Today's 'Memory Monday' is going to be a little different than normal. Instead of talking about a specific memory reading a specific book, I'm going to talk about 3 authors that instantly come to mind when people talk about 'definitive reader moments'. (Okay, so I just made that name up, but I'm sure you all know what I'm actually talking about...) Some of these books will pop up later, probably in an actual review, or I might give them a more in depth 'Memory Monday', but today is less about the books, and more about the authors themselves.
When I was 12, I remember complaining to my mom that I had nothing to read and I was so bored! I think it was mostly an excuse to whine, but I was in a definite slump and nothing really caught my attention. My house has always been full of books, and so my mom took me to the bookshelves to find me something to read. Katherine Kurtz (link to GR profile) has written a series of high fantasy books set in a world she calls Deryni.
There are (I think) somewhere between 18 and 21 books now in the series, mostly grouped into trilogies. My mom cautioned me about them, letting me I might not like them, but there were a lot of them, and I just know my mom just hoped I'd like them because that many books, of which we owned them all would keep me occupied for a long time. But, alas... I did not like them. At all. Looking back, I realize, more than anything, this is probably because the books are high fantasy written for adults, and I was a 12 year old who had most recently grown bored reading R.L. Stine... It wasn't the right for me to read them, but my 12 year old brain took this to mean that all fantasy was BAD. I decided that all fantasy was boring, lame, and definitely beneath me.
So, back to mom I went. My mom, probably desperate to get me to leave her alone, because I am nothing if not persistent when I want something I think you can give me, handed me her copy of Pretend You Don't See Her by Mary Higgins Clark (GR profile). I never gave it back. That book changed my reading life. I LOVED it. I immediately went to my mom, begging for more books to read, but she didn't own any. For the next few years, that was what I read. I read every mystery she produced (I still read them, but I'm 2 behind...) and in my narrow world, mysteries were the only way to go. I read all the Kinsey Milhone ABC mysteries by Sue Grafton, tried my hand at a few Agatha Christies and devoured Joan Lowry Nixon.
Then, in 8th grade, I met a girl who made it her goal to make me understand that other genres had value too. I scoffed, but she insisted and finally bribed me into reading a book of her choice. She picked The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley (GR profile), and I was horrified. She expected ME to read fantasy?! The nerve. But, she insisted, and seeing as I had already accepted the 'bribe' I caved. Surprisingly, I loved the book. I was completely enthralled, blown away and amazed. Who knew that so much greatness could reside in one book?! I brought the book back a few days later and gave it back to her. She was mad, because she thought I had given up, until I started positively gushing about how wonderful that book was. She did the expected, I told you so, and then demanded that I read The Blue Sword, the companion novel to Hero, but I resisted. She finally convinced me to read it. I took it home, and was bored. The beginning dragged on and on, and it took me about a month to get through the first 3 chapters, which I took to mean that fantasy was definitely not for me, and Hero must have been a weird fluke. This girl finally got mad at me about it, because another of my friends was waiting for the book so she could read it. So I begrudgingly agreed to go home and try to get through another chapter. What a chore. But, I went home and picked up the book like I'd promised, expecting to work through another chapter, maybe two if I was feeling particularly masochistic. I brought the book back the next day, done. And I couldn't shut up about how great it was, and how I totally wished I could have been as cool as Harry or Aerin.
I gobbled up Robin McKinley in much the same way I inhaled Mary Higgins Clark, and I ran to this girl for book suggestions over and over. She is the one who introduced me to historical fiction and Ann Rinaldi by convincing me to read Time Enough for Drums (click title for my review). Because of my experiences with this girl, I stopped judging a genre based on a single book, and I opened my mind to new possibilities in reading.
I still haven't gone back to try reading Kurtz's Deryni books again. I'm a little afraid, and I still shy away from those epic fantasy series with books in the double digits, but I'm working up to it. I would like to revisit those books, now that I'm an adult, because I know my perception will be a lot different. My mom and dad both love them, my sister has read them all, and she really enjoyed them, and one of my really good friends began reading them after we had this conversation, and she loves them too. I do plan to read at least some of this series sometime in the future, but I still need to work up to it a little. Have any of you read them? What do you think?
Who are your favorite authors? And what are your 'definitive reading moments'?