Motetus

beili asked: What was your favourite book (maybe several books) as a child? Did it remain your favourite, when you grew up?

My parents tell me that the first book I was really into was Dr Seuss's The Cat in the Hat, and I'd demand to be read it every single night until they had fantasies of beating the good doctor to death with his own books. After that... hm, even though I read a huge amount as a child and always had people telling me to get my nose out of a book and interact with the real world, I cannot actually remember much about what I read! I loved the Roald Dahl books, of course (The Twits was my favourite, and I was actually a little disappointed that Mr and Mrs Twit got shrunk away to nothing because they were just such a hilariously awful couple and thus far more entertaining than the boring monkeys), and I had a couple of Shel Silverstein books that I read a lot - Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Giving Tree, though the latter sort of annoyed me. That stupid doormat tree. Now I think of that, and how I hated Captain Planet for its preachy tones and sided with the evil tree-destroying companies, and also how I disliked Han Solo for stealing Princess Leia when she totally should have ended up with Luke and yes, I knew they were brother and sister... maybe I was a bit of a strange child?

When I was about 7, my father started reading The Hobbit to my brother and I, except I got impatient and wanted more than a chapter a night, so I read it all myself in a very short time. I loved it to bits, but now when I try to reread it, I'm irritated by what feels like a slightly patronising tone. :/ I suppose the last book I read as a young teenager that had a huge effect on me was Philip Pullman's Northern Lights - I loved Lyra dearly and read it hundreds of times (I even named a hamster after her daemon), but got progressively disappointed by the rest of the trilogy. And let's not even mention the movie.

The Cat in the Hat is still fucking gold, though.

- - -

I have had some lovely, lovely cards arrive! Thank you very much to bauble, osprey_archer (dammit osprey_archer, now you have me googling plum pudding recipes... huh, they don't even have any plums in them?) tracy7307, fififolle and the_little_owl for their beautiful cards, they have made my living room look very Christmassy indeed. I have to share the one by the_little_owl (hopefully she has a better scan to put up but until then, excuse the fingers) because it is BRILLIANT - I asked for hapless scientist Obi-Wan and she gave me just that, but with a Christmas theme and Hippy Qui-Gon! Thank you, Owl, I am still cackling at it.



( The results of Obi-Wan's experiments )

I really shouldn't be allowed access to Amazon when I'm in one of my hyper and excitable phases, because I do stupid things like fail to notice that the book I'm manically clicking on to buy is already in my basket and I end up ordering two copies. You would have thought I might have noticed the doubled price on one of the many confirmation pages, but no, I really am that stupid. I blame my contact lenses, they make computer screens really blurry.

Anyway, I now have two copies of Legionary: The Roman Soldier's (Unofficial) Handbook, which is a delightful little book for anyone considering signing up to serve Rome, full of military wisdom such as "We were against the cream of the Gallic army. The odds were a thousand to one. But he was a very tough Gaul" and useful tips for dealing with Jewish religious fanatics ("fight them on the Sabbath. They still haven't completely figured out what to do about this"). I could return the spare, but it was cheap and I quite like handing on books (plus none of my Friends/Family Who Require Birthday Presents are remotely interested in roman stuff), so if anyone wants it, it's all yours (for free, and I'll cover the postage too - it won't be much even if sent overseas). Any takers? ETA: Found it a home!

(the_little_owl, this was going to you until you inconveniently mentioned you already had a copy!)

I don't read fiction books as much as I should. I bought this for a long-haul flight because I liked the cover and ended up loving it.

( I'm too lazy to write a review, so here's Amazon's )