Wow, I go to dance and come home to find a whole new book list to read.
And I went to the library
before dance, too. Silly Bethy.
And reading these posts made me remember more. Add another
Chronicles of Narnia to the list. My mother read those aloud to us when I was around 6 or 7 and I have loved them ever since. And the more I learn about CS Lewis and the allegorical aspects of the books, the better they get. Unfortunately, in the US they changed the order!
(Did they act as stupidly in the UK, too?) They put
The Magician's Nephew first, because chronologically in the world of Narnia it comes first. But it's not meant to be read first! I will recommend the books to complete strangers in the bookstore and tell them the correct order to read them in. O:-) (
The Horse and His Boy is moved to right after
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe because of 'chronology' too -- it technically takes place
in TLTWATW. :rolleyes: )
And I love
Little Women, too, but part of that is because I was in the play (hence the nick Bethy...) and so it has a special place in my heart because of that. I also read it first in the "Children's Illustrated Classics" version -- a picture every page and the text is veeeeeeery simplified and chopped down -- then found the original and was wowed by how much had been cut out.
Another one that I just recently re-read (and re-watched because I got it for my dad on DVD for his b-day) is
The Scarlet Pimpernel. "They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven? Is he in hell? That demmed elusive Pimpernel."
A recent find that I think will probably turn out to be in the same category of familiar-blue-jean-books for me is
The Black Swan by Mercedes Lackey. It's a novelization of the ballet
Swan Lake but it adds soooooo much more, along with making one of the ballet's principal bad guys into the main character and a good guy.
I love fairy-tale novelizations, and since this is a ballet and I'm a ballerina, it just connects even more. Not to mention it is a just plain
good book.
Oh! (I was going to end there, honest I was.)
Pascal's Wager by Nancy Rue. Honestly one of the
best books I have ever read in my entire life. I've read it twice in a year and it's going to get read many many many more times.
Bethy (who is going to save this list -- and give her library card a workout this summer)
