books

I'm zipping through Harry Potter. It's pretty well-written as far as subtle foreshadowing, suspense-building, and importance of each scene go. Once upon a time I read a quote I think from Mark Twain about writing short stories (and I think this should apply to most novels, too) - in paraphrase it says that every word counts. Don't include any word that isn't absolutely essential to the story. J. K. Rowling does a pretty good job at this. I must admit, though, that Twain's advice wasn't quite followed in a lot of Emily Bronte, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville works (although I'm open to the idea of me being wrong since perhaps I just don't understand a lot of that flowery language that probably is some deep allegory to life) - and they're still good (except maybe Moby Dick; that was just long).

Okay, I have located said quote. Well, more truthfully 2 that might be what I'm thinking of. They're from TwainQuotes.com.

"To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph."
- Letter to Emeline Beach, 2/10/1868

"I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English - it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them - then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice."
- Letter to D. W. Bowser, 3/20/1880

I used to love to read. Every now and then I get back into a "fad" of loving to read, but it's not a constant thing like it used to be. I can distinctly recall making a goal one day when I walked into the local public library around age 7 or 8: I wanted to read every book in that library. And I was quite confident that I could do it, too. I bet I could, although I'd have to take it on as a fulltime job - but as I think back on it now, I don't want to read all the books there. There are loads I would never want to read, and I don't mean the non-fictions about chasms on Mars or the developmental biology of ants. I mean works of fiction that are just full of rubbish and aren't quality reading. I admit, I prefer classics over the New York Times bestseller list - not that all of the Times bestsellers are rubbish! But so many are full of violence, immorality, and concerns that non-merciful-me thinks are petty and easily solvable. Hand me a Charles Dickens anytime.

BUT - in my quest to read all the books in the Kentwood Library , I did manage to read a few of my all-time favorites, including...

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

If I were to begin the reading of all the books in the Kentwood Library, I would start out with these "reading goals" which include a bunch of series...

Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, which are the two other books in the trilogy by C.S. Lewis (one of my all-time favorite authors) that begins with Out of the Silent Planet, which I read furiously after my dear brother gave me a copy.
(I should note here that Out of the Silent Planet is one of my favorite non-Kentwood-library-read books another one of which is The Princess Bride by William Goldman.)

The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis (do we note a trend here...).

The Harry Potter series - J. K. Rowling, thanks to my new book.

The Anne of Green Gables series - L. M. Montgomery. I read some of these as a kid but never got very far.

OH! Just making this short list brings to mind a million more books that I'd like to read or re-read. I guess I do like reading. It just takes so much time...