Last week we chatted about being influenced (inspired?) by movies/TV/music to pick up a book. Here’s what you had to say:
Karla A. wrote: “I remember buying a copy of Wuthering Heights because Bella Swan happened to be reading it in Eclipse. Back then I had been an impressionable preteen, so please don’t judge! I ended up loving the novel, and I could say it was the first classic I read. I originally read the Spanish translation, but I just bought the English version since Emerald Fennell’s movie is being released on Valentine's Day. Guess I just fell for it and got influenced again.”
Mara W. wrote: “I heard author Douglas Stuart talking on a podcast about Shuggie Bain (one of my favorite books ever) and he mentioned a book called Motherwell by Deborah Orr and how it had influenced him. I tracked a copy of Motherwell down and it was as devastating and well-written as Shuggie Bain. I was very saddened to learn that Orr had died of breast cancer before the book was published. She deserved more. I’m thankful to have discovered it from Stuart’s easily overlooked recommendation.”
Sue C. wrote: “I don't recall what year it was but Lassie was still on TV in the afternoon when I got home from school. I didn't watch it every day, but once in a while if I had nothing else to do. I had to be in 6th or 7th grade. There was an episode where Timmy was walking with Lassie in some woods by a pond and he encountered a man, he may have been a park ranger, I don't recall any details of what was going on except that this man is telling Timmy about a great man who once went to live alone, as simply as he could in a shack by a pond. This man was named Henry David Thoreau. The next time I got near a bookstore I bought a paperback copy of the complete essays of Thoreau. It became my Bible. I carried it with me all through junior high and high school. His love of nature and commitment to non-conformity became guiding principles in my life. It gave me the courage to pursue my art and to resist intense 1970s era peer pressure to use drugs. All thanks to Lassie and H.D. Thoreau.”
See you next week!
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