Box of Books Series - Debbie Haupt

Box of Books

 The Guest Post Series

Debbie Haupt

The Reading Frenzy

I'm a reading fanatic of all fiction genres and sub-genres and enjoy some non-fiction as well. I love interviewing authors and sponsoring giveaways on my blog The Reading Frenzy-http://thereadingfrenzy.blogspot.com/ you will find many ways to contact me on my blog  and often post daily there.

I'm an editorial reviewer for both LibraryJournal and RT Magazine.

I formed the General Fiction Expats forum here on Goodreads to give my friends from the now defunct B&N forum a place to land-https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/133771

I  am a staunch library advocate who volunteers at my local branch.

My Box of Books

My dear friend Karen Laird put this question before us way back when the Barnes & Noble General Fiction forum was alive and well and we all had a lot of fun with it and I have to admit that maybe one or two of my choices have changed.

RELIGION:

I’ll start with the most important text, the one of my ancestors- The Tanach- The Hebrew Bible. 

Scholars are still arguing about when these texts were finalized. Some say during the Hasmonean dynasty 140 BC, some say it was much later. But it is something that is to be treasured.

CLASSICS:

Now on to the classics-

I’ll start with the oldest – The Iliad which began it’s history as a Greek epic poem by Homer set during the Trojan War. The characters are human and Gods and all fantastical.   I first read this as a required project during high school and I hated it. But once more a few years ago and I was blown away by the content and the realization that it was written so long ago.

The next is my all time favorite classic - Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte’s only published novel from 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, she died the next year at age 30. After her death her sister Charlotte edited and republished it attributing it to Emily in 1850. It came out to mixed reviews because of it’s mental and physical cruelty. A tragic love story that really spoke to my heart the first time I read it and all the other times too.

My third and last classic is by my all time favorite classic author, Ernest Hemingway - For Whom The Bell Tolls published in 1940 about an American Robert Jordan during the Spanish Civil War. It’s regarded as one of Papa Hemingway’s best.

CONTEMPORARY FICTION:

Now we go on to my main course of contemporary fiction.

First is probably the best book I’ve ever read – Overseas by Beatriz Williams. It was her debut novel about a British WWI Captain and a modern Wall Street Analyst. Yes there is time travel involved but this is NOT a fantasy. It’s a beautiful love story about the endlessness and timelessness of love. I loved it so much I chose it for both my on-line and in-person book clubs. Click HERE for the review

My favorite by one of my favorite romance author Kristan Higgins – My One And Only.

I laughed and I cried and I couldn’t put it down. It’s my favorite kind of love story, a second chance love story. It stars an ex married couple Harper and Nick. Click HERE for my review.

Next is a novel about friendship by another favorite author and friend, Lisa Verge Higgins- The Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship. This novel was also chosen for both in-person and on-line clubs. This was Lisa’s first mainstream novel and I’ve enjoyed each one since. It’s poignant, it’s tragic, it’s unforgettable. It’s the story of four very different women who were the best of friends. Click HERE for my review

The next is also by a favorite women’s fiction author Marilyn Brant- A Summer in Europe which was also chosen for our book club read. This story still brings a smile to my face. It’s a coming of age a little late story about 30 year old Gwen Reese and her trip to Europe with her aunt and her aunt’s cronies. It’s also a love story. I loved this and all of Marilyn’s novels. HERE is my review

CONTEMPORARY SCI-FI / FANTASY

The next section is my sci-fi/fantasy faves.

Number one is By British hard fantasy author extraordinaire Mark Lawrence – The Prince of Thorns is his first novel in his Broken Empire saga- it stars an very un-hero like hero Jorg Ancrath who at a very young age witnessed a horror that would change and shape his life, the murder of his mother and his brother. Click HERE for my review in RT magazine.

The next is the final novel in Alma Katsu’s Taker Trilogy- The Descent it’s a very adult fairytale starring some very narcissistic characters who it takes centuries to learn the right from wrong and they unfortunately leave a string of tragedies along the way. Alma is a former employee of the CIA and yep she’d have to kill you if she told you what she did there. Click HERE to enjoy my interview with her and my review of The Descent.

Next is the First of Justin Cronin’s trilogy The Passage- Wow, just wow. I’m excitedly waiting for the third and final installment to see how or if he saves the world. For those of you who live under a rock and have never read The Passage it’s an pre-present-post apocalyptic saga of a Government experiment using prison inmates gone very, very wrong. Click HERE for my review of The Passage- and HERE for my RT review of the second novel in the trilogy The Twelve.

Next is an amazing first in another adult fantasy/fairytale trilogy staring another debut author Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches is the first of her All Souls trilogy, 

it’s an epic tale that spans centuries also but by the way of time travel. It’s the unlikely love story between historian and witch Diana Bishop and Professor of genetics Matthew Clairmont who’s a vampire. Yeah don’t go all poo-poo this is not your average Vampire tale it’s literary fiction at it’s finest. Click HERE for my review of A Discovery of Witches and HERE for my review of Shadow of Night and HERE for the third in the trilogy The Book of Life

Next – is a novel that I waited impatiently for Karen Marie Moning’s 5^th and we thought last in her Fever Series but it’s lived on. This is Ms. Moning’s greatest accomplishment and I’ve been a fan for years. Shadowfever is the culmination of MacKayla (Mac) Lane and Jericho Barrons epic to retrieve the elusive, destructive, deadly Sinsar Dubh a tomb of the greatest importance. Click HERE to see my review

Next is The Winter Witch by Paula Brackston. This is another fantasy set in the wilds of Wales in the 1830s and yet another book club choice. I found Paula quite by accident when the B&N General fiction club was active and I loved her prose, her settings and her characters. The Winter Witch is a story about a strange girl named Morgana Pritchard who is taken from her home and married off to Cai Jenkins by her mother. I think this is a read enjoyed by many genre lovers, literary, fantasy, romance. Click HERE for my review

Last by never least is The First in a YA Sci-Fi Trilogy that I had the great pleasure to review for RT magazine. Midnight City is set after an alien invasion of earth where all the adults have disappeared and the planet is now run by the children. It’s inventive, it’s exciting, its terrifying and it’s wonderful. Click HERE for my review courtesy RT magazine.

Well there you have it. I can’t wait to see what others have chosen and I’m sure if I’m asked again this list will once again change.My Box of Books

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I want to thank Debbie Haupt for taking the time and effort to share her list of books that would go into her Box of Books with us today.  With the many, many novels that go across her desk and that she has read as a book reviewer, blogger, and host of many many book club reads at Barns & Nobles and now Goodreads, I know the selection had to be hard.  As always, after reading a blog by Debbie, I am walking away with new books to add to my list of books to read.

If you would like to participate in the Box of Book Series, contact Karen Laird @ ShadeTreeBlogging@gmail.com .

BOX OF BOOKS SERIES - 2

A Box of Books

Original Blog

Recently, I posted a blog called A Box of Books. After digging through my computer files and going back to Barns and Nobles old site, I discovered that my precious list is long gone, so I, like you have had to rebuild my list from scratch.  

What I have found is that a box of books says a world about the owner.  It is a testament to who they are, what they believe, their loves, their passions, their dreams, and who they would like to be.

Welcome to me.

n  The Holy Bible  -

NASB (preferred version) This would be the first book of choice and the last book placed in my box.  This book has been the center of my faith and of who I am since my youth.  It has been my source of strength and of solace. I have had a blast with it, too.  Itis a book that has it all… children’s stories about hero’s, giants and stories of love.  It is full of love, lust, stories of infidelity, incest, rape, pillage, back-stabbing, thieves, and just about everything horrid you could think of about man, but it is also a story of redemption.  As my daughter has spent the last eleven years studying the history and ancient languages from the very beginning of recorded time before even Hebrew was a language, we have come to have even more enjoyment and fun with the discoveries she has made in her studies as to compare with what we have always understood and read.  In truth, it is a book without a beginning and without an end.  

n  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte –

I discovered Jane when I was in junior high or high school.  With my first reading, I fell in love with her character and her longing to be loved.  She has been a constant companion and for many years was a book I read at least once a year.  It was the repeated reading of Jane Eyre where I learned that you never read the same book, even though you pick up and read the same pages time and again.  Every time I have read Jane, I have found a new subtly or found myself looking at the story from a new perspective, thus giving the old story a new coat of polish to enjoy the story anew.  I have even managed to gather together a complete collection of variations of the movie, back to the 1930;s edition.  

n  Bound Book of Family Recipes and Basic Cooking -  

This collection would be a self -published bound book of all the recipes from all the sources I have used, and the family has loved, through the years.  It would contain information on canning, dehydration, basic gardening, herbs, medicinal herbs, cooking and baking substitutions, a list of what is necessary to operate a good basic kitchen, a basic pantry list, how to FIFO a pantry, and anything else that I can locate that would be of value for a remote self-sufficient kitchen..

n  The ABCs of Knitting and Crochet – 

This volume has the basics to make most anything.  Once you master the basic skills, your imagination is the limit.  There are many “ABC” books, the one I choose would be comprehensive in nature and not a beginner’s book, but one that focused on the comprehensive skills needed to make the many items you can make, such as clothing, blankets, rugs, lace curtains, etc. 

n  An Anthology of Great Poetry –

From selection from Homer to Kubla Kahn and Shakespeare, a collection of the World’s Greatest Verse.  Nothing soothes the soul like a fire in the hearth, a glass of wine and a book of verse to keep you company for the evening. I love the measured cadence and rise and fall of a well read poem.  It calls to the soul and draws the hearts spirit out to enjoy an evening of relaxation, to lift the spirit from the drudgery of the daily grind to give us eyes to a nether world of sound and delight brought about by the magic of the spinning of words across a page and the mixing of denotation and connotation to bring one to a higher plane of thought – or simply put, there’s more there than what is printed on the paper. 

n  The Lord of the Rings  by J.R.R. Tolkien –

A story that never grows old from the reading, or telling.  One that is ageless for the young and the old. 

n  The Divine Comedy  by Dante  -

I love what Dante did with his descriptions of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven is masterful.  I first read “Hell” when I was in high school, as required reading.  I was mesmerized.  He taught me about what it meant for punishment to fit the crime.  I well remember the spirited arguments we had about multiple acts of sin and where would one go.  We gave our poor teacher “hell”, pardon the pun.  Swallowed by life, I have never completed the entire work, so The Divine Comedy would definitely come along because I still want to finish the work and read it again and again… then would start the evening discussions with my dear husband.

J.

n  Black/Red/ White/Green by Ted Dekker –

 The adult version of The Chronicles of Narnia.  But this Sci-fi fantasy thriller goes into the future instead of falling into the past.  I could not wait for each of the next in the series to come out.  The set is a complete circle.  No matter which book you pick up, it flows to the next book, logically and fluidly: black to red to white to green to black.   

  

n  The Illiad and the Odysses by Homer –

n  – What is it they say?  Legends are based on fact, muddied by time.  Ah, so how do we look at the reading of Homer’s great works?  They are wonderful, but I will say they are nothing until you have seen them performed in the true Greek style (the round).  It is an unforgettable experience and brings a new appreciation of the plays.  My children and I had the privilege of seeing the first Act of the Illiad by Homer, performed by the London Shakespeare Troupe who was touring the U.S. back in the mid 90s.  I had to drag them to the play with brides of pizza afterwards, but once it started, they were mesmerized and did not move till it was over.  Then they were devastated that they were not doing Act II.

Yes, once exposed to an excellent rendition of a phenomenal literary classic, a door to the heart and mind are forever open.  It worked!.

Yes, once exposed to an excellent rendition of a phenomenal literary classic, a door to the heart and mind are forever open.  It worked!

n  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen –

Need I say more?  This is the quintessential of the Austen books.  It was actually a hard choice between this and Persuasion.  My personal leaning is Persuasion, but I feel this is the lighter of the two.  There is more humor in P&P than in Persuasion.  For the long term of reading and re-reading, I feel that more enjoyment would be forthcoming from P&P.

n  Wish You Well by David Baldacci –

n  Wish You Well is not your typical Baldacci novel.  In fact, it was a 180 from his normal fair, at the time he wrote it.  I first read it in 2000 and picked up the 20 plus hour audio for a long trip to the east coast.  We all laughed, cried and silently listened as the story unfolded about the two young children and their great grandmother in the mountains of Virginia in the 1930s.  It was so well enjoyed, that by unanimous vote, it was listened to a second time on the way back home.    Wish you well is a story of family, of love, and of hope.  It is great for reading aloud, as well as for the reading again and again and again.  

n  Ann of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery –

n  I have my great, great, great Aunt’s copy of Anne of Green Gables.  Who knows if this is one of her books that came out in the box, or if she ordered it through the general store for my great, great Aunt Jen.  I can still remember Aunt Jen reading Ann to me when I was five and six years old.  My daughter grew-up with Ann of Green Gables.  Later, when I had a friend in the final stages of brain cancer, I would go over to his house and read to him from the book, using the voices of Ann Shirley of the PBS series.  He loved it.  (I heard later that he informed his wife that she had to do it the same way. LOL) Ann is someone I can never tire of.  She is still who I curl up with when I am sick in bed with a bad cold.

n  The Princess Bride by William Goldman –

n  We all have seen the movie.  Yes it has been 30 years now.  My children grew up with the movie and the book, which was one of our first “big” read-every-night family stories. Once again, having seen the movie multiple times, the voices were imperative.  This is one book that the movie followed implicitly.  It is written in three voices: the third person, the author, and the author’s aside.  If you thought the movie was funny… I have never tired of this novel, and love the 30^th Anniversary Edition that I recently picked up with it’s added chapters that brought on more Goldman hilarity.  

 n  Socrates and Sozomene Ts Ecclesiastical Histories 

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series II: Vol. 2: Socrates Scholasticus and Sozomen: Ecclesiastical Histories This has always been a time period of personal interest that both my husband and I have loved to dig into as we have come across works that have become more readily available in the recent years.  It is a discussion of religion vs. power and politics. Greed vs. piety. What happened between 35 A.D. and Martin Luther?  When and where did the focus of religion and worship change?  We love to read, debate, and read some more.  It is not a matter of faith for us. It is a matter of history and the morality of man, past and present.  

n  History from the Dawn of Civilization  

or an equivalent text.  There is always discussion at our house around the kitchen table.  When did that happen?  Where did that happen?  Who was?  Etc.  What I want to take is a comprehensive (as compact as possible) tomb with the most bang for my buck.  

The first time I put this list together, I went through and selected 15 novels.  That was hard enough.  How many volumes of books had I read and re-read over the years.  How many books sat on the shelf, with dog eared pages from the turning of the leaves? 

Then after the Barns and Noble weeks long discussion, I realized, that if I could only take fifteen books, that I had need for more reading than just my pleasure.  I needed to think about potential day-to-day needs.  Remember, we were going to a remote location with limited outside contact.  Out came a couple of books and in went a cookbook and a needlework book. 

Then after some more thought, I realized that literature was not my only pursuit of extensive reading that I did… Look around at my shelves.  They were lined with reference material for music, history, religion, culinary arts, fiber arts, counseling, and the subjects went on.  My box was not big enough. 

Out came a couple more books and in went a comprehensive book on history, and ancient history.  Both of these subjects were sure to be pored over again and again, with many evenings of discussion and arguments.  If it had been my husband’s box, he would have tossed Anne of Green Gables and replaced it with a book on gardening or or food sources in remote areas (hunting, fishing, etc).  Over all, I think the books would have served us well.

As to my ancestral box of books, they are packed away, so an exact listing is not available, but I do remember:

The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge

Mc Beth by William Shakespeare

A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens

The Little Colonel by A.F. Johnston

The Secret Garden by F.H. Burnett

 The Man With Out a Country by E.E. Hale

A Primer for Spelling

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery

I apologize that I cannot remember the remainder of the titles. They were all small books with almost microscopic print. Most were less than a quarter to half inch thick and measured about four by six inches in size.  Her box must have been very small, but she had to pack very compactly.

Having presented my list of books, I now invite you, to present your list of books, as a comment, or as a guest blog.  We would all be interested.  Comments are encouraged.  As I discovered last time, after great discussion, my choices for my box changed.

Karen

Future Guests looking forward to sharing their thoughts on their BOX OF BOOKS

my list includes Bill, Debbie, L.Z., Victor,

Would you like to post your list and share your thoughts about why these books are important?  Drop me a line @ shadetreeblogging@gmail.com  I would love to set you up for a guest blog for our continuing series A BOX OF BOOKS.