Mikaela's Chainmail Book Post

Mikaela responds to the alterdestiny challenge:
If you were stuck inside Farenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
I don't understand this question. I admit it: I never read Farenheit 451.

Have I ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Oh yeah. Sully from Nobody's Fool. The Harrison Ford character in the Mosquito Coast (even before the movie came out!). The teenage love interest in Middlesex.

The last book I bought was Procrastination: Why You Do It and What You Can Do About It? Goes without saying that I haven't read it! Next on my list is Adrienne Rich's Art of the Possible.

What am I currently reading? m-pyre (duh!) and How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend by the Monks of New Skete. Who isn't reading this classic???? Come on! Oh, and I skimmed (pardon the pun) French Women Don't Get Fat. Can you tell it's a down-time for my reading lately?

The desert island question I find to be needless hyperbole. More realistic are the five books that I've read over and over and over and over and over and over. Who needs to be stuck on a desert island to have a reason to return to old favorite friends? It's like visiting your favorite cities and places and spending time with old friends. That editorial comment made, here they are:

1. John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany. One of the best-written books of all time and so endlessly surprising and amazing and plumbable.

2. Brady Udall: The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint. One of the most tragic, hysterically funny books I've ever read. Gets you from the opening line: "If I could tell you only one thing about my life, it would be this: when I was seven years old a mailman ran over my head. As formative events go, nothing else even comes close..." It just gets better from there.

3. Alice Walker: Temple of My Familiar. All you could ever need to know about love and friendship and identity and racism.

4. Richard Russo: Nobody's Fool. This is a total immersion kind of book. You just get sucked into a whole town life that is so real and so funny. Most memorable line to the smelliest character: "Rub, you smell like a pussy finger."

5. Mary Doria Russel: The Sparrow. Chilling from the prologue: "They meant no harm" -- you know from the beginning of this anthropological/religious sci-fi novel that all but one of the first visitors to a newly discovered planet die. The novel artfully weaves back in forth in time, playing with what you know and what you don't and haunting you with information. At the end, knowing everything does not help. It is not until the second novel (and maybe not even then) that all becomes clear. Like good science-fiction, this novel reveals us to ourselves and our relationship to god (the second novel is called Children of God).

And lastly, I will pass this on to no one else, cause I hate the pressure of chain-mail progeny. But I had fun thinking about it! Sadly, this is the weak link, signing off...