[HPFGU-OTChatter] Books You Can't Stop Reading (was Crushes...)

[Sister Mary Lunatic]

   -----Original Message-----
   From: jenny from ravenclaw
   Are there books that you have read so many times you *still* know
   chunks by heart?  Are you also unable to explain why?
   >>>>>>>>>>

The book I read most often (at least once a year) is "House of Mirth" by
Edith Wharton.  The heroine is so pathetic, and there's no "living happily
ever after" at the end of the book -- I love to suffer vicariously along
with the main character.  I also love Wharton's descriptions of the upper
class East Coast social life during the late 1800's (see also "Age of
Innocence" and other treats).

My guilty-pleasure, blush-making, perennial re-read is "Ishmael" by Barbara
Hambly -- a Star Trek novel wherein Mr. Spock loses his memory just as he is
transported in time back to Seattle in the early 1870's.  Spock hooks up
with characters from another silly TV show called "Here Come The Brides."
The linkup in the mind of the author, I believe, is that actor Mark Lenard
played prominent characters in both shows (as Mr. Spock's father and as
Aaron Stemple, the rich curmudgeon in HCTB) - she finds a way to make
Stemple an ancestor of Spock's mother.  This is definitely silly escapist
literature, but I just adore the story, for some reason.

Offhand, I can't think of any childhood book or story that I re-read
(although I'm sure I'll think of one as soon as I hit the SEND button).  I
tended to devour books like candy in those days : Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys,
horse stories, supernatural stories, etc.  My brother says that I spent the
first night of my life in the hospital nursery looking for something to
read.

SML