Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Top Ten Tuesday: All Time Favorite Bookish Memories


This is going to be a fun post to write! I'm thinking back in all my whole long life to all my bookish memories (and there are A LOT) and am trying to decide what the best ten should be! This is not an easy task people. But here's what I'm settling on:

Top Ten Bookish Memories..EVER!

1. I'm sorry to list it YET AGAIN and regular readers are going to be sick of hearing about it over and over, BUT, my best bookish memory to date is meeting Markus Zusak. Nothing has yet to compare how awesome that night was.

2. The whole Harry Potter phenomenon will always be something to remember. We were on vacation when the third book came out and it was on the news. I had never ever before in my life heard of a book making news like that. It blew me away. The following books were the first books I'd ever cared about getting on the first day. And it was so much fun!

3. Reading the Little House books. Looking back, I'm not sure these were the best and most exciting books after all! But I loved them and I ate them up and I owned the whole series!

4. Joining online book groups in the mid to late 90s. It was the coolest, COOLEST, I tell you, to be able to connect with people all over the world about books! Who knew? Wow.

5. Scholastic Book Fairs. Both going to them as a kid, and running them for 10 years as a mom. Going to them was so fun, because we could get quite a little handful of books for not much money. It was awesome! And running them? That defined my life for years! And was also lots of fun.

6. Another very specific bookish memory was the day my dad and I were at the library, and we were walking up and down the shelves and he randomly picked a book for me and said, here read this one! So I did, and I LOVED it! It was the love story of Tristan and Isolde (The Enchanted Cup by Dorothy Roberts). The fact that you could just up and pick something, not knowing a thing about it, and that it would end up being so so good, was amazing to me. A whole new world!

7. I've probably mentioned this one before, but once when I was probably 10 or so, we went on a trip and while on that trip we meet up with my dad's cousin who was a librarian. My dad said to him, hey, this kid likes to read, what should she be reading? And he gave me a list that I hung on to for years and methodically went through all the books one by one and read them. They were a bunch of Newbery Awards winners like Island of the Blue Dolphins, Julie of the Wolves, The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frank...something something! This was a defining moment in my bookish life, this list. It was most awesome!

8. Shortly after getting married, we had only one working car. So while my husband was still at work, and even after I had walked a good distance home from school, I would still walk a nice good distance to the public library and check out book after book after book. I remember loving that small little library (which now, by the way, is the BIG Provo Library where so many awesome events happen!) and I felt the need to read EVERYTHING they had!

9. A few years after starting the blogging thing, we had a Utah book blogger party. And there was an author there! (James Dashner) And that's when it occurred to me that readers and authors could actually interact with each other and maybe even be friends. The concept was a big one, and another most awesome bookish memory!

10. One of the first signings I went to was Stephenie Meyer. We crashed a paid event to get in line. When we were discovered, they made us get OUT of line and sit on the chairs and wait and wait and wait.... in order to insure that we would indeed be the VERY LAST people in line. After nearly three hours, we got our books (Twilight and New Moon at the time) signed by a very very tired author! There's been so many book signing lines since then, but this memory is one that stands out and makes me realize the things I'll endure in order to get a book signed!

Ah, there's so many memories! I look forward to hopping around to see what sort things everyone else has listed today! Come and link your stories up over at The Broke and the Bookish!


25 comments:

  1. Wow I loved reading all your bookish memories. My dad was instrumental in getting me into the reading habit too - he started me off on Robert Ludlum!

    Tanya Patrice
    Girlxoxo.com

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  2. Did you see the article yesterday about Mary Ingalls, Laura Ingall Wilder's sister? There is a new theory about why she might have gone blind. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2273288/Little-House-Prairie-Study-reveals-Mary-Ingalls-went-blind-meningoencephalitis-scarlet-fever.html

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  3. I love your list! Good things bookish have been going on in your life for a long time. I need to join in this today, but I don't know if I'll get around to it...

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  4. I love that I experienced that first memory with you. Or, at least, I was there too. :)

    And, how funny about your Stephenie Meyer signing.

    Love your list!

    My Top Ten Tuesday Post

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  5. I totally forgot about Scholastic book fairs, but YES! Every time we got a Scholastic catalog I got giddy with excitement. I would spend hours with my mom and dad as we would basically bargain. I'd start with a list of ten or so books, then my mom would cross two off, I'd cross two off, etc, and until I was left with a few that I really, really wanted.

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    1. bookblog: It was so fun! I miss those things now that my kids are old!

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  6. Scholastic! I would get the crappiest books though...well, not crappy but not scholarly. Riddles and jokes and profiles of celebrities. Last week I went to my daughter's first, and we got a learn to read of WRECK IT RALPH. The tradition continues!!

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    1. Therese: Yep! I got some crappy ones too, but lots of good ones also!

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  7. I love your list! I remember many things that I also did on this list. It brought back a lot of happy memories.

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  8. I'm so glad you mentioned book fairs. They were so much fun as a kid. Meeting Markus Zusak was pretty awesome! I will never forget that either.

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    1. Kami: Too bad I didn't know you yet then!

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  9. Markus will always be the greatest bookish memory. Sigh!

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  10. Tanya: Started with Robert Ludlum? Wow!

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  11. I absolutely adored the Little House books and I would add visiting the home where Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote them.

    I completely forgot about Scholastic Book Fairs when I was a kid! Loved those!! In fact, I still love to take my kids to them now!!

    Last, but not least, I had no idea you had such a rebel streak in you!! Crashing a signing!! Love it!! :)

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    1. Tif: LOL! I know! We were crazy! BUT, we did THINK when we went that it was open to the public, it was only afterward that we realized that things were maybe not what we had been led to expect! It was pretty crazy. :)

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  12. Oh I so enjoyed reading your list!!! And what a great list of books your dad's cousin gave you!

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  13. I will never stop being jealous of the fact that you have met Zusak!!!

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  14. I love that you got that list and worked your way through it. Clearly having a family that encourages reading can turn a gal into a rabid reader!

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