Epic book meme catch-up, part 2
Day 13 - Your favorite writer
"I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing."
Once again, I do not have one favorite writer. It's Neil, Stephen King, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, JKR and I should probably count Jasper Fforde and Christopher Moore as well, and if I count them there are a ton of other people that I should count as well and we'd never get anywhere. BUT. Since I've already rambled on about King, Zafón and JKR (or at least about HP), I thought I should focus on Neil.
"When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning."
I started reading Neil at the end of 2007, when I got the first Sandman trades for my birthday. 2008 was a very Neil-filled year, since I finished Sandman and then started reading his novels, starting with Neverwhere. Because I was doing my project 365 at the time, I remember the exact moment I realized I was in love with Neil (as a writer)(oh who am I kidding).
"This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard."
If this post is even ramblier than usual, it's because I can't really describe Neil, or his writing. One has to read it to understand. His writing is beautiful, shocking, painful, hilarious, amazing. It's different from anything else you'll ever read and yet it still feels familiar, like a strange place you feel at home in because you've been there in a dream. Above all, his writing is true. His characters, his stories, no matter how fantastical they get, they feel true, to the reader and to themselves.
"Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds' eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas-abstract, invisible, gone once they've been spoken-and what could be more frail than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created."
Added to all of that are his wonderful blog and twitter and the fact that he has the best reading voice of any human being on the planet. And his really great hair.
Day 14 - Favorite book of your favorite writer
"I didn't really know what kind of book I wanted to write until, in the summer of 1998, I found myself in Reykjavik, in Iceland. And it was then that fragments of plot, an unwieldy assortment of characters, and something faintly resembling a structure, came together in my head. Either way, the book came into focus. It would be a thriller, and a murder mystery, and a romance, and a road trip. It would be about the immigrant experience, about what people believed in when they came to America. And about what happened to the things that they believed."
This book is hard to describe. I discovered this (again) when I reread it last month, carrying it around with me and getting asked by several people what it was about. I mumbled something about immigrants and gods and that it's really good but hard to describe. And it is. But it's amazing. It was the second (non-comic) book of Neil's that I read, and I was immediately hooked. It sometimes reminded me of Stephen King's best work, both the way the character were drawn and the way it showed snippets of America that one rarely sees in books. This book has such a richness of characters, of stories, of histories, I'm always amazed how all of it can fit into it's pages. It spans continents and centuries and cultures, but it still feels intimately personal. I know I (mis)use this word a lot, but this book really is epic.
Complete list:
Day 01 - Best book you read last year
Day 02 - A book that you've read more than 3 times
Day 03 - Your favorite series
Day 04 - Favorite book of your favorite series
Day 05 - A book that makes you happy
Day 06 - A book that makes you sad
Day 07 - Most underrated book
Day 08 - Most overrated book
Day 09 - A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 10 - Favorite classic book
Day 11 - A book you hated
Day 12 - A book you used to love but don't anymore
Day 13 - Your favorite writer
Day 14 - Favorite book of your favorite writer
Day 15 - Favorite male character
Day 16 - Favorite female character
Day 17 - Favorite quote from your favorite book
Day 18 - A book that disappointed you
Day 19 - Favorite book turned into a movie
Day 20 - Favorite romance book
Day 21 - Favorite book from your childhood
Day 22 - Favorite book you own
Day 23 - A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven't
Day 24 - A book that you wish more people would've read
Day 25 - A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 - A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 - The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 - Favorite title
Day 29 - A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 - Your favorite book of all time
"I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing."
Once again, I do not have one favorite writer. It's Neil, Stephen King, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, JKR and I should probably count Jasper Fforde and Christopher Moore as well, and if I count them there are a ton of other people that I should count as well and we'd never get anywhere. BUT. Since I've already rambled on about King, Zafón and JKR (or at least about HP), I thought I should focus on Neil.
"When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning."
I started reading Neil at the end of 2007, when I got the first Sandman trades for my birthday. 2008 was a very Neil-filled year, since I finished Sandman and then started reading his novels, starting with Neverwhere. Because I was doing my project 365 at the time, I remember the exact moment I realized I was in love with Neil (as a writer)(oh who am I kidding).
"This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard."
If this post is even ramblier than usual, it's because I can't really describe Neil, or his writing. One has to read it to understand. His writing is beautiful, shocking, painful, hilarious, amazing. It's different from anything else you'll ever read and yet it still feels familiar, like a strange place you feel at home in because you've been there in a dream. Above all, his writing is true. His characters, his stories, no matter how fantastical they get, they feel true, to the reader and to themselves.
"Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds' eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas-abstract, invisible, gone once they've been spoken-and what could be more frail than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created."
Added to all of that are his wonderful blog and twitter and the fact that he has the best reading voice of any human being on the planet. And his really great hair.
Click to viewDay 14 - Favorite book of your favorite writer
"I didn't really know what kind of book I wanted to write until, in the summer of 1998, I found myself in Reykjavik, in Iceland. And it was then that fragments of plot, an unwieldy assortment of characters, and something faintly resembling a structure, came together in my head. Either way, the book came into focus. It would be a thriller, and a murder mystery, and a romance, and a road trip. It would be about the immigrant experience, about what people believed in when they came to America. And about what happened to the things that they believed."
This book is hard to describe. I discovered this (again) when I reread it last month, carrying it around with me and getting asked by several people what it was about. I mumbled something about immigrants and gods and that it's really good but hard to describe. And it is. But it's amazing. It was the second (non-comic) book of Neil's that I read, and I was immediately hooked. It sometimes reminded me of Stephen King's best work, both the way the character were drawn and the way it showed snippets of America that one rarely sees in books. This book has such a richness of characters, of stories, of histories, I'm always amazed how all of it can fit into it's pages. It spans continents and centuries and cultures, but it still feels intimately personal. I know I (mis)use this word a lot, but this book really is epic.
Complete list:
Day 01 - Best book you read last year
Day 02 - A book that you've read more than 3 times
Day 03 - Your favorite series
Day 04 - Favorite book of your favorite series
Day 05 - A book that makes you happy
Day 06 - A book that makes you sad
Day 07 - Most underrated book
Day 08 - Most overrated book
Day 09 - A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 10 - Favorite classic book
Day 11 - A book you hated
Day 12 - A book you used to love but don't anymore
Day 13 - Your favorite writer
Day 14 - Favorite book of your favorite writer
Day 15 - Favorite male character
Day 16 - Favorite female character
Day 17 - Favorite quote from your favorite book
Day 18 - A book that disappointed you
Day 19 - Favorite book turned into a movie
Day 20 - Favorite romance book
Day 21 - Favorite book from your childhood
Day 22 - Favorite book you own
Day 23 - A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven't
Day 24 - A book that you wish more people would've read
Day 25 - A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 - A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 - The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 - Favorite title
Day 29 - A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 - Your favorite book of all time