Favorite Bookish Endeavors

 This weeks GBE prompt is: What is/are your favorite book(s) and why?

Hmmm.

My favorite book...Thinking...thinking…

This is like choosing your favorite song, movie, or grand child.

It’s also completely subjective. My favorite song, movie or book could be your most hated thing. But don’t think for a minute that is going to stop me from blogging about it.

The truth is, I didn’t used to be much of a reader. My early forays into fine literature started with the grade school bookmobile and paperback editions of the “Peanuts” comic, and the “Ripley’s Believe it or not” series.

My early teenage years were spent reading things like superman comics, mad magazine and graduating to such literary giants such as the Creepy and Eerie comics. Those led to the titillating art work and stories in the Vampirella magazines. My Mom hated those! Every time she found one, she would throw it away. If you are not familiar with these fine magazines, this is what the cover art looked like:

 

 

You can see why a teenage boy would find them interesting, and why my Mom hated them.

Later in life that dramatic styled art work led to painting this motorcycle helmet:

But we are not talking about art work and I’m not sure those magazines qualify as a real “book”.

I remember reading “Shane” in a seventh grade English class, mostly because the teacher made me read it out loud. I don’t know if she liked my voice, or just the fact that I could read pretty fast without stumbling over the words. The other students would read, but they usually only read a few pages at a time. I think I read about one fourth of that book out loud to the class. It was a western and all I really remember about it was; if you’re sitting in saloon, sit where you can watch the doors. It was a gunslinger thing.

The next book I remember was a collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories. Even though the wording was a bit old fashioned, I found I liked the Macabre. This may be where my interest in all things Halloween started.

I don’t remember much about them now, but I used to enjoy reading the humorous stories of James Thurber. The fact that he illustrated them with cartoons only made them more interesting to me as I once harbored dreams of being a cartoonist.

In high school we had to read “The Illustrated Man” by Ray Bradbury. The book was about a tattooed man and each tattoo had it’s own story. It was basically an anthology of science fiction stories. Now THAT I can get into. My roving mind can handle short stories!

My favorite book(s) lately has been a series hosted and judged by well know science fiction writers. It is called “Writers of the Future”. It is a contest for unpublished writers. I think they are up to Volume 39. I have most of them. Each story is by a different author and the themes and writing style vary greatly.

 

 

I find this much more appealing than a book length novel that could take me weeks to get through. If you get started on a long book and then find you don’t like the style, subject, or tone of the writing, you’re kinda stuck. You gotta struggle through it, or toss it and feel like your reading effort was a failed endeavor.

Even some Anthologies that are curated by one editor can have a certain “feel” or even subject matter. And if you don’t like one of those aspects, well, you’ve wasted your time and money. Fortunately, I buy all of my books at the used book store. If they have a section for science fiction anthologies, that’s where I will be...or over in the travel section.

That being said, there was one book that I started, and literally could not put it down. I started on Friday afternoon and read it all the way through in one sitting. That book was Jurassic Park. And yes, as good as the movie was, the book was better.

Oh wait, there was another book that I really enjoyed: “The life and times of the Thunderbolt Kid” by Bill Bryson. It was a humorous look at a time that matched when I was growing up, so I could relate to a lot of the stories. I ran out and bought a few more of his books after that, but this was my favorite.

Dang it. If I sit here long enough I will think of others. This blog could wind up being as long as “War and Peace”...which I have never read. I doubt anybody wants to read that much of my opinion. Actually, I'm surprised you made it this far! Congratulations!