National Book Lover’s Day
This is somewhat atypical of my previous posts, due to being a “holiday” for book lovers (as well as not falling on a Monday).
I’ve loved books since I was a child, my parents (especially my mother) read to me growing up and eventually turned me into the book lover I am today. I think it is pretty easy to say that I am a bit of a bibliophile, I am fond of books over a wide range of subjects.
Today, I’d like to go over some of my favorite books.
1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The first time I read Sherlock Holmes I was in 2nd grade. I, for the most part anyway, grasped the basic plots of the books and dearly loved the deteriorating paperback copies of the short stories. (The copy in question being a gift from my mom.) I read these stories feverishly. The one story that I recall the most was A Scandal in Bohemia. This story stuck with me for a long time due to Irene Adler’s character having such an apparent mark on Holmes despite never appearing in the stories again. My 2nd grade mind was fascinated by Holmes’ deductive prowess as well as his interest in a wide variety of subjects. This has carried on to this day, despite the BBC’s best efforts to turn my opinion of the character sour.
2. The Scarlet Pimpernel
I’ll be the first to admit it: I love pulp fiction. Actual pulp fiction, things that were published in magazines, fantastical stories and whatnot. They were, perhaps, somewhat stereotypical, but everybody loves a good hero story. The Scarlet Pimpernel predates these concepts by about a decade or so. It’s a typical story of a hero disguising himself as a fop (ala Don Diego de la Vega, Bruce Wayne, so on and so forth) but being a hero underneath a mask (Zorro, Batman, etc.). Sir Percy Blakeney’s heroics and the Romantic concepts that such heroism represents are something I’d always admired. Unlike Holmes, I read this book as an assignment in middle school, several years ago. I loved the book then, and I continue to do so to this day.
3. Maus
This is a bit of a left turn here, at least when compared to the previous two entries. Maus is a graphic novel (or comic, if you’d prefer those terms) that was written and drawn by Art Spiegelman. It is a sort of biography of himself and his father, juxtaposing their experiences in the (then) present and early past (circa late 70′s and early 90′s or so) and the more distant past (the 20′s-40′s). I read this book in 7th grade, well, a part of it at least. I read the rest of it later, after convincing my parents to let me have a copy. Historical narratives are always important, regardless of the medium they are presented by. To call Maus an important work is an understatement, and it’s success and literary importance has proven that comics and graphic novels and the like are just as worthy books as that of more traditional literature like short story collections or novels.
4. Mort
Fantasy and satire oftentimes go hand in hand, I could regale you with a number of examples from antiquity or medieval eras, but I’ll spare you the lecture. In this case, Terry Pratchett is a master, and Mort is one of his more famous works. Being the first novel in what some refer to as the “Death Trilogy”, it centers around the titular character, Mort, and his apprenticeship with Death...learning much about life in the process. The humor and interactions between characters are something I’ve always enjoyed in this work, and the character of Death is certainly one of the most popular in fiction. A sympathetic Death is not necessarily an original or new concept, but Prachett’s vision is one of the most memorable and expertly executed.
5. Fahrenheit 451
This is my favorite book of all time. It’s rather hard to top. The first time I read this was in fifth grade or so. My brother was reading it for a class in middle school, and I begged him to let me borrow it because I found the cover interesting. (Namely the famous art by Joseph Mugnaini, featuring the main character Montag wearing a blazing uniform made of paper.) I read it very quickly, savoring every moment especially the increasingly tense final third of the novel. This novel is what sort of...clicked my love for books in me. I had always had a love of literature, as you can see in the previous examples, but I had never really...-really- thought about my feelings about -why- I loved books. This was the text that opened my eyes. I would end up reading it again a few times over the course of my academic career as an assigned text, but I would always drift back to it even in my spare time. The memorable first lines still echo in my mind: It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed.
To say that I was not changed after this novel would simply be a falsehood. This was the novel that has influenced me to be who I am today.
