Book meme!

[amberdreams]

Because I should be doing any number of other things, here's a meme I snaffled from harrigan.
I won't answer all the questions at once but I might bundle some as I think they would have the same answer.

So question number 1

1. Favourite book from childhood.
My earliest favourite was The Poky Little Puppy. Apparently I got my parents to read it too me over and over. I remember being impatient and wanting to learn to read for myself because I didn't like being read to - it was too slow, and I had to wait for someone to be available when I wanted to read ALL the time. The first book I remember loving was Dr Seuss's Sleep Book. Then I moved to the Andrew Lang Fairy tale books - all the different colours and all the different stories, the Martin Pippin books by Eleanor Farjeon. I loved Donald Suddaby's retelling of Robin Hood, the Greek myths anthologies, Leon Garfield and E Nesbit. Then I slid from magic into history with Rosemary Sutcliff and Henry Treece, thanks to my awesome primary school teacher when I was nine and ten, Mrs Goodier. It was her doing that I ended up wanting to be an archaeologist.

But my absolute childhood favourite is still my all time favourite book - The Lord of the Rings. My uncle lent me his copy when I was eleven. I read it cover to cover then started over again the minute I finished it. I wept buckets when Theoden died. I was terrified when the Black Riders hunted the hobbits through the Shire.

I bought my own copy even though it was expensive (compared to my usual 25p paperbacks! Yes, I know it, was a bloody long time ago, when books were cheap!). I read it so often the edges of the pages wore away and the whole book fell apart and had to be repaired by a friend of my Mum's who did DIY bookbinding. The cover was the one by Pauline Baynes, who also drew the poster map, and did covers for C S Lewis's Narnia books.

I no longer have that copy, because I lent it to an ex boyfriend who fucking LOST IT. This was *cough* forty years ago *cough* and I haven't forgiven you, Mike, you toe rag.

The rest of the list, which I will come back to as and when:

2. Best bargain.

3. One with a blue cover.

4. Least favourite book by favorite author.

5. Doesn't belong to me.

6. The one I always give as a gift.

7. Forgot I owned it.

8. Have more than one copy.

9. Film or TV tie-in.

10. Reminds me of someone I love.

11. Secondhand bookshop gem.

12. I pretend to have read it.

13. Makes me laugh.

14. An old favorite.

15. Favourite fictional father.

16. Can't believe more people haven't read.

17. Future classic.

18. Bought on a recommendation.

19. Still can't stop talking about it.

20. Favourite cover.

21. Summer read.

22. Out of print.

23. Made to read at school.

24. Hooked me into reading.

25. Never finished it.

26. Should have sold more copies.

27. Want to be one of the characters.

28. Bought at my fave independent bookshop.

29. The one I have reread most often.

30. Would save if my house burned down.

Comments

[harrigan.livejournal.com]

That's going WAY back ... (I love your impatience at not being able to read it yourself!) If I go back that far myself, a book that made a lasting impression was The Bong Bong Princess. I even wrote it into Sam and Dean's childhood in my long-ago fanfic The Bong Bong Princess.

Lord of the Rings was my favorite book I read in college! You were a bit of a prodigy, weren't you! ;D

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Oh cool, I'll have to read that now! Never heard of the book though. :D

[jj1564.livejournal.com]

Ah, I loved Henry Treece and still have a copy of Viking Dawn that I 'borrowed; from school and The Last of the Vikings, which I actually bought! Did you have the book club at school where you could save up and buy books? I'm sorry Mike-the-toerag lost your first copy of Lord of The Rings, well-loved books are precious!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Those Viking ones were my faves of his - I think I can also thank Henry Treece and Rosemary Sutcliff for my interest in Anglo Saxons and Vikings too!

Our school didn't have a book club, but I used to spend all my money on buying books (and comics), and my weekends on walking round the several local libraries using up my and my parents' library tickets (are you too young to remember those?). I must have been pretty fit because I walked miles and carried up to twelve books at a time!

[jj1564.livejournal.com]

We used the local library a lot - it was a beautiful old Victorian building that's now a Buddhist centre! I remember how exciting it was when I could join the Adult Library and the record library - I think I was 14!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

We had a variety of libraries - Sefton Park library was my fave, because it had an awesome cast iron balcony running all around it and spiral staircases (which of course the public wasn't allowed to use, but still!). Garston library had shiny wooden floors and always smelled of wood polish, and Allerton was an ugly 1960s concrete box building. Then sometimes I'd get the bus to Central library in town because they had a huge selection of fiction... Yep. Library-going was a really important part of growing up for me!

[runedgirl.livejournal.com]

OMG I loved the Poky Little Puppy :)

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Hee! Me too! Where, oh where is the poky little puppy?

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

i remember this distinctly and my mom denies it, but i read the hobbit in second grade? third? and she wouldn't let me read lotr. (i had all four books as a box set. i still have the box but only three books fit in it now, since i read them and they kind of spread.) i guess she thought it was too old for me. so i read it in sixth grade, when i guess i was eleven, about when you did. i was apparently smart enough to not loan it out, tho. mike the toe rag sounds like a dick.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

The Hobbit didn't make much impression on me, I think we had it read to us in primary school (around age 7 maybe?). But that might have been because I really didn't like being read to. Second or third grade - what age is that?

You were definitely smarter than me, not lending your copy to anyone!

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

i think second and third grade is seven and eight. i've only ever loaned out one book that i really wanted back and didn't get back, and that was good omens. and i just bought myself another one.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Ah, Good Omens, love that one. Yeah, I bought myself a new copy, of course, but it didn't have the history, you know? I've actually got four copies - one is a deluxe boxed copy I bought when I won a runners' up prize in a short story competition when I was 17.

[madebyme-x.livejournal.com]

I remember reading The Hobbit in primary school (I was maybe 9 or 10) but I've never read LOTR - I know, the shame!!!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I read it at the right time or what, because it just made such an impression on me. I never wanted to add myself to the story or write anything around it, it felt complete and perfect, somehow. I also loved the Anglo Saxon influences I found later on when I started studying early English (because of course Tolkien was a Professor in that area, not that I knew it at the time).

Have you seen the movies?

[madebyme-x.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've seen the LOTR movies, but not the Hobbit ones. I'm not sure why; I've just never got around to it.