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"I love reading another reader’s list of favorites. Even when I find I do not share their tastes or predilections, I am provoked to compare, contrast, and contradict. It is a most healthy exercise, and one altogether fruitful."
T. S. EliotÂ
(via booklover)
In the downtime between bios check out this clip from 1965’s “The Loved One,” a thoroughly creepy film adaptation of an even creepier book. My friend made his mom read it, you probably don’t need to go that far… But you should read it! Wildly inappropriate funeral practices, wildly inappropriate Americans, lots of satire. What could be more entertaining?
My name is Kayla and books have changed my life so much that I am going to school to be a librarian. I live with my lovely husband in our house full of books and musical instruments, and I would rather eat ramen for a month than cancel our streamable Netflix subscription. Besides A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, I will forever love Flannery O’Connor, CS Lewis, and Kazuo Ishiguro. I also have an addiction to coffee that I am positive will one day require medical intervention.
I was 10 years old the first time I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I have a feeling that most adults don’t have the same favorite book as they did when they were 10, but honestly, nothing has ever affected me as much as this novel has. I suppose I feel a certain kinship with Francie Nolan, the protagonist: she’s incredibly bookish, curious about not just the world she lives in but also the motivations of the people closest to her, and the eldest sister to a younger brother whom she depends on greatly.
I have always felt a tug toward the bildungsroman in literature, and Betty Smith’s novel fits the bill better than any other I have ever encountered. To me, Francie is real in a way that is difficult to explain. I identify with the issues & concerns she has growing up, yet I still feel as if I am a third-party observer into her life. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn also started my ongoing fascination with New York at the turn of the century. The world that Francie lives in changes drastically as she grows older, and New York (specifically Brooklyn, obviously) is the perfect backdrop for those huge changes.
This novel is one of the most “real” I have ever read: it covers a broad range of human emotion, tackles class issues in early modern America, and explores the various avenues one can take to achieve the “American Dream.” I have tried to get over this book and move on to another obsession, but I simply can’t. I see myself when I read about Francie, and I think that’s what keeps me coming back over and over again.
“I don’t want to need anybody; I want someone to need me.” - Francie Nolan
Currently reading: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, Erasing Hell by Francis Chan
![Matt Vincent is:
Singer/bassist for The American Scene, professional procrastinator, and connoisseur of all things doughnut. Grow up you give up.
His thoughts on Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham:In my opinion Of Human Bondage is the quintessential coming of age story. Without getting too deep into a description (you can use Wikipedia for that) I’ll say that anyone who has experienced a sense of disillusionment when facing the concept of “adulthood” will find a kindred spirit in the books protagonist. I’ve never read anything that made me stop and examine my own outlook on life, love, faith etc more than this book did. Of Human Bondage solidified Somerset Maugham as my favorite author, and it is still my favorite of his novels. My only warning is that the book (mostly the beginning) is sloowww. But if you can push through it’s an extremely rewarding read. SO CHECK IT OUT. If you’re not brave enough to push through all those pages I also highly recommend The Razors Edge (also by Maugham) which touches on some of the same themes but moves much more quickly and is about half the length.
[Matt couldn’t choose one favorite quote, so here are two]
“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life.”
“Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.”
Currently reading: The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrwp6rSdQP1r3redco1_1280.jpg)
Matt Vincent is:
Singer/bassist for The American Scene, professional procrastinator, and connoisseur of all things doughnut. Grow up you give up.
His thoughts on Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham:
In my opinion Of Human Bondage is the quintessential coming of age story. Without getting too deep into a description (you can use Wikipedia for that) I’ll say that anyone who has experienced a sense of disillusionment when facing the concept of “adulthood” will find a kindred spirit in the books protagonist. I’ve never read anything that made me stop and examine my own outlook on life, love, faith etc more than this book did. Of Human Bondage solidified Somerset Maugham as my favorite author, and it is still my favorite of his novels. My only warning is that the book (mostly the beginning) is sloowww. But if you can push through it’s an extremely rewarding read. SO CHECK IT OUT. If you’re not brave enough to push through all those pages I also highly recommend The Razors Edge (also by Maugham) which touches on some of the same themes but moves much more quickly and is about half the length.
[Matt couldn’t choose one favorite quote, so here are two]
“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life.”
“Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.”
Currently reading: The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
I genuinely believe that books can fix the world, and one of my favorite ways to build a reading list is by picking the minds of those I hold dear. In light of this I present to you a bookspiration tumblr, strictly committed to increasing the daily number of pages turned through its forum of current and favorite reads as experienced across the ages. Welcome!
