Habitual Reader Profiles - Page 2

<< back next >>

	Name: Keith Wheeler
	City & State: Pleasant Hill, California
	Vocation / Avocation: Tennis Club Manager/ Tennis Pro

Why I'm a Habitual Reader:

I grew up in a house that had bookcases on every wall, over 10,000 books at the last count. My father reads constantly, and apparently he did from a very young age. I remember him reading to me well before I could read. I actually got a slow start on reading myself, as it was hard for me to learn (I didn't make the "blue bird" reading group in the second grade), but once I got the hang of it, there was no going back. I started reading classics when I was about 14, and I was hooked. Moby Dick and The Red Badge of Courage were two of the first. My dad never pushed me to read, just set a good example. It was an example I was more than happy to follow.

My List of Ten: Books I Would Always Want in My Library

1. Les Miserables
Author: Victor Hugo
My favorite book. Hugo is the master storyteller. I have read it 3 times, wish I could read it in French, I've heard it's even better. Jean Val Jean is my hero and inspiration. The common man, checked at every turn, who still lives a positive life.

2. War and Peace
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Another great story. Might have been my top choice, but Tolstoy did kill off my favorite character only halfway through the story, still good enough for #2

3. Pride and Prejudice
Author: Jane Austen
Austen's characters are so great. I love to watch them interact. All her books are wonderful, but this one is the best. Mansfield Park would be my #2.

4. Anna Karenina
Author: Leo Tolstoy
No one does the common man or woman, and the problems they face, like Tolstoy. Levin is etched in my soul forever, as is Anna's tragedy.

5. The Great Gatsby
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Character development and narration has never been better, as Nick builds our picture of Gatsby scene by scene, trait by trait.

6. Written On The Body
Author: Jeanette Winterson
The joys and anguish of love and desire, its ups, its downs and its problems, told from the point of view of a narrator who is both unnamed and of an undetermined sex.

7. Notre Dame of Paris
Author: Victor Hugo
The master storyteller again, with another great historical novel. Much more than a story about a hunchback, to say the least.

8. Atticus
Author: Ron Hansen
A great take on the prodigal son, only the aged father goes looking for the lost boy. Amazing grace.

9. Alexandria Quartet
Author: Lawrence Durell
OK, this might be cheating, as this is really four novels, but it is one story, told from three different points of view, and each reveals a new perspective on what was a simple love story.

10. The Sound And The Fury
Author: William Faulkner
I gave up the first two times I tried to read it, but I'm glad I tried a third time. What at first is a confusing puzzle, becomes an amazing description of the decline and fall of a southern family. Or as Faulkner described it, four attempts to tell the story of a girl who fell down and got her bloomers dirty.

Have you read any of these titles? Review one now.

back to the top