Classic Stories and Modern Tales
Here’s a break from your regularly scheduled blogging for you… I don’t check into this site as much as I should, but with summer break on the horizon, I want to turn that around.
So what blogs should I follow? What blogs should I read? I love books, teaching, writing, pop culture, movies, Broadway, adulthood struggles… You name it.
Tell me what to check out. Comment here. Promote yourselves if you want to. Why should I check out your blog? I want to! Here’s me breaking out of my shell.
I’m going to a book sale tomorrow!
How finishing a novel feels:
How realizing this means revision comes next feels:
Finished my third complete novel tonight. I really should get to revising them, shouldn’t I?
I was in the 9th grade. In my reading class, we had to choose a classic book to read and do a presentation on. Any classic book. The year before, I had read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for this assignment. One friend was going to try to read Les Miserables. Another would be reading 1984. But I was lost.
So I went to my teacher for guidance. To this day, I don’t understand how she knew me so well. Yes, it was her second year as my teacher. Yes, I had her for a very small class. But how did she know so perfectly what book I would like? And that I would fall so deeply in love with it?
I don’t remember much of my first reading of The Great Gatsby. I remember gasping out loud at the end though, feeling heartbroken. I DO remember begging my parents for a copy and reading that copy once a year for the following ten years or so. I remember reading it in 11th grade English class and feeling superior because I was the only one who knew what was going to happen. I remember being terrified (but pleasantly surprised) by the movie with DiCaprio. What would they do to my favorite book?
No matter how many times I read it, I never get sick of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s words or of the characters. In fact, I want to go and read it now.
Do you remember when you discovered your favorite book?
Do you ever reread your favorite books?
Do you ever reread your favorite books A LOT?
I’m currently reading Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series for the first time (it’s quite good, by the way), but I keep thinking about all of the books I want to reread right now. Pride and Prejudice. The Royal We. The Help. I’ve read them all before. In a few cases, I have read them several times. But I’m just in the mood to revisit my favorite characters again.
My mother thinks I’m crazy. She reads a book once and she’s done. Maybe I am crazy. My to-read list is insufferably long.
But I don’t know. When I think about my favorite books, they’re all about people and worlds that I feel like I’ve come to know. Sometimes, they’re filled with beautiful worlds. And I want to revisit them.
It’s like visiting an old friend.
Do you reread your favorite books multiple times?
© 2024 Elizabeth Doherty
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑