Book meme, day 8
May. 29th, 2011 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
litlover1222. Your "comfort" book?
I have too many to count! But I have to give special mention to the Lord Peter Wimsey series. As an undergraduate, I did an honors project on Dorothy L. Sayers. So I'd be reading and writing about her for hours each day . . . and then at night, when you'd think I'd be sick of her, I'd read her Wimsey books to relax. If that's not the definition of "comfort books," I don't know what is.
23. Favourite book cover including a picture!
This one.
I don't know why. Something about the simplicity of it -- and, I think, the blue of the bowl -- appeals to me.
24. Favourite fictional relationship (romantic, friendship, familial).
Romantic: Amy and Arthur, Little Dorrit. I love this quote, which pretty much sums them up: "He never thought that she saw in him what no one else could see. He never thought that in the whole world there were no other eyes that looked upon him with the same light and strength as hers."
Runners-up: Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane.
Familial: Father Tim Kavanaugh and Dooley Barlowe in the Mitford series by Jan Karon, though they don't actually start out as father and son. The story of how they get there is beautiful -- bumpy, boisterous, and belligerent, but still beautiful. Karon does something very clever the first time Dooley calls Father Tim "Dad": She doesn't make a big deal of it or call attention to it at all. It happens in passing, during a family emergency, and Father Tim doesn't even realize that it happened until later. But I did!
Friendship: I cannot decide! Too many possibilities. I'll have to come back to it later.
I have too many to count! But I have to give special mention to the Lord Peter Wimsey series. As an undergraduate, I did an honors project on Dorothy L. Sayers. So I'd be reading and writing about her for hours each day . . . and then at night, when you'd think I'd be sick of her, I'd read her Wimsey books to relax. If that's not the definition of "comfort books," I don't know what is.
23. Favourite book cover including a picture!
This one.
I don't know why. Something about the simplicity of it -- and, I think, the blue of the bowl -- appeals to me.
24. Favourite fictional relationship (romantic, friendship, familial).
Romantic: Amy and Arthur, Little Dorrit. I love this quote, which pretty much sums them up: "He never thought that she saw in him what no one else could see. He never thought that in the whole world there were no other eyes that looked upon him with the same light and strength as hers."
Runners-up: Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane.
Familial: Father Tim Kavanaugh and Dooley Barlowe in the Mitford series by Jan Karon, though they don't actually start out as father and son. The story of how they get there is beautiful -- bumpy, boisterous, and belligerent, but still beautiful. Karon does something very clever the first time Dooley calls Father Tim "Dad": She doesn't make a big deal of it or call attention to it at all. It happens in passing, during a family emergency, and Father Tim doesn't even realize that it happened until later. But I did!
Friendship: I cannot decide! Too many possibilities. I'll have to come back to it later.
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Date: 2011-05-30 03:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-30 05:02 am (UTC)I LOVE ARTHUR AND AMY.
Also, I like that book cover a lot. I like simple. :)
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Date: 2011-05-30 08:50 pm (UTC)Your honors project intrigues! I have read some Wimsey (also some... Egg Montague, his name was?), The Man Born to be King, and a collection of Sayers' essays (Unpopular Opinions). Any recs on what I should tackle next? I'm not really interested enough in Wimsey to hunt down the series right now, but I would read her nonfiction in an instant. And did she translate Dante?
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Date: 2011-05-30 10:16 pm (UTC)I would recommend "Creed or Chaos," but I believe some of those essays may also be in "Unpopular Opinions." Quite confusing, these essay collections! You might try "The Mind of the Maker." It's a very unusual book -- I can never quite decide whether it's a theological book about writing, or a writerly book about theology. :-) But I've found it very educational and helpful. Her model of "Idea, Energy, Power" as the factors that go into a successful work of art, and reflect the Trinity of the Creator, has really stayed with me.