Rules: In a text post, list ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you. Tag five friends, including me, so I’ll see your list. Make sure you let your friends know you’ve tagged them!
Is it weird that I was touched by being tagged for something like this? O, well. Here you go, demonbloodsausagedog. Roughly in order that I read them.
Where the Red Fern Goes, Shiloh, The Education of Little Tree
maybe this is kind of cheating, but a lot of my early reading was a lot of quintessential Southern literature. i read To Kill a Mockingbird six times in school. As I Lay Dying did something horrible to me. it still haunts me. but so does any and every stupid story where the dog dies. stories like "The Scarlet Ibis." what is it with Southerners and racism and tragedy?
Fiddler Fair by Mercedes Lackey
this collection got me into writing short stories. i read a lot of Lackey as a kid. but this one i tended to reread.
The Metamorphosis by Kafka
uh, what am i supposed to say here. it's Kafka. this was where the obsession with Prague started. the tag for my Czech vampire lady is #Die Verwandlung.
The Dark Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop
uuuuhhhhhhhhh, this one is vaguely embarrassing. it's ridiculous romantic fantasy. a friend in high school loaned it to me. but... no, i can't even defend this. Jaenelle Angelline is the main female character. The main male characters are Daemon Sadi, Saetan Daemon SaDiablo, and Lucivar Yaslana. it's objectively ridiculous. but it got me to think a lot about the power dynamics between the genders. about portrayals of rape in fiction.
The Enchanted by Jean Giraudoux
it's a french play about ghosts and love and death and life. at sixteen, in Arkansas, i ate that up.
Medea as adapted by Robinson Jeffers
i have a lot of feelings about Medea, and i have even more about this adaptation. it stands in sharp contrast to Bishop's trilogy for me. a woman cannot be broken by a man. but she can break him. or something...
Shelley's Poetry and Prose
i'm pretty upset because i can't find my copy, but i read it first for a class and then would revisit whenever i was feeling sad. poems like "Mont Blanc" are very soothing. and Prometheus Unbound gives me chills.
Lord Byron: The Major Works
same.
Satyricon by Petronius
all them ablative absolutes. o, i got very good at ablative absolutes and figuring out the structures of sentences. only to throw that out with Catullus, but... seriously. it's a weird little book. weird and homoerotic.
Beowulf
mostly, epics aren't my thing. but there's something sad and poignant about Beowulf. probably that whole shift from paganism to Christianity, the end of an era, the death of a hero. i like those things.
I tag diekiwifrucht, petaltail-dragon, many-storied, impreciselanguage, lazysmirk, arcaneli, metz77. You know, if you want. I may try reading some.
tangentwithtanner
theartofmadeline
blakekathryn
titsay
snowghoul
germansingergirl
origamiaround
gummygunk
