All tagged Judy Blume
Links + Things: Gendered Books, Hulk vs Grizzly, More Tiger Eyes News, Recommended Sale Books + More
Happy Friday, all! This week's Links + Things is a bit on the light side as I burned up a lot of my best stuff last week.
This Week's Video of Awesome
I asked my husband if he'd seen any fantastic YouTube videos lately and, naturally, he sent me this clip of the Incredible Hulk fighting a grizzly bear. It's quite excellent, no?
Required Reading
There’s room for all kind of heroes and heroines and some of our greatest stories happen to be love stories too. Love, friendship, sexual attraction— all essential parts of life. It’s only when girls or women become the audience that we start to turn our noses up at something that we all care about.
I loved author Leigh Bardugo's response to a reader who's frustrated that YA books aren't "geared towards guys," as she hits the nail on the head with regard to something that always bothers me: the dismissal of stories involving romance and love. Sarah Rees Brennan added some additional thoughts that are spot-on as well.
I Love... Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
Everyone has a first love.
Book love, that is.
You know what I mean. It's that book that you had to buy a second copy of because you wore out your original. The one with passages you can still recite by heart. The one that makes you squeal like a crazy person when you find someone else who loves it just as much as you do. It's the one that shatters your soul when you see anything but rave reviews for it on Goodreads.
For me, that first book love was Judy Blume's Tiger Eyes.
Tiger Eyes is the single most influential book of my life. I first picked up a raged copy for--and I remember this as clearly as if it were yesterday--50 cents at Powell's Books at the old Beaverton location. It was the summer between by freshman and sophomore years of high school.
I'd read most of the typical Judy Blume books a few years previously, but not this one, which I managed to overlook at my public library. (It's possible that my conservative hometown's library didn't even have this oft-banned book, or that it was shelved in the adult fiction so sixth-grade Sarah didn't have a chance to discover it along with Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.)
Tiger Eyes set the stage for my lifelong love affair with quiet, character-driven contemporary fiction.
Why do we read?
I’ve been thinking about this question a lot. Actually, I’ve been thinking about this question since April, when the Pew Center released their study on the reading habits of Americans.
Unsurprisingly, the data revealed that people read… wait for it…
A lot of different reasons.
Take a moment to recover from the shock of that astonishing information.
Here’s a snippet from the results (it’s really worth reading through the study, if this sort of thing interests you):
- 26% of those who had read a book in the past 12 months said that what they enjoyed most was learning, gaining knowledge, and discovering information.
- 15% cited the pleasures of escaping reality, becoming immersed in another world, and the enjoyment they got from using their imaginations.
- 12% said they liked the entertainment value of reading, the drama of good stories, the suspense of watching a good plot unfold.
- 12% said they enjoyed relaxing while reading and having quiet time.
- 6% liked the variety of topics they could access via reading and how they could find books that particularly interested them.
- 4% said they enjoy finding spiritual enrichment through reading and expanding their worldview.
- 3% said they like being mentally challenged by books.
- 2% cited the physical properties of books – their feel and smell – as a primary pleasure. Source Link
For me, all but the last item (books’ physicality) are true. Often when I read, I find that my world expands, that I learn something new, maybe about a place, perhaps about my own thinking. I love the drama of a good book, of a beautifully constructed plot, of carefully crafted words. Reading, as I’ve mentioned a time or twelve, is also my favorite way to unwind and decompress—it’s a lifelong habit of mine to read for an hour or two before bed or when I take a lunch break.
I’d also add to that list that I love the community of readers, which was even true before the internet became such an awesome book talk water cooler. Even as a kid, passing around good books and chatting about them, was a joy. Now, I love discussing about books here on CEFS, at my book club meetings (hi ladies!), on Twitter, on Goodreads and at Costco (this keeps happening to me for some reason).