Reading against the grain
Mar. 24th, 2019 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12Thirty Day Book Meme Day 24: Hooked me into reading
Honestly, I wouldn't be able to tell you. I loved books and reading long before I was able to read myself. My mother always read picture books aloud to me, and, after she was born, my sister and me. Usually she would read us four picture books per night, with each of us picking two, and although I can still name a lot of the old favourites, the first book, the first story that made me really care about stories, is lost in the mists of time. I couldn't tell you the first book I was able to read by myself either aloud or in my head — I imagine it was one of the rather boring books we borrowed from school to teach ourselves to read by practicing at home with our parents — and I don't even think I can remember the first book I really, really fell in love with.
I can remember the first book that made me realise I didn't have to interpret the narrative in the way an author intended. It was Galax Arena by Gillian Rubinstein, and I disliked the protagonist, wished she wasn't the point of view character, and instead became obsessed with one of the antagonists and imagined a whole secondary story going on around her, in which the book's protagonist was only a bit player. The idea that I could read a book in this way was like a lightbulb going off, and I suppose it was the first moment I understood transformative fandom, although of course, being a ten-year-old, I didn't name it as such!
25. Never finished it.
26. Should have sold more copies.
27. Want to be one of the characters.
28. Bought at my fave independent bookshop.
29. The one I have reread most often.
30. Would save if my house burned down.
I've only finished one book since I last updated this haphazard reading log of mine: Dreadful Company by Vivian Shaw, the second in her series of books about Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead and other supernatural beings. It was, like the preceding book, great fun, packed with allusions to various pieces of gothic fiction, and poked gentle fun at so many portentous vampire clichés. I loved it.
Honestly, I wouldn't be able to tell you. I loved books and reading long before I was able to read myself. My mother always read picture books aloud to me, and, after she was born, my sister and me. Usually she would read us four picture books per night, with each of us picking two, and although I can still name a lot of the old favourites, the first book, the first story that made me really care about stories, is lost in the mists of time. I couldn't tell you the first book I was able to read by myself either aloud or in my head — I imagine it was one of the rather boring books we borrowed from school to teach ourselves to read by practicing at home with our parents — and I don't even think I can remember the first book I really, really fell in love with.
I can remember the first book that made me realise I didn't have to interpret the narrative in the way an author intended. It was Galax Arena by Gillian Rubinstein, and I disliked the protagonist, wished she wasn't the point of view character, and instead became obsessed with one of the antagonists and imagined a whole secondary story going on around her, in which the book's protagonist was only a bit player. The idea that I could read a book in this way was like a lightbulb going off, and I suppose it was the first moment I understood transformative fandom, although of course, being a ten-year-old, I didn't name it as such!
25. Never finished it.
26. Should have sold more copies.
27. Want to be one of the characters.
28. Bought at my fave independent bookshop.
29. The one I have reread most often.
30. Would save if my house burned down.
I've only finished one book since I last updated this haphazard reading log of mine: Dreadful Company by Vivian Shaw, the second in her series of books about Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead and other supernatural beings. It was, like the preceding book, great fun, packed with allusions to various pieces of gothic fiction, and poked gentle fun at so many portentous vampire clichés. I loved it.
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Date: 2019-03-25 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-26 07:01 am (UTC)