Monday
Mar062006
The Great Guilty Pleasure Read-Off
Monday, March 6, 2006 at 10:46AM
My wife and I are both voracious readers. There is a constantly rotating stack of books by both sides of the bed. Now, anyone who knows me knows I have a soft spot for Hemingway and Steinbeck and I've also been known to go on the occasional year-long old Russian novel kick. But when I'm just too tired to crack a little Chesterton or Dostoevsky, I go to our study, look over all the books (in alphabetical order by author, of course) and tend to go for the guilty pleasure. Alison is the same way. When she's tired of the Elizabeth Goudge and Jane Austen, well, you know where you have to go.
My guilty P tends to be old science fiction. I really get a kick out of what people think the future will look like from back in the 50's. "And in the year 2006 I rode my flying auto into a giant cavern, overflowing with datatapes! Each tape could hold the name and birthdate of every person in the city! And oh, what giant computer must lie somewhere to read this monstrous amount of data." Apparently nobody has a cel phone or a PowerBook down there, so they just keep wandering. That stuff kills me.
Alison likes to go the Bridget Jones route: the sassy, saucy British girl who always says the first thing that pops into her head, even though it always gets her in trouble. At least she can always go get a new pair of shoes!
So we've decided we're going to hold what may become an annual event : The Great Guilty Pleasure Read-Off! We each picked one of our favorite "I can't believe I'm reading this again" book and the other has to read it. We'll be chronicling our adventure on both of our blogs. In the next day or two we'll each write our preconceived notions of the book, before we read it, then we'll keep you up on them as we dive in.
Now, without looking at the titles, just the pictures and the colors, whose book is whose? Go!
Aw yeah, bring in on. I'll keep you posted. Happy Monday!
Oh, and the new caedmon's cd comes out tomorrow! If you get a copy and feel like letting us know what you think, just drop a comment anywhere. Thanks.
My guilty P tends to be old science fiction. I really get a kick out of what people think the future will look like from back in the 50's. "And in the year 2006 I rode my flying auto into a giant cavern, overflowing with datatapes! Each tape could hold the name and birthdate of every person in the city! And oh, what giant computer must lie somewhere to read this monstrous amount of data." Apparently nobody has a cel phone or a PowerBook down there, so they just keep wandering. That stuff kills me.
Alison likes to go the Bridget Jones route: the sassy, saucy British girl who always says the first thing that pops into her head, even though it always gets her in trouble. At least she can always go get a new pair of shoes!
So we've decided we're going to hold what may become an annual event : The Great Guilty Pleasure Read-Off! We each picked one of our favorite "I can't believe I'm reading this again" book and the other has to read it. We'll be chronicling our adventure on both of our blogs. In the next day or two we'll each write our preconceived notions of the book, before we read it, then we'll keep you up on them as we dive in.
Now, without looking at the titles, just the pictures and the colors, whose book is whose? Go!
Aw yeah, bring in on. I'll keep you posted. Happy Monday!
Oh, and the new caedmon's cd comes out tomorrow! If you get a copy and feel like letting us know what you think, just drop a comment anywhere. Thanks.
Reader Comments (9)
AO, that's an awesome idea. Maybe I can finagle my wife into something like that. Though she does enjoy our Rouse House reader's theater of the entire single-volume edition of Jeff Smith's Bone. It's a lot of fun but I have really started to run out of voices for all the woodland creatures. A great read if you've never read it.
Also, thought I'd mention that I dropped a reference to your "inspiration" post from a few weeks ago into my most recent blog: http://blog.myspace.com/supanateu2
Nathan
Hey, that ACC book is a good one... of course, I'll have to admit to having read the whole Rama series more than once... :-)
My sympathies to you on the other book. "Too good to pass up", claims USA Today. I guess now you can let us know for sure.
Andy, I just had to say that I wrote my term paper at Bloomington High School on Rendezvous with Rama. I thought it was a great book at the time. Of course, I formed this opinion in high school, so this book might actually totally suck. But hey, Arthur C. Clarke is a pretty cool guy, if only for making his famous computer HAL from 2001 born in Urbana. Here's the quote:
"I am a HAL Nine Thousand computer, Production Number 3. I became operational at the HAL Plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 12, 1997."
Nice Central Illinois tidbit there.
Enjoy the read.
Chris
That's hilarious... I am totally telling telling my fiancee about this!
that sounds like a fabulous idea. i'm so anxious to read your thoughts on confessions of a shopaholic, so hurry up and read it already.
I always fall back on my Heinlein books when I need a guilty P. This time I managed a bunch of Dickens, Ivanhoe, and a couple of memoirs and histories before I hit the old sci-fi again.
Andy you inspire me as a reader :)
no comments? that's embarrassing. wow. i'm shocked. this was a good post, too. Andy you need to step it up a notch to reach full maximum "blog comment-ability." like maybe a pic of you with your shirt off doing curls or some type of weightlifting.
So....
ready to gouge your eyes out with a spork yet?