So my dad posted a blog today about a great topic, reading. Yes, a slightly ambiguous, yet very passionate topic, especially if you know me or any member of my family. It is something that I really enjoy, though like my father, I did not always enjoy it.
I can remember hating reading because of a book in the sixth grade and the teacher who forced it upon me. That book, Johnny Tremain, has been a touchy subject for me. You will probably laugh and for a very good reason, yet I absolutely abhor that novel and one that I read in eighth grade, Watership Down. Both novels have been vices in my quest for reading and subsequently, turned me off to the practice of reading. Now there were more factors involved like teachers, my age (physically and maturity), and the fact it was the mid-90s. Still they set me back, and since I initially read each one in the perspective grades, I have never touched either of them.
Now I look back and realize that type of adversity that I overcame because by the time I was in 11th grade, I was reading a substantial amount of literature. Thanks in part to amazing English teacher, who found the genres that I liked, namely tangent driven memoirs and works of non-fiction, like Walden. This was when I truly found the love for this great gift, that is reading.
I wanted to share some of the books that I have read this year that have truly been memorable and worth re-reading. These would be in layman's terms, the favorites of the year. Here are my favorites that I have read in 2010 (in no particular order):
Coming Up for Air – George Orwell
Burmese Days – George Orwell
Homage to Catalonia – George Orwell
Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
Mainstreet – Sinclair Lewis
The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Beautiful and the Damned – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Invisible Man – Ralph Emerson
A Farewell To Arms – Ernest Hemingway
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Midnight's Children – Salmon Rushdie
The Trial – Franz Kafka
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
Collected Works of W.B. Yeats
Collected Works of H.P. Lovecraft
Spiritual Slavery to Sonship – Jack Frost
Culture of Honor – Danny Silk
Signature of Jesus – Brennan Manning
The Upanishads (Hindusism)
Bhagavad Gita (Hinduism)
:My Annual List:
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
Collected Works of T.S. Elliot
What's So Amazing About Grace? Philip Yancy
Prisoner in the Third Cell – Gene Edwards
A Tale of Three Kings – Gene Edwards
Velvet Elvis – Rob Bell
:Currently Reading:
The Year of the Flood – Margaret Atwood
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
I am hoping that in 2011, I can finally find a quality history book. The only one that I read that found worth reading this year was Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, about the Spanish Civil War. Well, here's to wishful thinking.
Anyway, I enjoy reading and wanted to share my love of it with you. If you have any favorite reads this, please feel free to share them here. Have a happy Boxing Day!
