Eating my words - Crushes - Books you can't stop reading

[Barb]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., driveslucy at a... wrote:
> Heidi was right and I was wrong.  Chatter is a cool place to hang 
> out. Turns out I am an OT kinda gal.  Who knew?

Trust Heidi on these things. <waves to Heidi>

> The other books (mysteries again) I love to reread are by Jane 
> Langton.  She is probably my favorite living author, yes, even more 
> than JKR.  You gotta love a writer who says she learned all about 
> the seamy side of life teaching Sunday school.  My favorite thing 
> about her books is that the plain, goodhearted girl always finds 
> true love in the end!

Ah! Another Jane Langton fan!  I love all of her Homer Kelly 
mysteries from Dark Nantucket Noon onward!  I've lost count of how 
many times I've reread them.  (My favorite one has to be The Memorial 
Hall Murder because of the quotes from Handel's Messiah.)  And I read 
her children's books about the Hall family repeatedly when I was a 
kid (and still do).  I've got my daughter hooked on them now.  Has 
anyone besides me noticed a similarity between Langton's mirror dream-
sequence in The Diamond in the Window and JKR's Mirror of Erised?  
(Not to mention the way the Stone at the end of PS/SS is treated 
similarly to the Star of India at the end of DitW?)

Children's books I read repeatedly (besides Langton's stuff) include 
The Witch Family by Eleanor Estes, the Little House books, and all of 
the Borrower's books by Mary Norton (those and Langton's books exist 
in large chunks in my brain).  I used to be able to recite some of 
the conversations between Arietty and "that Boy" by heart.

Classics I can't help reading over and over include Gone with the 
Wind and Tess of the D'Urbervilles--tragic heroines! :sniff:  Not-so-
classics I can't help reading repeatedly are John Irving's The World 
According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany (my favorite novel 
EVER).  I also find myself returning to the same thrillers when I 
just want something to read that's exciting--even though I know how 
it turns out now! (Almost anything by Michael Crichton, Ken Follett 
or John Le Carre.)  Kurt Vonnegut when I want my mind twisted around 
and anything (poetry or prose) by Maya Angelou, William Styron or Pat 
Conroy when I want to experience the most beautiful writing the 
English language has to offer.

> By the way, Rachel, I loved your idea of Colin playing Lupin but, 
> honestly, do you think that man could ever look shabby enough?

I think Joseph Fiennes (Ralph's brother) would be perfect for Lupin.  
(Watch Shakespeare in Love again; he comes off as both strong and 
fragile.)  I can just picture him in fraying robes, riding the 
Hogwarts express with a satchel tied up with string, seemingly 
asleep...or is he? <g>

> Luce in her first Chatter post

Welcome!  

--Barb