal of America he lambasted the Supreme Court's 'Bush vs. Gore' decision. I guess he smelled a rat: because the third in his trilogy of political books is entitled The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder - any questions? Still, it's "Helter Skelter" that made me first take notice of him.
Finally, I don't suppose I'm the only one who's been told "ya need to read some classic novels" ..... and never gets around to it. Well, that's where Audio Books came in (I still tend to call them 'books on tape" out of habit) after I reached middle age. Whenever I have a long road trip (say, 3+ hours each way) I stop at the public library and get an audio book. One time, I took out The Three Musketeers - narrated in English by the French film star Louis Jourdan - and resolved that this would not be the last classic I'd ever 'read' (one way or another).
Alexandre Dumas weaves not only a tale of derring-do, but also of French geography, Cardinal Richelieu, history .... and in the voice of Louis Jourdan, it sounds contemporary, just the same. Lo-and-behold: I once won a trivia contest because I could name the Three Musketeers as Athos, Porthos and Aramis ... without mixing in d'Artagnan. Never would have happened without actually readi .... err, listening to the book.
A sign of the book's enduring quality: just look at the numerous film versions that have been made over the years ... goodness, there's a new 3-D version set for this autumn (with Orlando Bloom, Christoph Walz and Milla Jovovich starring). Then, of course, the famous candy bar ... and even the old Hanna-Barbera Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey cartoon. It's hard to think of too many classic novels that have spawned so much - but if you get a hold of the Dumas classic, I think you'll see why (regardless of the form of media you enjoy it in).
Now, on to Top Comments:
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From Ana Thema:
Audri - a kiddie pooler from Cheers and Jeers - could have been a contendah ....... but is now at peace with her life.
From N in Seattle:
In Jed Lewison's front-page story about Mitt Romney's tribute to his campaign base ("Mitt Romney: 'Corporations are people'), JeffW wrote a comment -- well, actually just a header -- that simultaneously: a) skewers the candidate, b) lauds the author of the article, and c) refers jokingly and aptly to a beloved line from Star Trek.
Quite the feat for three three-letter words!
From alizard:
In the diary by priceman expressing fears of the upcoming deficit commission - aeolos goes on to write that ... "We now have a process that has placed unaccountabilty at its heart and deadlock is a legitimate strategy for governing".
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening:
In the front-page story about Rick Perry's upcoming, sometime, maybe-soon presidential bid ... Loge wonders if Perry is the second coming of Fred Thompson - he of the "Fred is Coming!" summer of 2008.