Wednesday is library day....

Books, books, books, books, books, books, books....... yes, I love books. My mother worked at a library, so, I blame her. In a loving, cutesy way of course. I have read a loot of books in my day, mostly ones targeted at kids and young adults. What can i say, I'm young. I have a kind of odd relationship to books though, as most of my dearest book memories are those i didn't read myself, but listened to. Audio books I've always listened to, and that made my book choices a bit odd when i was a kid. My mother used to play her books on the living room stereo, so here are my favorite Audio books when i was 5-12, in the order i heard them:  The Swedish crime series about Martin Beck, Mio in the Land of Far away by Astrid Lindgren, Lord of the Flies, some books about Inspector Morse, Edgar Allan Poe's most famous, Winnie the Pooh, The Chronicles of Narnia, the sweet little kid books about Eddie (by one of the more known Swedish authors), Mina drömmars stad (famous book about Stockholm and its history), Utvandrarna + Invandrarna, Shakespeare "12th night" and..... of course all the other books by Astrid Lindgren. Hey, I was a kid! All kids in Sweden read Astrid Lindgren! Eclectic? For sure. I still love reading Audio Books. (And YES! People do READ audio books. Only people who can read with their eyes listens to audio books. My father was blind, so in my family we READ audio books.) I cant really explain the appeal of reading an audio book, i think it has to do with who is reading. Both the actual person you listen to and who you are as a listener/reader. For example there is an old time reader of audio books here, which you seem to either love or hate. No middle ground at all for that poor soul. Well, I sure love him, and that I say, loud and proud. Without naming names..... One Sweden can't seem to hate to listen too, however, is Astrid Lindgren. She read just about all her children's books as audio books. That's good. Too bad she died, dead people don't write books, but the old woman was like 90 for heavens sake. I think she was even older still. So may she rest in peace.

There is this debate in Sweden, not unlike the debate about kids and video games, and that's the debate about kids and books. Now, I know I was kind of extreme when I was a kid and read a lot of stuff kids don't and shouldn't read. When reading actual, written books (a.k.a not audio books) I was just as wierd as with the audio books. I read Lord of the Rings when i was 7, and Utvandrareposet (big 4-parter about Karl-Oscar and Kristina moving from Sweden to the US in the 1800s, that in the 1990s even became a musical) when i was 9. So, yeah, I shouldn't talk, right? If I can read heavy-hitters, why cant other children? THAT'S JUST IT! why can't other children? Ok, maybe not let them read what I read, but they BARELY get to read Astrid Lindgren anymore! Ok, she has a free pass, but still. There was a debate a year or so back on TV, where one of the authors of children's books that were published before the Millennium said that if she had come with her scripts today, she would have NEVER gotten published. A publisher that was there for the debate agreed and said that IF she had come with her scripts today, ASTRID LINDGREN would never have gotten published. Why? Because of thing like Pippi Longstocking not having any parents, or the fact that there are drunk people at the auction where Emil i Lönneberga went, or the Brothers Lionheart DYING! We cant have that in children's literature! Maaaybe if they were animals they could be allowed to die.... but not people! I mean, it's reality. Children must be protected at all cost! Or not.... I think there are lessons to learn in all literature, as long as you dare touch the subject. And as with the video games: TALK TALK TALK! with the kids. When will people learn?

So, what were my favorite books when i was a kid? I have NO idea, i read to much, and I tend to read good books over and over and over, so I don't really know when i read some books. But now, and "genre"-wise? I will tap into my bookshelves at my favorite book site. And they go like this:

Adventure: Wow... this is hard..... maybe because most of the books goes in more category than one. But going with a classic "adventure" story, I'd have to say Treasure Island. My first encounter with pirates. I love the book, I love the movie from 1990, and for some reason, I fell in love with Captain Smollett. Whose first name is Alexander, by the way, not Abraham like in the puppet movie. This has spawned a few good fanfic ideas, first one i can find writen by my own hand is in a school notebook saying 4th grade on it. I was 10! Dear me, I have been at the fanfic thing for a while. There was also a fanfic scrap about batman in that notebook, buuuut..... no, not going there.Treasure Island also spawned my first yaoi fanfic. I promise to tell the story about that one on Saturday.

Classics: Well, I read a lot of classics, I guess, and Treasure Island might as well have ended up here. But I'll go for Shakespeare's 12th night, simply because it is one of the oldest. I was leaning towards The Three Musketeers, but it's too close to Treasure Island. Why is it The Three Musketeers always seem pirate-y to people? Anywho, the 12th night was my first Shakespeare play, I actually saw it on Swedish public service before reading it, and I fell in love... humor, gender-confusion, hot guys in tights, some of the Swedish acting elite of the day (this was, maybe, mid 90s)...... what's not to like. This never spawned any real fanfic efforts, but I did steal the name of the main character for one of my heavier yaois. (Heavy in more than one way.)

Comics: Yes, I think comics is reading. Just as Manga is reading. A lot of kids learn to read by reading comics. So don't put shame on them. Uncle Scrooge! Actually, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, by Don Rosa. I've always loved Uncle Scrooge, he is so greedy and sinister and... well, greedy. He could almost be a bad guy. Which makes him an exceptional good guy. It's a problem a lot of books and movies, especially movies, have. The good guys are less interesting than the bad guys. You care more for them. But not this time! Uncle Scrooge is the greatest duck on earth. The Ducks of Duckburg never spawned any fan fiction. And no yaoi. That would just be weird.


Crime/Mystery/Murder: But mostly Crime and Murder. This is one of those genres I have a problem with knowing how to categorize. Mystery doesn't really fit in here, but then, almost all crime and murder novels are mysteries. My favorite? The series about Martin Beck by Sjööwall&Wahlöö. Especially the last one, Terroristerna. Maybe this is all nostalgia on my part, growing up with them in the speakers at home, but to me, this is as close to perfection you come in a murder mystery cop series. So there! In my younger days, this did spawn some fan fiction but not much, and I don't think any of it survived.



Fantasy: This one is easy: Lord of the Rings. Oh, Frodo... you have been my constant companion since i was 7. I swear, honest to a god i don't even believe in, I NEVER put this one down. I come to the end of the appendices and I swear, I just flip right back to the first page. First page of The Hobbit, that is, cause I think you should read that first. I do on occasion read the Silmarillion, Book of Lost Tales, Unfinished tales, Children of Hurin and Tales from a perilous Realm as well. About once a year. This has spawned A LOT of fanfic from me, and even yaoi. And NO, not about Sam and Frodo. Not even about the rest of the fellowship. No, one of my favourite yaoi stories is about a character that is in like 2 pages of the Fellowship, and has like 3 lines. Oh, and Elronds little brother. Not Elros, though. One that I made up. That's fan fiction for you, making up characters that don't exist in the original. My first Fan fiction, thought was not yaoi, but feminist. I cast myself, at age 9, as the leading lady, that actually went with the fellowship on their journey. Back then, I thought there were not enough women in this book series. Now.... I think there are to many. (Yaoi fangirl mode activated.)

Girls books: Why are there girls books and no boys books? Or is it that all books are for boy because girls shouldn't read, so when a book for girls pop up you have to point it out? Or is it the other way around, boys shouldn't read girls books? Anywho, I guess this is the category for books like Nancy Drew and the Sweet Valley twins. So I choose Anne of Green Gables. I and Anne have a lot in common. We're both girls, we're both redheads, (at least i was a redhead when i was younger), we're both dreamers. She talks more than i do of course. I'm kind of a quiet girl. And i never got in trouble the way she did. Anne in some ways was like my brave, stand-up alter ego when I was a kid. I dreamed and wished I could be like her.


History: Not classics, but set in times past. I think my own arbitrary rule for a book to qualify as history in my head is that it has to take place before the 1950s. And I'm going for Havets djup, a book series about two Jewish sisters from Vienna who come to Sweden during the second world war. The real focus is the older girl, who sees her younger sister loose the connection to Austria and their language, and becomes more and more Swedish, while she herself tries to stay true to her heritage. And will they ever see their parents again? Will they make it out of Austria? And should they move form the people who took them in in Sweden and go to relatives in America? It's a good read about the predicaments of leaving one thing behind and be confronted with another on a level older children can understand. It is a book for younger teens. And it resonates with me on a special level, because i have relatives who went through that hell and came out the other side.

Kids books: Haven't I already done that? Maybe not. Can one be from Sweden and say ones favorite kids book is not written by Astrid Lindgren? Well, i guess... So I'll just pick two, favorite Astrid Lindgren and favorite someone else.Let me just say this before i forget: I HATE PIPPI LONGSTOCKING! I cant stand her. She's so.... obnoxious. She said one good thing and one good thing only: If you're strong , you have to be kind. That's all. My favorite: I have a hard time choosing between the three most "fantastical" in the sense they are mostly fantasy. Mio, min Mio, The Brothers Lionheart and Ronja the robbers daughter. But i go with The Brothers Lionheart. It's just such a heartfelt story, full of adventure and love. The brotherly kind. It seems like you always have to point that out nowadays. What's wrong with people? And, god, there's a f*ing dragon! And, yes, please don't kill me now, but actually, this has spawned a yaoi story out of my messed up brain. This is another of my "shove-another-character-at-them-and-see-what- happens." I do that a lot. It's Jonatan who has a love interest. After growing a few inches. And years. I think the weirdest decision Astrid Lindgren ever made was making that kid a.... kid. I mean, who would entrust an entire war to a 13-year-old? I never believed it as a kid and i don't believe it now.

 



Well, it's become a really long ramble today, actually, it's already tomorrow. so I'll just have to make it a two-parter. or I will sit here for the rest of the night. So, the following categories I will write about tomorrow: Kids Books (the one that's not Astrid Lindgren's), Manga, Fairy Tales, Sci-Fi, Shounen-ai, Thrillers and yaoi. Damn, that means two blog posts tomorrow, or I will get confused.....