Knock Your Block Off!
Writer's block happens to the best of us. If you can't find inspiration here, you aren't looking hard enough.
I’m a pretty smart person. At least, I like to think so. My family is staunchly religious. This was the norm for me. Until I took a class about astronomy and began to develop an interest in the cosmos. I came across a book that put a lot of things in perspective for me. Namely, Carl Sagan’sCosmos.
When you think about how big everything is, and how much we don’t really know, it’s difficult to maintain a stance that we are the most important thing in the universe. That a rational fear of a loving god is the most important thing in life. I’m just not so sure. Sagan’s book is written in a loose essay style, very approachable even to those who know nothing about the cosmos. It is dated though, claiming all the superlatives that we knew in the 1970’s. We know much more now… and it leaves even more questions that don’t really have answers in religion.
Quote:“In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
Food for thought I guess…
What an odd question… I would have to go with Clarisse from Bradbury’sFahrenheit 451.
If you haven’t read this book, you must. Montag is a fireman. A man who burns books, as all houses in this future have been made fireproof. Montag loves his job and finds great pride from it. Until he encounters a strange girl on the subway. Clarisse asks questions of Montag that no one would dare ask him. In a world where everyone has given up thinking and taken to ridiculous distractions full time, Clarisse has a conversation with Montag. This is a new happening for him. Clarisse thinks. She sits with her family and talks about their thoughts and their ideas. She asks Montag the one question that gets him thinking. Are you happy?
Quote: “I’m antisocial, they say. I don’t mix. It’s so strange. I’m very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn’t it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this.” -Clarisse
Clarisse is in such a small portion of the book because it is found that her family is holding books in their home. She has to flee because she is out of place in a book-less world. I will probably be that weird girl who still reads books when it is unpopular or illegal to do so. It’s already pretty unpopular. Oh well… I can quietly read to my cats once I’ve been cast out :)
Let me start by saying I wish more people would read in general. Even further, more people should read books outside of the general fiction genre… *cough* sci-fi *cough* Branch out and find some really great pieces, like Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama.
Did you know this book won 6 awards, including the Nebula award and the Hugo award? Of course you didn’t. No one cares about sci-fi. If you were to start caring however, I would recommend this book to beginners. The book is largely exploratory, allowing Clarke to paint strange alien landscapes while the reader is helpless to continue reading. Beautifully entertaining.
Quote: “If such a thing had happened once, it must surely have happened many times in this galaxy of a hundred billion suns.”
What if we do find other life somewhere? Or it finds us…
I’m ashamed. I haven’t read any of the Harry Potter books.
There’s really nothing else to say. I feel like there was a perfect time to get into these books and I didn’t. Now they are so played out and I know each story already… I don’t know that I will get to read these. Is that sad? Probably.
Don’t judge. I never read the Lord of the Rings books either. I already said I’m ashamed.
I guess this would be that book that I was read over and over as a child. This is the book that I always wanted to hear and couldn’t get enough of. I still have this beat up old book on my shelf to this day. The Berenstain’sOld Hat New Hat.
This book is as simple as they come but I loved it. I still love this book each time I look through it. It’s a goldilocks lesson told from inside a hat store. The bear goes in looking for a new hat and tries on several different hats before realizing the one he came in with was just right. Just right, just right, just right. I’ve read this book too much.
Just Right. It’s precious.
I never noticed how much I enjoy poetry before I started this challenge. My favorite book from my childhood, aside from Dr. Seuss books, has to be Shel Silverstein’sWhere the Sidewalk Ends.
If for no other reason than his illustrations, Silverstein opened me up to books at a very young age. In the elementary school library, this one always had a waiting list. And I was always on it.
And this is the opening poem. The very best one:
I want that candle tattooed on me. Somewhere. Gorgeous.
Surprisingly I don’t hold a grudge over most books-turned-movies. Most of them are pretty good and those who say the movies are just terrible are overly dramatic. It’s a movie. It isn’t going to be exactly the same. Disclaimer:My comments below are not to say that the movie is bad, just not what I think the original author intended in writing the book. All that aside, I’m going to cringe and sayAlice’s Adventures in Wonderlandhas been made into some of the most ridiculous movies and TV shows. There. I said it.
The book is exquisite. It’s just amazing that a book written in 1865 has lasted so long and stayed mainstream. I guess after this long, it stands to reason that it will have been tainted and manipulated just a bit. It’s not so much about nonsense as it is about logic. Nonsensical things are discussed in the realm of them being illogical, but overall this story has been heavily altered in most spinoffs. As I said before though, I can’t complain over the popularity of this story. If it hadn’t been made into a Disney movie, and then every other kind of movie/show, perhaps it wouldn’t have stuck around for so long.
How can I truly pick a favorite quote from this book… How about…
Quote: “And how many hours a day did you do lessons?’ said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.
‘Ten hours the first day,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘nine the next, and so on.’
‘What a curious plan!’ exclaimed Alice.
‘That’s the reason they’re called lessons,’ the Gryphon remarked: ‘because they lessen from day to day.”
If only…
It’s stuck in my head simply because I just saw it. Laugh all you want. I simply don’t care. Edgar Rice Burrough’sA Princess of Mars
There. I said it. Yes, this was the John Carter movie that just flopped. It was great! Yes, I used an exclamation mark. And I meant it. Disney was going to option this out to a series, but not anymore. Those who live on Mars don’t call it Mars… it’s Barsoom. Get it right. No one enjoys science fiction or space anymore. We’re damning ourselves to die along with the rock we’re spinning away on. That’s tangential though… This is a great book. Read scifi.
Quote: “Yes, I was a fool, but I was in love, and though I was suffering the greatest misery I had ever known I would not have had it otherwise for all the riches of Barsoom. Such is love, and such are lovers wherever love is known.”
I am ashamed to say it. My fellow English enthusiasts love this book… Neil Gaiman’sAmerican Gods.
This book was heavily hyped to me, from almost everyone. I don’t really care for it. Admittedly, I haven’t finished it. I know, I know… perhaps I am speaking too soon. The storytelling seems boring, like Gaiman was writing this for the YA genre instead. I will finish it. And I will retract my statements if Gaiman redeems himself with this one. Perhaps I should take all the other advice and try Coralineor the Sandman books…
Quote: “I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.”
This challenge assumes I have a favorite book…
Fall back on Bukowski, as always. From one of his best, The People Look Like Flowers At Last:
“great writers are indecent people
they live unfairly
saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world
so that bastards like me can keep creating art,
become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead
it means I made it.”
I guess he made it. What a bum :)
