Sunday, March 13, 2011

30 for 30 Photos: Day 23

Happy sunny Sunday! Day 23 of the 30 Day Photo Challenge is to post a picture of my favorite book. This is so tough! I will break this into categories, so I apologize for the length of the post, but please enjoy my trip down memory lane.

First, my favorite book as a kid was The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear. I was also a big Berenstein Bears fan. Yes, I like bears. Anyway, this story is about a mouse trying to keep his enormous strawberry from the bear. Adorable, fun pictures, and bears: what more could you ask for as a little tot? :)

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My favorite book as a tween was, hands down, Piano Lessons Can Be Murder in the Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine. Did any of you read any of the Goosebump books? I scoured every Scholastic Book Fair for the latest and greatest, and this one was by far my favorite.

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In high school I never had time to read for fun, and it was rare that I enjoyed anything I had to read for school. I did (and still do) fancy history, though, and any novels we had to read for English that involved history, particularly about the effects of war on both soldiers and families, interested me. I loved the absurdity and wit in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. I know the satiric anti-war sentiment can be controversial, but I appreciate the art of the book, especially from Vonnegut's perspective as a previous POW. I read some of the reviews as I searched for an image on Amazon and the Life review coined it perfectly: “Splendid art . . . a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears.”

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Like high school I rarely read for pleasure in college. I always read over breaks, though, and I found my favorite author during this time in Adriana Trigiani. She writes sophisticated "chick lit," always in the voice of a strong Italian-American woman. Trigiani's descriptive writing style not only transforms your surroundings and envelops you into the setting, her writing is also conversational. In all of Trigiani's books I feel like I'm in the room chatting with her protagonist. In Lucia, Lucia, Trigiani writes about a seamstress in Greenwich Village. It's an incredible story, like all of her literary achievements. As I said in previous posts, I'm currently reading Brava Valentine by Trigiani - so good!

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In college I was also inspired by Jane Green's book Jemima J. to lose weight. This is a fun book, blatantly criticizing stereotypes and artfully documenting the trials of being overweight, the difficulty of losing weight, the transition to having a new body and new perception of you by others, and finally, acceptance of yourself as you are. I have read other Green books but this in my opinion is one of the books with the most depth to it with the guise of fitting into "chick lit."

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In grad school I have read an insane amount of every form of literature. It's really difficult to pin down one favorite from the past two years, but I think the quickest, most entertaining read was What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis. Sure Jarvis has his share of name-dropping, but what he lacks in tact he gains in empowering consumers by confirming the importance of their opinions and experiences. By outlining Google's open business model, I have learned a different aspect of marketing techniques. His opinions and entrepreneurial vignettes support my belief that the Internet creates collaborative communities and harnesses power in more ways that we can imagine - and yet we have fun using our imaginations to lasso all possible ideas.

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Finally, I managed to read two of the three books in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series over Christmas break. While difficult to read at times, Stieg Larsson sure knew how to write suspense novels. These are longer than the Twilight series and maybe even Harry Potter (HUGE fan of both of these, too!), but I quickly finished both and certainly plan to read the third book post-graduation!

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Have a lovely day and see you tomorrow!

2 comments:

Shay said...

I loved most of these books- my friend has been reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and since you liked it as well I think I will join in! Thanks for sharing!

Mary said...

Awesome! Enjoy the series!