Houses and More: Book Tag

 Carole Cohen of Cleveland, Ohio, and Active Rain has started a book meme.  Quite frankly I had gotten tired of the Active Rain memes that kept asking for 5 secrets that people don't know about you.  Now how can they be secrets if you plaster them all over the internet?  But, this meme is fun.  Carole wants to know about my reading habits.  She thinks she might like to read some of the books that I do!  I really feel sorry for her if she follows through because she'll be reading for a long time and probably be bored to death.  It will be fun to see how many of us read political book, psychological books, serious business stuff, mysteries, etc.  

I've picked just a few of my favorites.  I'm not sure I can keep it down to just 5 however.

• Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons.  Dan Simmons is my husband's cousin and a friend of Stephen King.  I felt I should be loyal and read his books.  He is one of the few authors that I buy for the same reason.  I started with his Hyperion series and it was like others in the science fiction/fantasy line.  Carrion Comfort scared me.  I don't do horror . . . well, usually never!  But with family loyalty in mind (BTW, he probably has no clue who I am!), I opened the book.  The first page hooked me and I couldn't put it down.  It's scary, it's fantasy, it's compelling reading.
• Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen.   Like most of my books, there are many strings to follow in the plot and symbolism all over the place.  Some consider it boring.  I found it fascinating.
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.  Another multi-layered book with a bit of history and romance.  I am always intrigued by the English.
• Shakespeare, particularly the Henry's.  My favorite character is Falstaff because he's funny, lecherous, and great comic relief.  Macbeth ranks among my favorites as well.  "Out, out damn spot!"
• The Dark Tower series by Stephen King.  I steered clear of the King for many years because I thought he was just a "pop" writer.  I attended a workshop on the psychology of genius (another life) and they used King as one of their examples of genius.  I had no clue.  My son has two sets of his entire works.  I asked him where to start reading King and thus began The Green Mile, one of the best I've read.  But somehow the Dark Tower series has always caught my memory.  I was never able to totally figure it out which in my mind is one of the signs of genius in writing.
• The Thomas Covenant series by Stephen R. Donaldson.  This was my intro (after the Hobbit) to modern day fantasy fiction.  Thomas Covenant makes the series worth reading.  His struggles and his mind games intrigued me.
• Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton.  This one is heavy reading for philosophers.  I can only take it in small doses but consider Chesterton in the genius category as well.  My reason for reading it was his view on pain and suffering and their importance in spiritual health.
• Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.  I never could figure out why she kept knitting in the corner!
• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.  It made me cry and cry and cry.

I could list more but have already exceeded my quota.  My favorite reading is anything that is well written.  I seldom read pop authors or Harlequin romance type stuff.  The plots bore me and I rarely finish a book that bores me.

The second half of my assignment is to tag someone else.  I tag Maureen Francis (She needs to read more!  She has 163,474 points!),  Maureen McCabe (She has 205,512 points!), Ardell (She has 114,341!), Jeff Dowler (weighing in at 148,466!), and Lisa Dunn (the only one with less points than I!).