August Edition of Literary Junkies

  I've never done this link up before and am eager to give it a try! Books are fabulous and bookish people even more so! Here we go!

 1. What are you currently reading? Tell us about it!
I'm actually working on two at the moment--one for day time reading and one for before bed.

During the day, I'm working on All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.
I fell in love with McCarthy when I read The Road three years ago, so I thought I'd try one of his older works. McCarthy is definitely a man's author--there's little description of emotion, appearances, or locations, you know all the stuff that matters to a woman. Instead, he describes the things important to our young, male protagonist: the smell of horses, the way a woman's hair falls across her back, the landscape, what he ate for dinner--these things. It's jarring at first, being thrown into a story with no explanation, but that's part of its brilliance. I'm loving this story of the misadventures of a runaway as he rides from Texas to Mexico then finds ways to survive. There's even a little bit of a love story. I can't wait to finish it! 

 My nighttime reading is Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl by N.D. Wilson. 
I don't know how to categorize this book: it's not fiction, but it's not really nonfiction, either. It's not self-help or even strictly religious. It's more . . . reflective? Wilson has written his thoughts on the miracles in the tiniest pieces of life, found beauty in what we often find the most insignificant, and then uses that to put the human life in perspective.  It's touching, thoughtful, challenging, funny, and, honestly, quite beautiful.  How would you live if you realized nothing was too small or meaningless? That there's beauty and adventure in the tiniest things?   

2. What is one book you think every person should read at least once in their life? Why?
 Hmmm . . . I honestly don't know . . . there are so many good ones . . . I think . . . Maybe . . . It's a tie between The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  All three of them, in some way, have challenged the way I look at life and people. Plus, they're just wonderful books.

 3. Do you think you could ever write a book? If so what genre would it be?
When I was 12, I started writing a book. I wrote and edited it until I was sixteen. I still toy with it and plan to rewrite it, perfect it, if you will. To be honest, I hate the idea of failing it--failing to write well, failing to tell the story, to pull it all together. It was a fantasy. If I ever really do rewrite it, it will still be a fantasy :]

4. Do you listen to audiobooks? Do you look for the same things in an audiobook that you do in one you'll read?
I LOVE audio books! Two of my favorites to listen to have been The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi (GREAT mystery) and A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (Hilarious! And read by Tim Curry! Huzzah). 
In both audio and print books, I look for good writing, great characters, and an engaging story. For specifically audio, however, I HAVE to have an awesome narrator. If the person reading the book does a lousy job, it draws you out of the story and all you can focus on is how grating the voice is.  For instance, once, during a road trip, my family tried to listen to The Trumpeter Swan by E.B. White, read by E.B. White. Oh dear me . . . The man can write, but he can't narrate at ALL. We had to turn the story off before the first chapter. 

5. Can you suggest a book of each type for others to try:
Fantasy: Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Nonfiction: Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard
Fiction: The Diary of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain
Romance: I'm not really a romance reader . . . at all . . . does that make me less of a woman? But, I suppose The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern would count--there's a definite love story there, even if it takes you half a book to reach it. Plus it's a great read. 
Classics: The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
Young Adult: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle