10 Books That Stayed With You

The assignment: "List ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you."

1) White Oleander - Janet Fitch

2) Black Skin, White Masks - Frantz Fanon

3) The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

4) The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison

5) Q&A - Vikas Swarup

6) Buck - Tamela Larimer

7) Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

8) The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

9) Autobiography of Red - Anne Carson

10) What We Talk About When We Talk About Love - Raymond Carver

Wow, this was incredibly difficult and compiled very hastily.  So many titles came to me the further I went down the list, but I stuck to putting down those that came to first and are a little more significant to me in some way or the other.

"Be kind to yourself while blooming."

"I am the lover and the loved,
home and the wanderer, she who splits
firewood and she who knocks, a stranger in the storm."

                 — Adrienne Rich

It's all so deeply personal.

I am not a Book Blogger.

I blog about books, or more aptly, I love to reflect on books (and such) that I've read.  I write these from a personal place with no end goal in sight, except to share my views with fellow lovers of literature.  My book posts aren't reviews either, however, I've received a couple of requests from authors that would like for me to review their upcoming or newly-published books.

Now, I have no objection to such requests, except maybe that they mostly read impersonal and they take not into consideration the type and style of blogging I do.  So when I read my fellow blogger Charlie's article (who is a self-proclaimed book blogger) I immediately felt compelled to share the piece here, on my own site.  I do this in the hopes that future visitors interested in working with me, stumble upon this little insert and re-consider my blog, their approach and whether this is the right space for their work.

I've never considered doing book reviews for current markets.  Although, I should mention that (having thought this through) I would be delighted to work with you based on a couple of premises that can be further dealt with via email correspondence.  Also, please know, I presently do not e-read books — I love paper too dearly, reading a book from its printed paper is as honest a telling you can get of its work.  

Here's Charlie's article:

How Not To Pitch A Book Blogger (In 9 Steps) by Carnelian Valley

her quaint notebook is about celebrating words and writers, so your work could easily find some sense of home here.  Let's chat!