What is the last book you have read?

The travel agency couldn't guarantee where I would emerge, they couldn't guarantee my safety, and they couldn't guarantee I'd be able to return.  I didn't care.

Most people who traveled via InterPlane Agency were thrill seekers.  Adventurers.  Wealthy beyond imagining and bored with living their pampered lives.  I was none of these.  I sought comfort.  I was a chicken.  I had to sell everything I had to afford the trip, and I even had to lie on a loan application.  Banks don't like it when their loans are used to send the person owing money to a world from which they can't send payments.  I had never had a pampered life, and I was too scared and stressed and depressed to be bored.

The last book I read was Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin, an excellent book of short stories all revolving around the ability to take vacations into alternative dimensions.  As she does in much of her writing, Le Guin explores alien ways of thinking and, in doing so, highlights humankind's faults and difficulty with empathy.

Pageant Question 16: Tell us about a book you’ve read that has influenced your life, and why?

Jamie's toes had gone numb from the cold and her knees would have bruises from  scuttling around the Circle of Power she had drawn on the stone slab floor in her workroom, but she couldn't stop until the Summoning was finished.  She had worked for months leading up to this moment, and her discomfort was nothing compared to the agony Falk must have suffered all this time.  Jamie used her fear for her mentor's life as motivation to learn the most complicated and dangerous spell she had ever attempted.  If it went wrong, the best possible scenario was sending herself into one of the various hells that could open within the Circle.  The second best possible scenario was sending only half her body and bleeding to death.  The other scenarios were worse.


Because I was inspired to think about which books have influenced me, I include here for you a partial list, from earliest read to most recent, and I heartily recommend them all:

On Beyond Zebra, Dr. Seuss
The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, Dr. Seuss
The House with a Clock in Its Walls, John Bellairs
The Haunting of Cassie Palmer, Vivien Alcock
I Will Make You Disappear, Carol Beach York
The Silent Tower and The Silicon Mage, Barbara Hambly
The Talisman, Stephen King
The Dark Tower series, Stephen King
It's Always Something, Gilda Radner
Cruel Shoes, Steve Martin
The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
Ready Player One, Ernest Cline

250

It depresses me that libraries now rent more movies and computer time than books.  The library in my neighborhood used to be decent, in a 1960s sort of way, but now it's rundown and misused.  Shelf space for books has been radically reduced because, of course, you need room for more computers.  Patrons enter and head straight for the DVDs.  The building has become dingy.  The part of town in which I live used to be nice, but now nearly every other house has been torn down and the empty spots are filled with tires and weeds.  There are many empty commercial buildings, one right next to the library, even, and the businesses that have opened seem only to be three options: fashion, cell phone, and hairdresser.  Sad.  No used bookstore.  No comic store.  No toy shop.  No movie theater.  Not even a junk shop--and, no, pawn brokers don't count.

245

The library was one of the area's oldest and patrons constantly complained about the cramped quarters and librarians constantly complained about the limited technology.  To Shaney, it was an infinite maze of new discovery.  She had favorite spots for quiet reading, secret spots where she found naughty books, and an idea that if she looked in the right place, she would find a hidden room.

Most days in the Henroy Library, patrons could be found on the three computers or browsing the DVD collection.  Only Shaney would be found reading, if you could find her in the stacks.

242

The trailer was hot, which made the carpet smell and the trash smell and the bathroom reek.  Sheila stepped inside only long enough to fill a tumbler with iced tea and go back out to the lawn chair overlooking the low rolling desert towards the hills.  The paperback romance she had been reading lay splayed open under the metal and nylon chair, but Sheila didn't reach for it.  She watched the clouds move slowly across the blue sky before she watched the sun lower itself to the hills before disappearing in a brilliant red display of light.  She watched the stars come out and she shivered as the cool night stole away the heat of the day.

226

Janey idly scratched nits from her scalp as she angled the newspaper scrap into the light from the window.  The paper had torn in two when she tried to wrest it away from Bald Bill.  He had only wanted it for warmth, but she wanted it to read.  Janey knew she had to stay in practice if she wanted to keep the skill.  She hadn't thought she missed reading, but once she found the old paperback last year, she couldn't stop herself from wanting more and more.