What's up with Whatsit

Obsession

Most people have their obsessions. My personal obsession is books. I grew up as an only child, so I read a lot. I don't have any idea if I popped out loving books, or if the fact that I was alone most of the time during childhood and adolescence turned me onto them. Probably the fact that my mother read to me every day as a little child helped. Nobody else in my family growing up particularly liked to read except me. My mom would read sometimes if she found something that struck her, and my Papaw would read Louis L'Amour and every other western he could lay his hands on, but that's about it. I'm the one that loves books, collects them, re-reads them, and talks about them.

One good thing about this is that my kids love to read and be read to. The see me walking around with a book in my hand, sticking them in my purse, having stacks of them in my car and in the bathroom, and reading at the table, and they have followed my example. Even Anna Claire, my not-particularly-academically-inclined child, loves to read. If I have done nothing else, I have turned my kids onto reading.

Another thing I like is lists - the top 10 this, and the 10 best of that. I also love making lists. So of course, one of my favorite things is a book list. Recently I blogged about re-reading the same things over and over. I have decided I need some new stuff to read besides what I am already as familiar with as a good friend.

I've been printing out book lists. I'm going to try to make it my business to read what's on them. Here's what I printed out.

The Newbery Medal winners
I've read quite a few of these. The Newbery goes to the best children's book of the year. In the nineties, when I was a children's librarian at a public library, I decided to become familiar with them. Most of them are pretty interesting, but some are as dull as an old pencil, and make you wonder why they won. I wanted to be able to recommend which ones were good and which weren't. People don't want to waste time reading a bad book. Except me, of course - once I start a book, even if it's boring, I make it my business to finish it.

The Newbery Honor books
These are the runners-up to the Newbery Medal.

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
There are also several other Pulitzer categories - Non-fiction, Biography, Drama, and no telling what else. I'm concentrating on Fiction right now. Lonesome Dove is on the list. I've read that, and it's really good, so I know these aren't just some old musty, funky, "literary" works. Guess what else won the Pulitzer that I was surprised about? Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

Movies Based on Books
My favorite from this list is the book Field of Dreams was based on. The book is called Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella. It's very baseball-ish, but I'm not particularly a baseball fan, and I still enjoyed it. There's a lot in the book that didn't make it into the movie - for example, the main character, who was played by Kevin Costner, had a twin brother who worked for a carnival.

Reader's Digest Condensed Books
My mother had dozens of these. While I didn't read every single one, I read a good many, especially while I was at home alone during the summer. Then I discovered that you could probably check the real book out from the library and get a lot more enjoyment out of it. I have two favorites from this list: Full Disclosure by William Safire, and I Take the Serenity by Daisy Newman.