A Book Meme

Found this meme on MimKnits and liked the questions and her answers. With apologies for not knowing the ultimate source to credit, here goes:

1. A book that changed my life:
Anna Karenina. I've read it several times. It has the best opening sentence of any book ever written ("All happy families are like one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.") All right, The Tale of Two Cities has a great beginning too.

But this book showed me that you could have majesty, beauty, unhappiness, family life, and historical sweep in one big book. I love the length of it: long enough to really live with the characters, but not drawn out to the point of stretching. And what an ending! I won't give it away, but it is amazing and realistic and dramatic and moving and full of lots of lessons that we can all stand to learn.

And you can see, from the yellowed pages and the cracked spine of my paperback, how long I've had it and how many times it's been read.

2. A book I have read more than once:
I'm gonna be honest here, and admit that it's the Harry Potter series. I wish I could claim it was Shakespeare or Henry James. But the truth is that when I reread, I want something well-written but comforting, something that reassures me that in the midst of the mess that we are making of the world, that something good remains.
I also reread all of the Shoes series this winter when I was sick.

3. A book I would take to a desert island:
Huckleberry Finn. One of my less stellar moments as a grad student was sitting on my front porch, studying for orals with some friends, inanely emoting about Huck and Jim. There is so much that I missed in my first reading of the book. If I had time, I'd want to be a smarter, closer reader. If nothing else, the Duke and the Dauphin chapters at the end could give you lots to think about, if you're considering any one of a bunch of ways to read the book: American history, commentary on American culture, America's obsession with monarchies, the flim-flam side of our nation, the heritage of slavery, and so much more.

4. A book that made me laugh:
Hmm, that's a tough one, I'm accustomed to taking a too Serious view of reading. I guess it would be a toss-up between the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich and The Phantom Tollbooth. My husband worked for years to try to get me to read Janet Evanovich, and I kept putting him off. Finally, I think that I picked up a paperback to read at the beach, and he was right: they are hilarious. If you've read any, I just have one word for you: Lula. Well, maybe two words: thong.

5. A book that made me cry:
I don't cry when I read, that I can recall. I'm definitely a crier at movies. Not a sobber, just those quiet tears that keep trickling down your cheeks. You swipe them away, and then you swipe them away again.
Ah, now I remember. The end of The Lovely Bones. The most beautiful book on death and being young that I've read. The writing is lyrical, smart, sweet, and telling. What could have been an unbearable gimmick - having a young girl narrate the story after her murder - becomes a poetic look at families, friends, and retribution.

6. Oops - I think that this question was: A book that I would like to write.
Let's agree that it is. . .I'd like to write a yoga book that has some humor in it. There must be a way to write about yoga that is not overly serious or New Agey. Something grounded in the literature and philosophy, but that would offer new students and more experienced students ways to think about yoga's relevance to life outside the yoga studio.

7. A book that should have never been written:
I don't think there is such a thing. Books are like ice cream: some people like vanilla, some people chocolate. It doesn't mean that one flavor is better than another; they're just different.
The corollary to this is that I believe that there is a book out there for everyone. When someone tells me that he doesn't read, I tell him that I believe that she just hasn't found the right book yet.
My neighbors in Ohio had twin boys. One started talking at an average age. The other did not talk for several years. They took him to doctors and had him tested, but nothing showed up. Then, one day, as his dad was backing out of the driveway and the little boy was sitting in the back seat, he started to talk. Apparently he had nothing to say until then, and so had no need to talk.
I think books and reading are like that. When you find the right book, then you start to read, and you don't look back.

8. A book I am currently reading:
I'm finishing The Bee's Kiss by Barbara Cleverly, part of a series about a detective named Joe Sandilands. The first books are set in India, and have lots of good back history on the culture and mores of turn-of-the-century India. This one, however, is set in England, and is a much more conventional British mystery. I miss the rajas and tigers and colonial politics.
I'm also reading slowly through the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. They are dense and aphoristic, and it's helping me to understand them by reading one aloud every class or so to my students, and trying to unpack the meaning for and with them.

That's it. Feel free to send me a comment if you decide to work your way through this meme --