Yo La Tejo

Book Meme

Via Elizabeth.

1. One book that changed your life: The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros. I came to this book when I was about 21, via my oldest friend in the world, Maribel. We were going to a reading by this Cisneros person, and I think Mari bought me a copy for my birthday. I was knocked flat on my ass for two reasons--one, this book literally bore so many resemblances to my childhood in Chicago that I could have written it (if I had any talent), and two, I had just graduated from college as an English major and could not believe that Mexican-Americans or Latinos/as had published books and we had never read any of them in any of my classes. I was a women's studies minor, and not even in those classes were they teaching Cisneros (this was 1987-1991). Things have changed since then, but this book is primarily the reason I decided to come back to school, so that I could teach this kind of literature.

2. One book that you've read more than once: Gone With the Wind. Every time I open to that first page, I'm a goner.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: I'm tempted to answer with a knitting book, but then you'd need yarn, and who wants to knit with all that sand around? I'm going to say one good anthology of American or world literature. Maybe the Norton, maybe the Harper's.

4. One book that made you laugh: Bridget Jones's Diary. A friend loaned me this book when we went to Grand Cayman together, and it hadn't been published in the States yet. I remember standing in the customs line at the airport, reading the fire house scene, and laughing like a crazy woman.

5. One book that made you cry: I don't cry easily, either with books or at movies. I scoured my bookshelves and decided that yes, I must have cried at the end of Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier.

6. One book you wish had been written: Never Marry Your High School Boyfriend: You're Not as Mature as You Think You Are.

7. One book you wish had never been written: Ooh, this may have to be a toss-up between The Rules and Anne Coulter's new book. Both evil, in different ways.

8. One book you're currently reading: Well, I just finished my for fun book, Snapshots by William Norris. Now I'm splitting my time between Mexican Ballads, Chicano Poems by Jose Limon, Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser and Writing Chicago by Carla Cappetti.

9. One book you've been meaning to read: Goodness gracious, there's so many. How about The Devil's Highway, by Luis Urrea.

10. Six people to tag: Laura, Kodachrome Knits, Claire, Marisa, Jennifer, Joseph.

posted by Olga @ 11:09 AM