Book Meme

Jeana tagged me for this, and although it took me a couple of days to get around to it (school just started Monday), here are my answers:
Bear in mind, though, that I have totally ignored the "one book" edict that appears in every question--how can a true book lover answer with just one?)

1. One book that changed your life: The Bible. Of course. Five Love Languages. The Purpose-driven Life. Pilgrim's Progress. Little Women. All the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

2. One book that you've read more than once: I read the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder almost every year. Usually in the winter. I guess because so much of the action takes place during the winter. I find them soothing and comforting. Jane Austen's Persuasion. And Pride and Prejudice. I've probably read these more than 30 times. I love Jane Austen. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (another winter time read). Little Women. Anything by Agatha Christie--there are so many that I forget the solutions by the time I reread the mysteries. Beowulf. Jane Eyre. Wuthering Heights. The Canterbury Tales. The Harry Potter books. Some of my students are diligently looking for clues as to what will happen in the last of the seven, and I have to keep checking their research. Besides that, I like them. Harry is learning that life is not only a battle between good and evil, but that each of us has a choice--each of us has to choose, ultimately, which side has our allegiance.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: my Bible. A survival manual. How to build a boat would come in handy, I think, also how to tell edible from inedible mushrooms, and how to make salt water potable. How to make pottery. Mostly, How to get rescued.

4. One book that made you laugh: Anything by Erma Bombeck. I sure do miss her. Especially the Grass Grows Greener Over the Septic Tank. A couple that I can't remember the authors of at the moment--Raising Demons. And Please Don't Eat the Dasies.

5. One book that made you cry: Little Women. Two parts actually: when Beth dies, and when Jo ends up with her old German suitor, Professor Baehr.

6. One book that you wish had been written: anything that made more than a million dollars for the author. Then I could retire, and just write the kind of stuff I enjoy, without worrying about making a living.

7. One book you wish had never been written: The DaVinci Code. Too many people mistake fiction for reality, and many of them lack sufficient grounding in their faith to distinguish truth from balderdash.

8. One book you are currently reading: A Wizard Alone by Diane Duane. I read a lot of "young adult" fiction, because I enjoy much of it, and because I want to know what my students are reading.

9.One book you've been meaning to read: Oh my word, how can I name just one, when my list runs into the hundreds?