Potluck for 1/30/09: I Know I Read a Really Good Book Because....

[Karin Kallmaker]

Kick back, it's Friday night. Get a warm drink and think about a really good book you read -- c'mon, you know you just thought of one, it popped into your head.

Why did that book pop into your head? What about it was "really good" for you? How did it make you feel, what did it make you think about, why do you still remember it?

Feel free to share the title, too!

I'll go first...

The book I immediately thought of completely drew me into the setting. I could smell the wood smoke and see the autumn colors, hear and smell the lake, hear the creaking floor of the old house. The diner was sizzling with comfort food aromas and at times I thought I should have dog hair on my pant legs because the pooch was so adorable. The women were forthright and people I could know, dense at times, but lovable. When they finally connected it was one of those "Ya dumb saps, what were fighting, for so long, too!" kind of satisfying feelings. 

The book: October's Promise by Marianne Garver. It wasn't even named that, hadn't been edited, but it was a Really Good Book. And everybody else will get to experience it in just a few weeks!

Karin
with a mug of chicken soup and contemplating a small wedge of German
chocolate coffee cake that will be mine by the end of the evening

[xenaclark]

I can think of a lot of really good books so I guess I will just think of my favorite book and the one that I have read the most and will probably read again by the end of the month.

Graceful Waters.

I love the book. Even though it is a book about a troubled girl and working through everything this book touched me in many ways. It makes me think of my days back in bootcamp, It makes me think of the chip I had when I was abused when little. I could just feel the emotions so strongly from all the charachters.

Nicki

[Claire Rooney]

Awe Karin, that's not fair! Now I don't want to wait. ::grumble::

A really good book for me is one that takes me out of my world and puts me in another place with people that I care about. Strangely all the books that popped into my head were sci-fi/fantasy (Dune, Eon, Eternity, the LotR, the Mists of Avalon, etc). I think that's because when I want to leave the world, I want to go far-far away.

[Ruth Perkinson]

A really good book...hmmm. Let's see...I read a really good book called The Killer Angels about the battle at Gettysburg during the Civil War. It won the Pulitzer in 1978, I believe.The descriptions were intense and you could see the angle so well from both sides of the fence between the Confederate Army and the Army of Northern Aggression (as my dad would say).

It was a really good book because I remember having a date with a dark-haired woman (who will remain nameless) from northern Virginia on an August night back in 1995. We ate Italian food and drank red wine. She was hysterically funny and smart and easy on the eyes. I remember her talking about that book that night and was surprised she had read it, too. When she talked about it, her eyes lit up and she kept talking about Chamberlain's great charge...and on and on and on...I was cataleptically mesmerized by her.

It was a really good book because when I kissed her later it was a kiss of a lifetime. To this day, I can still feel it in my toes.

Thank God for books...we can really connect in more ways when we share them and then discuss them and then makeout over them.

The best date of my life. I let her go for another woman...duh!

Ruth

[Karin Kallmaker]

*fanning self*

Well, Ruth, that certainly puts a good book in one kind of perspective. I don't recall, um, nope, you've got me there.

A really good book can leave me breathless, though. Breathless, like I want to hold the experience inside as long as I can.

Karin

[Towanda]

Hi Karin, Everyone who visits this weekend's Potluck

Ufff... that is difficult! This is not about my first book experience with an Enid Blyton book, right? I think I was 10 years old and was sick and bored in bed and my brother who was 8 years older than me gave me one of "his" books from this British Author. I could not put it down. Then, I became a reading addict and "The Five" series came all to my hands through birthdays and different excuses to get a book.

But this is not about childhood memories, is it not? Let's grow a bit more.

The most magic book I have ever read is "Cien años de soledad" that is in your language "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez. Remarkable, outstanding, brilliant. I could go on and on with adjectives that would last the whole weekend. It gets you from the very beginning, Macondo's description and does not leave you until the end. I should read this book every year. I might start this one.

Jane Austen's books were a late discovery but I think this British Author of the Romantic Era was preparing me for the next step: Women that had desires and fell in love and desperately. The best part, they would end with the impossible love. The one that seemed uncertain at the beginning. England as a layout image helped obviously to get you into the atmosphere and involve you as another character, an observer.

If Austen helped me to discover the one is in me, Sarah Waters helped me to discover someone else. "Fingersmith" is still one of the books I have more reread in the last 4 years because I think is a masterpiece of writing, description, story and, again, discovery.

Because "Just This Once" by KG MacGregor was my first American Author's Novel, I still have a great memory and moved me to do many things that I had never dreamed to do before in my life. There is one thing that I still remember of it. The story happens in Orlando, FL and the same year I read the book, a few months later I happen to go there with my daughter. The hotel was a Sheraton and the lady of the front desk happened to be really nice and helpful and she even left me use her office to check my emails and send a note to that novel's writer saying, "here I am, living my own adventure" Well. It wasn't exactly the same as in the book but I had fun. Ha!

I don't know if I have replied to what you wanted, Karin.

Carmen
(Ooops ... I forgot to sign before ... )

[xenaclark]

A really good book...hmmm. Let's see...I read a really good book called The Killer Angels about the battle at Gettysburg during the Civil War. It won the Pulitzer in 1978, I believe.The descriptions were intense and you could see the angle so well from both sides of the fence between the Confederate Army and the Army of Northern Aggression (as my dad would say).

It was a really good book because I remember having a date with a dark-haired woman (who will remain nameless) from northern Virginia on an August night back in 1995. We ate Italian food and drank red wine. She was hysterically funny and smart and easy on the eyes. I remember her talking about that book that night and was surprised she had read it, too. When she talked about it, her eyes lit up and she kept talking about Chamberlain's great charge...and on and on and on...I was cataleptically mesmerized by her.

It was a really good book because when I kissed her later it was a kiss of a lifetime. To this day, I can still feel it in my toes.

Thank God for books...we can really connect in more ways when we share them and then discuss them and then makeout over them.

The best date of my life. I let her go for another woman...duh!

Ruth

I love the Civil War so I will look that one up.

Nicki

[Tracey Richardson]

Hey Ruth:
Funny you should mention that book. I picked it up a few months ago at a used book store though I haven't read it yet. I bought it because it was a PP winner and I love history, so now I am really looking forward to it... does the girl come with it too? 
Trace

[grlpwr]

While I was out freezing this morning on one of my little explorations.
I started laughing about a line in The Dawn of Change by Gerri Hill.
Which is one of my favorites.

The point where Ruth is talking to Susan about her future love interest.
The line was something to the effect of "She Is Nothing But A Woods Woman".

I love this book because the dynamics of the main characters are expressed so well
as they both search themselves and one another.

The supporting characters are written in wonderfully and create so much humor
yet tell us how the ones closest to us can place restraints through there beliefs of
how we should be.

Taken a bit further.  How society looks at others because they may be a bit different.
Getting back to my exploration.  I decided to drive around to the other side of the lake
and get some different photo views.  So I parked on the side and got out of the car after
finding something that caught my eye.  While taking pictures this very lovely elderly woman
starts yelling to me out her window about how lovely the view was.  I went and introduced myself and
told her why I was basically on her property. "No worries Honey" she replied.  "I would love
to have a picture of that." I am too old and not brave enough to climb down there."
She went on to tell me how it was fine to go out on her dock but please be careful.
I thanked her and told her I would bring her a picture.

Rolling forward, I met my Ruth (not to be confused with the lovely Ruth Perkinson).
I am on the ground taking pictures when I am approached from behind
by this unknown woman and her large ugly dog!. Not at all like the description of the
dog in the Dawn of Change.  This woman' was the likeness of Ruth.  The M/C's sister.
She started yelling at me. "What are You' doing".  "Who do you think you are?"
She proceeded to yell and get closer and closer with the ugly dog.  I pointed to the view
and said "there look, isn't it beautiful".  "What are you doing she screams".
Taking pictures, what does it look like".  Her dog was pulling to get away from her, and
I said " yeah I would want to get away from her too!".
From there she said " You have no right" excuse me I replied, I every right, now go away".
She replied' Why are you doing this, you don't belong". 
Hmmm, I thought I don't belong' to what.......
the greater whole or the tax paying community.  Not sure, I told her to run along since I had permission
to be there and she didn't.  Go accost someone else and go F#$. yourself too...

For a moment I wanted to be inside the book so I could slap this woman one!
She was someone I would not even consider talking politics or values with let alone even hold
a door open for her.
Just like Ruth in the book.

Pam

[Karin Kallmaker]

Towanda -- no rights or wrongs on this one. The question prompted thoughts and you shared. That's the whole point.

Tracey, Nicki -- when you read the Civil War book, you'll have to let us know if your experience was anything like Ruth's. 

Pam -- Life imitates art! How fun to read a real life account of the kind of meeting that's usually reserved for romance novels.


Karin

[Bren]

"Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All", by Allan Gurganus, caught and kept my interest.  I read it a number of years ago and it remains on my bookshelf.  I believe there was some attempt to make a film out of it, but, in my opinion, film could never do it justice.  To me, a great book.

Bren

[Postie]

Wiggle time

The one book that I will always read again and again. The characters in this book really come to life, you have no CEO's or doctor's just plain people. That why the story will always be close to my heart. The characters are well formed and they come to life off the page and you can almost smell the country side. The authors description of the surrounding area makes me close my eyes for a second and I can feel myself being transported into the book.

So, only to be fair should I name the book or just keep the Bella author guessing


Postie

[Dillon Watson]

I know I read a really good book if I reread it as soon as I finished reading it the first time. It's typically a romance and I want to experience again the building love story. I'll also put it on the book case to the right of my bed where I can thumb through it when the characters suddenly pop into my head. I also find myself rereading these books when a newer one has dissappointed me. Some of them are (not in any order):

Shaken by KG
Wild Things by KK
Fated Love by Rad
Second Season by Ali Vali
Love in the Balance by Marianne K. Martin

If as a writer, I ever get to be on someone's "special" shelf, I'll feel I've accomplished something.

Dillon

[Seahurstmt]

A book that continually comes to mind is Across Time by Linda Kay Silva.

Jessie's struggles with her family so reminded me of my own when I was growing up in the 70's. Trust, fighting for my individuality, battling against authority figures...all brought me back. I literally found myself shouting out loud at the book, as I tried to defend her to her parents. However, the part that stays with me...will always stay with me is the knowing that no matter how disconnected I feel from those around me. No matter how defeated, left out, tired, or inconsequential I feel, I know that there is someone out there, who across all time will be there for me, and will love me unconditionally. Whether I physically find them in this lifetime or the next, I know there is one soul out there who will always have my back.

Yeah....deep huh?  What can I say...I totally dug that book.

Oh, and the writing...the descriptions of their surroundings, the fighting scenes, and the love, and the love, and the love...Linda Kay Silva's writing was damn good!!!!

[grlpwr]

Welcome Seahurstmt,
I hope you enjoy this place as much as I do!
There is a newbies introduce yourself thread if you are so inclined.

Pam