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Habitual Reader Profiles - Page 1
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Name: Becky Levine |
| City & State: Los Gatos, California | |
| Vocation / Avocation: Writer/Editor/Speaker | |
| Website: www.beckylevine.com |
Why I'm a Habitual Reader:
At this moment, there are twelve books on my nightstand. The totebag I brought home today from our local bookmobile has nine more, and I’ve got a couple on hold at the town library. Add to this twelve full bookcases throughout the house, the two bookstore gift cards I got for Christmas (and the three books), and guess what’s going to happen sometime in January?
I’ll have run out of things to read. Really. And if you’re a habitual reader, right now you’re nodding your head. Because you know what I’m talking about.
There are never enough books. And there are never enough minutes in the day to do all the reading we want—not if we’re going to get anything else accomplished.
If you look at my top-ten list, you’ll see that, over the past decades, I have read all over the place. I’ll go through mysteries for a while, then memoirs, then find a wonderful novel. I have always and am always reading children’s books. On any given day, my list could contain ten totally different books. (Oh, heck, I’m going to steal two more here and add Dickens’ Great Expectations and Roald Dahl’s The BFG—ten is just too few!)
Habit: I looked it up in the dictionary. There are several definitions, but we habitual readers know the one that truly applies—“an addiction.” Without books, we’re lost. (Not to mention pretty darn cranky!)
Books are my relaxation, my rest, my escape. Thank goodness.
My List of Ten: Top Ten Books That I Can Think of Today!
1. The Secret Garden
Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
I read this book as a girl, and I can read it again and again. The moors, the
robin, the garden, and Dickon—it’s like coming home each time.
2. Anne of Green Gables
Author: L. M. Montgomery
Anne (with an “e”) was like the best friend who knew just how important
it was to feel. She was happy, sad, excited, shattered, joyous, and devastated,
all within the pages of one book.
3. Wuthering Heights
Author: Emily Brontë
I studied Victorian literature in college and loved it. Still, in the midst
of 700-page novels, with pages and pages of description and heavy, internal
thoughts, this book knocked my socks off with the spareness and tightness
of the writing. People say that Wuthering Heights was a one-time
fluke of genius; I say I may never have read such a careful and well-crafted
novel before or since.
4. Operating Instructions
Author: Anne Lament
She compares an umbilical cord to something dragged in on a cat’s tail.
Need I say more? Just that she made me feel like I, too, could maybe be
a mother—perhaps
even an okay one.
5. Inkspell
Author: Cornelia Funke
In this sequel to Inkheart, Funke weaves her two worlds together seamlessly.
In a book about writers and writing, Funke never once slips into trite
cliches or heavy-handed lecturing. She tells a story and stays true
to it with every word.
6. Between, Georgia
Author: Joshilyn Jackson
My discovery of 2006. Perhaps the funniest and sharpest writer I’ve read
since I can’t remember when.
7. At Bertram’s Hotel
Author: Agatha Christie
Christie was the best, just the best. And Bertram’s takes me back to
an England that Miss Marple may recognize as false, but which feels so nostalgic
that it must be part of my genetic memory. Sit back in the big cushiony
chair and have your tea and muffins.
8. Reflecting the Sky
Author: S.J. Rozan
Rozan is a genius. She can write words that fly off the page so fast you feel
like you’re on a roller coaster. It’s the best ride.
9. High Hearts
Author: Rita Mae Brown
I was living in Virginia when I read this book, so this story of southern families and
soldiers during the Civil War probably hit me particularly hard. In what I think
may be Brown’s best book, she combines sharp wit and dark sadness
so well that the prose hurts.
10. The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo
Author: Paula Huntley
Huntley’s emails and diary entries gave me a better understanding of
what had gone on in this part of the world than I’d ever had before.
In an incredibly hard and painful situation, Huntley stayed sane, and her intelligence
and understanding gave me an amazing window into her experiences.
Have you read any of these titles? Review one now.
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