On Day Seven

Happy "Hump Day" boys and girls. Whenever I hear that term, I don't think of getting over the hump of the week, I think of... well, you know. That's just because my mind is in the gutter most of the time.

Here I am, a week deep into my blog challenge and I feel like having to write every day is actually helping me with my novel. For instance, I work on this blog, and then I feel guilty for not working on the novel, so then I work on it. See, I should do a blog challenge every month.

Books have had a huge impact on me for as long as I can remember. I've always loved to read. This may have been because my brother is nine years older than me and hated me when I was a kid (I can't blame him) and I was a shy little nerd who only had a few friends, so I had some time on my hands if you know what I'm sayin'. I had stacks and stacks of books and I burned through them so quickly, I often times had to re-read them just to be entertained. (Come to think of it, not much has changed since my childhood.) I'd beg my mom for money for the book fair at school so I could get the latest R.L. Stine Goosebumps book, or we'd troll garage sales and I'd find some kid friendly paperback for twenty five or fifty cents and pick it up.

I read my first Stephen King book before I was a teenager and I've been hooked ever since. As I got into high school, I had to experiment with different authors, Shakespeare, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Orwell, Dickens, etc. I found that I wasn't solely stuck on loving just one author. 

As I've gotten older and had to fund my own book collection, I've gotten somewhat choosy with what appears on my shelf. There is a boatload of King, all the Palahniuk books, all the Lindsay books, as well as the classics, and some other authors that I've discovered along the way whose story telling I greatly enjoy.

I'll be candid with you for a moment. Despite everything I've read, and having a few favorite authors, my favorite book of all time is "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens. It's an amazing story, and I'd like to think I can completely relate to it, but that's totally untrue. Nevertheless, I love it.

What are some of your favorite books?