It has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon...

[callmemadam]

There's a thread running on a mailing list I'm on: 'Where did you first read that book'? I was reminded of one book in particular by Private Eye's Literary Review of Garrison Keillor's new book, Liberty. They hate it, of course; they only review in order to be nasty. The anonymous reviewer should at least acknowledge that the first book in the series has something going for it.

I was in Orlando, Florida, in bed in a swish hotel. I knew nothing about the book, the same edition shown here; American with '#1 National Bestseller' on the cover. A few pages in I got to, 'it would make a good picture, if you had the right lens, which no one in this town has got.' I laughed out loud and was converted. The same thing happened with the first Adrian Mole book, which I also started in complete ignorance. I shrieked when the dog came back from the vet's after having a pirate extracted from its paw (you have to have read the book) and there began another love affair. That would have been Christmas 1982, on the sofa. I still re-read Lake Wobegon Days and my current bed book is The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole .

Any books linked forever with the place you first read them?

Comments

[sloopjonb.livejournal.com]

Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair is forever associated in my mind with Crete. Not because I read it there. I was supposed to; it was part of a cache of carefully selected holiday reading ... which I then forgot to pack. Panic buying in the Waterstones at Manchester Airport followed. Suffice it to say that all I bought remained in Crete, some of them embedded in a wall, mettyforically speaking. I often wonder if the reason I like Jasper's stuff so much is because it was such a relief to get home and read something decent ...

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Stuck abroad with nothing decent to read! Panic-inducing.

[lurpak.livejournal.com]

I will always associate reading Testament of Youth with a beach holiday in the Canary Islands; I don't think I could have picked a less fitting holiday read.

When I was sixteen I stayed with my aunt in Copenhagen for the summer, where I read lots of her books. She was an English teacher and her book collection was nothing my parents'. I remember The Grass is Singing, Lolita and Fear of Flying in particular.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

So far, all comments including mine involve holidays. I seem to have been luckier in my choice!

[lurpak.livejournal.com]

yes, and I bet yours have a lot more laughs than that lot :-)

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Lots of holiday ones: Henrietta's War in the Auvergne, The Venetian Affair in the Jura, Tintin in America in Cornwall.

And The Lost Continent in a corner of Russell & Bromley during the shoe sale.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

And The Lost Continent
What, all of it?

ISTR you reading Red Rackham's Treasure waiting for the flight to Orlando. A book which strangely disappeared.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I must have left it in the seat pocket. Don't worry, I have another copy now!

[lethe1]

One holiday book for me, but under dire circumstances:

I'm the King of the Castle by Susan Hill, in an overcrowded train from Amsterdam to Lisbon. We had no seats, so we had to lie on the floor near a filthy, smelly toilet. But the book was very bleak too, so it was fitting. (It may actually have been my second reading of it, I'm not sure.)

Two books during an illness:

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons and Lord of the Flies by William Golding. I had what the doctor called a 'red throat'. It sounded innocent enough, but it hurt so bad that I literally could not sleep for two weeks. When I caught sight of myself in a mirror I didn't even recognise myself, my eyes had all but disappeared and the area around them was black. I should have let my mum take a pic.
Again, fitting books for the circumstances (except that CCF was funny, of course).

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Red Throat sounds vile! Cold Comfort Farm is definitely a comfort read; I've always loved it.

[ramblingfancy.livejournal.com]

A holiday book for me too - I was 11 when we went to Majorca and read my first Agatha Christie, A Caribbean Mystery. I loved and had saved the last few chapters for the plane. I was so upset when I realised I had managed to leave it behind in the hotel and consequently had nothing to read for the flight home! Started a lifelong long of AC and a horror of not having "something to read" in my handbag!

Love Lake Wobegan Days, but I associate them with Sundays in the States tuning in on the radio rather than the books. When I do read them I can hear his voice throughout though which is nice. Adrian Mole - love them :)

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I think Lake Wobegon was on the radio here before I read the book, as was Adrian Mole. I 'hear' the Wobegon books, too! Are you listening to The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society at the mo? I missed last night's episode but I've liked it so far.

[ramblingfancy.livejournal.com]

I am listening and really enjoying it also. I missed last night's too - thank heavens for listen again!