Book on our wood pile

Just wanted to congratulate Kim, who won a copy of the book “Roughing it in the Bush” by Susanna Moodie in last Saturday’s contest!

Kim’s favourite book:

City of Joy
by Dominique LaPierre

This novel tells the true life story of a priest who ministers to the inhabitants of a slum in India’s Kolkatta (now known as Calcutta.) An incredible read, and one that never fails to uplift my spirit and make me appreciate everything that I have in my life.

From Kim’s description, the book sounds good to me. I’ll be adding it to my list of books that I should read… Somehow my to-be-read list keeps growing and I never actually read anything… But I foresee some stage in the future where I’ll make more time for reading books.

There were many good books mentioned by all of you. A few that I had read (some of the Foxfire books, Dickens’ Great Expectations, Orwell’s 1984, lots of Agatha Christies, Anne of Green Gables books, Little House Books, some Plato, Kerouac’s On the Road, ) and many more that will be going on my list.

Thanks to Nic for mentioning Woodswoman: Living Alone in the Adirondack Wilderness. I’d never heard of the Woodswoman series of books, and they sound very intriguing! I’d love to read them.

I also really liked what Phil wrote about his favourite book:

Hmm. Many great books on peoples’ lists here. As for myself, my favorite book I have is a little pocket atlas that my sister purchased for my from the J. Peterman catalog (which means, every time I look through it, I do the “Seinfeld” voice: “Elaine…”).

I take this little book traveling with me, and use it as a communication-barrier breaker: I’ll turn to the Washington state picture and show my little town, then turn to the page of the country I’m visiting (say, the Philippines) and find their little town. Then, I might turn to some other maps of other countries I’ve visited, and share some stories. Great way to connect with people.

Other times, I’ll be traveling with a group for service trips, and we’ll often have lots of down-time (waiting for flights, rental vans, etc.). So, I’ll break out the Pocket Atlas, pass it around, and ask people to share stories of places they’ve visited. People really open up when they get to share stories about themselves, and I get to hear some great stories in the meantime.

A number of you mentioned the book Into the Wild. I haven’t read it, but I did see the movie that was based on the book; the movie was also called Into the Wild. When I saw the movie I didn’t realize that it was based on a book. If I knew that, I would have wanted to read the book first, because I think books are always better.

In book or movie form, Into the Wild is a captivating based-on-true-events story about a young adventurer named Christopher McCandless.

Christopher McCandless

From the Wikipedia article (spoiler alert!):

Christopher McCandless was an American wanderer who hiked into the Alaskan wilderness with little food and equipment, hoping to live a period of solitude. Nearly four months later, he died of starvation near Denali National Park and Preserve. In 1996, Jon Krakauer wrote a book about his life, Into the Wild, which inspired a 2007 film of the same name.

I love reading. I really should read more! Thanks for all your creative recommendations.