Just like most of our visitors and writers, I couldn’t even begin to count the number of books I’ve read. My first real favourite was Heidi, which I read over and over and from that point on I never stopped reading. I’ve read some brilliant works, and I have read some dross. I have this thing where I’ve started, so I’ll finish, but I am slowly weaning myself out of that mindset. There are only so many years in a life after all and too many good books.
Some stay with me for a while, some of them I couldn’t tell you the day after I finished what they were about. However, one book that I read fifty years ago now and still sticks with me is a surprise to me. I don’t particularly like historical fiction and I can’t even remember why I picked this up in the library. It’s a bit of a chunkster for a start. Anyway, I’ll stop waffling on and tell you. It’s The Physician by Noah Gordon. It was a prize winner, and they have made a film of it and so I’m far from being the only fan.
The story is set in the eleventh century and follows Robert Cole, an orphan from England to Ispahan in Persia to study medicine and ultimately back again. It is the first book of a trilogy. The story is fascinating in many, many ways But, the thing that sticks in my mind is the race that takes part well into the narrative. It is the first time that I can remember crying over a book and I was in floods of tears. Bawling my eyes out, not because it’s sad quite the reverse, it is about triumph, but the energy and passion that the author has injected into the prose is simply stunning in my opinion.
A big book to get lost in.
literally stories 
Diane
How right you are. Too many great books to read, but that is a great thing. Pity is there’s all that other junk in the way. Still, it is fantastic when a book remains magic for a lifetime.
Great selection!
Leila
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thanks Leila. I still see myself in our house in Ormskirk crying with emotion at it. shame it doesn’t happen more often but what a wonderful thing to be able to write something like that.
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Thanks for calling this to our attention, Diane. Crying over triumph is a powerful emotion. All authors would love to achieve that with their writing. You mentioned Heidi as one of your first favorites. Mine was Pippi Longstocking. What a girl she was!
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Thanks for the recommendation, Diane. Book recommendations always get a welcome from me, because I’m a very untidy reader. I admire your determination to read to the end, no matter how dire. Afraid I’m normally reading about 3 books at the same time (one in bed, one at leisure, and one in waiting rooms – drs’, dentists’, etc.), with the result that I end up gravitating to just one and discarding the others half-read.
My early favourites were the William books, discovered by accident: picked up one in the library called ‘William, the Conqueror’, thinking it was about battles, etc, but it turned out to be wonderfully funny.
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Ha. I’ve never been able to run more than one at once. Now and then I have duty reads that have to be read quickly but I have to shelve anything else completely until that’s done.
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Mick –
Upstairs bedside, car for when I’m not driving, and Lazeeboy side.
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Ah, the book in the glove compartment! Yes, I had that too – balm for the soul in motorway snarl-ups on the commute to work. Forgot to take it (collection of Borges stories) out of the glove compartment when I sold the car. Must find a sub.
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I mostly read genre sci fi earlier, turning to crime (so to speak) later. Classics – PD James, Hammett, Highsmith, Thompson, MacDonald.
Of literary stories, might go with Last Temptation Of Christ. Lost track of my college age writers.
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I am perhaps unusual (read: ‘anally retentive’) in that I do know how many books I’ve read in my life – I’ve charted them on Goodreads and pretty sure I’ve added everything I’ve read. This is helped by a growing up in a bookless childhood home which meant I didn’t read a single book from cover to cover of my own volition until I was an adult. I know that’s odd to many people and I often regret I didn’t become an avid reader until adulthood.
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that’s interesting. Does this mean then that you never read children’s books – Peter Pan, the Water Babies (now terribly disapproved of), Gullivers Adventures? I wonder if they would entertain you as an adult. I think Guliver might but I guess that’s terribly old fashioned now. My dad read to us at bedtime when his work shifts allowed and he and my gran devoured books so though there was no money there were libraries. I am really impressed that you lnow how many books you’ve read.
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I have read Gulliver’s Travels as an adult. I also had to read some books as part of schoolwork, such as Watership Down (which is probably the one I enjoyed most), but in terms of reading for my own pleasure and not part of being something I had to do, I would say I was around 22 or 23 years old when I really began to read.
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And, sorry, as I didn’t answer your question, but yes a lot of children’s books, including classics, are simply not part of my past and I haven’t thought to read them as an adult to be honest.
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I’m guessing that not many children’s classics would be read with pleasure for the first time as an adult. If you read ’em as a child, your re-reading would be coloured by your earlier fondness. I’m guessing that the William books would still be funny because they are periodically narrated on the radio in the UK. I also had an enduring secret fondness for Winnie the Pooh, til I heard the now-very-elderly Christopher Robin bellyaching about it.
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Hi Diane,
I have always tried to read a book that I’d started all the way through but two got me and I gave up.
In my opinion ‘The Tommyknockers’ was awful and I think it was ‘Black Dog’ that bored me senseless.
I don’t think that I’ve ever read anything that made me cry, maybe ‘The Exorcist’ when poor Captain Howdy was banished!
I always enjoy reading these reviews. I’d love to say that I would get around to them all, but I don’t think that will happen.
Hugh
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