Books!

I saw this meme on Brigita's blog and just had to add my $0.02. I have always been an avid reader, aside from a few years of college when binge drinking replaced reading as my favorite hobby. So, here goes:

A book that changed your life: Hmm.. The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston. I'm sure if I read it now, it would seem ridiculously sensationalistic, but at age 18, as a freshman biology major, it struck a chord with me and piqued my interest in infection disease and microbiology. That, and the fact that my student employment job in a Wetlands Ecology lab sucked big time, eventually caused to me drop my Environmental Sciences second major and decide that the nasty pathogens were my one true scientific love.

A book you've read more than once: Trite, I know, but I think I've read The Catcher in the Rye four times. The very first time I read it, around age 14, I loved it so much I immediately went back to the first page read it a second time. It seemed so real and refreshing, and so different from all the Judy Blume and whatnot I read as an adolescent (not that I didn't love AYTGIMM).

A book that made you laugh: Maybe I have a strange sense of humor, but Slaughterhouse Five literally (bad pun alert!) made me laugh out loud.

A book that made you cry: The Junk-Drawer Corner-Store Front-Porch Blues, by John R. Powers. It's not a well-known book at all (the author's The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice-Cream God is much better) but features one of the two saddest occurrences in literature: 1. dead sibling 2. dead dog.

A book that you wish had been written and a book you wish had never been written: I've always wished for a modern, landmark coming of age novel with a female protagonist. You know, something along the lines of Catcher in the Rye, or A Separate Peace, or The Outsiders, but starring a girl. Everyone loves Jo from Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, but you have to admit, they're a bit behind the times.
As for a book that I wish had never been written, I'll go with Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, because if the book were never written, the wretched movie would never have been made, and I would never have had to suffer through it.

Books you're currently reading: No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain't Never Coming Home Again. It's fantastic. I'll write a review when I finish it.

A book you've been meaning to read: The Count of Monte Cristo. Has it ever happened to you that all of the sudden, the same thing keeps popping up all over the place? For example, I had never heard of Kawasaki Disease, until last Friday, when a classmate of mine told me that she wrote her grad school personal statement on it because she had it as a child. The next day, I was at a cookout and another friend of mine mentioned that she and her brother both had Kawasaki disease as children and were the examples in some medical textbook. Anyways, The Count of Monte Cristo has randomly come up in conversation several times over the past few months, and I keep meaning to check it out.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to tag someone now....maybe some fellow bloggers who enjoy reading (Tricia? RT?) will volunteer.