My Life in Books: Ruthiella and Kay

This is My Life in Books, Series Six, Day Four! Today’s bloggers are:

Ruthiella, who blogs at Booked For Life

Kay, who blogs at What Me Read

Qu. 1.) Did you grow up in a book-loving household, and did your parents read to you? Pick a favourite book from your childhood, and tell me about it. 

Ruthiella: I don’t remember either of my parents ever reading to me or my siblings. However, my mother was and is an enthusiastic reader. There were some, but not a lot of, books in the house growing up. I suspect this is more indicative of middle-class American consumer culture in the 1960s than anything else. My niece and nephew have 10 times the books I had as a child.

My mother also took us kids to the library regularly and I checked out the “Little House” series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder repeatedly. My mother has told me since that she was worried that I wouldn’t become a “reader”, but once I picked up The Little House in the Big Woods at age seven or so I began to read voraciously and her worries were allayed.  My favorite of the Little House books is probably Farmer Boy, probably because the childhood of Laura’s future husband, Almanzo, seemed so secure and comfortable compared to Laura’s. I remember reading about how Almanzo and his brother and sisters strung popcorn and cranberries to trim the Christmas tree and thinking how neat that was.

Kay: We had books in out house, but I don’t remember anyone else reading except my Dad, and I think he read mostly on the airplane on the way to business trips. I read voraciously, however, from an early age. My mother told me that when I was only a baby, she came into the room and found me in my playpen holding a book upside down and trying to read it. I have a strong memory of being a small child and wondering what those mysterious symbols were and what they would tell me. I know that I was read to sporadically as a child. When I was a bit older, every once in a while my mother would decide to get us all together to read to us, but I don’t remember that lasting more than a few evenings, and we never finished a book. However, I am sure that I had storybooks read to me when I was little. One of my most exciting days was when I had learned to sign my name, which was when I could get my own library card. My mother took me to the library to get it and select the first books that I checked out myself, and I found this event so special that when I was a teenager I took my own much younger little brother for his first card, too. I used to pick out books that had beautiful pictures, although having pictures of fluffy rabbits and other animals or fairies was also important.

The books I remember from my younger childhood as being important were an old children’s encyclopedia that had belonged to my mother when she was a child. It had pictures in it of fairies and elves in twisty trees drawn by artists like Arthur Rackham. I used to look at them for hours. The other book was given to me as a gift, Shirley Temple’s Storybook, a book of fairy tales. I think I still have it.

Qu. 2.) What was one of the first ‘grown-up’ books that you really enjoyed? What was going on in your life at this point?

Ruthiella: The first “grown up” book I ever read was probably Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None which I read in 7^th grade at age 12 while I was a school library aid. It was an easy job and I had lots of time to read during that hour. I remember the book was just randomly on the library table, so I picked it up. This set off a lifelong love for Agatha Christie novels. I’d always enjoyed mysteries (Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, Trixie Belden) but this was my first adult crime novel for sure.

Kay: I was never censored in my reading, so it’s hard to say what my first “grown-up” book might have been. I’m thinking probably Dickens, perhaps David Copperfield. Certainly that’s the one that sticks in my mind. How old was I when I read that? I’m not sure. Probably about nine or ten years old.

I remember picking out The Idiot by Dostoevsky at the library when I was 11 (I didn’t quite understand what the heck was going on but formed the impression that Russians were really excitable), and about that time, my family started buying me Modern Library books as gifts, so that by the time I finished high school, I had most of the ones that were available at the time. The first really adult books I read were my father’s James Bond novels. When I was about 12, I remember having a discussion with my friends about whether a phrase meant that Bond and the Russian spy in From Russia with Love “did it,” not that we actually understood what “doing it” really meant.

Qu. 3.) Pick a favourite book that you read in your 20s or early 30s – especially if it’s one which helped set you off in a certain direction in life.  

Ruthiella: I can’t think of any particular book that set me off in a certain direction in life. I am still lacking a direction in life despite being over 50! I didn’t’ read as much in my 20s or 30s as I do now – maybe only 15 books a year on average – I had a social life then!  What I do recall from those decades in terms of reading is falling in love with the tragicomedy of John Irving, the absurdity of Kurt Vonnegut, the gravitas of Graham Greene and the evocative writing of Toni Morrison. Those are the authors I “discovered” in my early adulthood. Oddly, I rarely read any of them now, though I keep meaning to get back to them. So many books, so little time!

Kay: I don’t know that a book ever set me in a direction in life, but I do remember feeling like my head was exploding when I read Benjy’s section of The Sound and the Fury in my late teens or early 20’s. The idea that the author could play with the narration like that I found terribly exciting, and I often enjoy newer novels that are a little experimental.

Qu. 4.) What’s one of your favourite books that you’ve found in the last year or two? How did you come to blogging and how has blogging changed your reading habits?  

Ruthiella: My favorite book of the last few years is probably The Idiot by Elif Batuman.  It was published in 2017 and is about a young woman’s freshman year at Harvard in the 1990s.  I would say it is a real marmite book: you either get it our you don’t. It is a rambling, plotless novel with a self-obsessed, clueless adolescent narrator who thinks way too much about meaningless things and yet I totally identified with her and laughed a lot.  I totally want Batuman to write three more books about the protagonist’s sophomore through senior years.

I came to blogging mostly because I wanted to participate in the Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Karen at the blog Books and Chocolate. You can also use Goodreads as a link to the challenge, but its easier if you have a blog.

Book blogs certainly have widened my reading microcosm, as has the website Goodreads, Booktube and bookish podcasts. I think my reading is far more varied now. I used to read mostly crime fiction with the occasional literary novel thrown in and almost no non-fiction. I’m still pretty weak on the non-fiction front, but I read a lot more literary fiction now as well as more classics, science fiction, fantasy, historical and even occasionally YA.

Blogs et al have also educated me about reading-adjacent things, like literary terms such as magic realism or bildungsroman, classifications like YA or middle grade,  publishing industry history and book prize shortlists and winners.

Kay: Gosh, this is a hard question. There are so many books I love. I was going to say Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, but then I realized I read it almost six years ago! In general, I am pleased by all of the new reprint publishing companies, such as Furrowed Middlebrow and Persephone Press that have introduced me to women writers like Margaret Oliphant, Dorothy Whipple, and Richmal Crompton (that’s down to your reviews, Simon) from Victorian, Edwardian, and early 20^th century periods that I probably would have never heard of otherwise. I know that doesn’t answer the question.

I started blogging because of book journaling. I had never kept a list of the books I read, but about 15 years ago, perhaps, a friend of mine gave me a book journal as a gift, and I decided I would keep it and write brief notes about each book I read. When I filled up that journal, I bought an ordinary composition book and continued journaling, only I was writing longer notes that were really reviews. Then for some reason I decided to do it online.

I think my reading changed a bit when I was keeping my journals, but it changed most when I set myself several reading challenges for my book blog. I joined the Classics Club because I always read lots of classics, but I also challenged myself to read the shortlists for the Booker Prize, the James Tait Black Fiction Prize, and the Walter Scott Historical Fiction Prize. Even though I have read books from these lists that I didn’t like, I have found many excellent books because of these challenges that I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise, and I feel that the level of books I choose is improving in quality.

I have been keeping my book blog for seven years now, and that has led me to write a more personal blog beginning three years ago, started when I made a big move from Texas to Washington, and most lately a hiking blog for people like me who are not in the best physical condition.

Qu. 5.) Finally – a favourite that might surprise people!  

Ruthiella: I never read The Babysitter’s Club books as a kid. I don’t think they had been written yet. These are books that are aimed at preteen girls, yet I read as many as I could lay my hands on in my 30’s.  And since they are short and I was not a child, I could read three or four of them in an hour or so. I can’t say why, but I loved them.

Kay: Perhaps because I’m not generally a sci fi fan, it would be surprising to people to find that one of my favorite books is Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Not so surprising would be to know that a favorite for years has been Middlemarch. And finally, a book I read recently that really impressed me was The Forty Days of Musa Dagh by Franz Werfel.

What sort of reader do you think would choose these books? And which book would you recommend they read?

Ruthiella, on Kay’s choices: At first glance of the five titles I felt a real affinity for Reader X. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Charles Dickens, Kate Atkinson and David Mitchell. All three would easily make it into my list of top 10 authors. I realize now I did not mention in them any of my responses because they are all authors I began reading after age 40.

I am impressed that David Copperfield was the first grown up book for Reader X.  Shirley Temple’s Storybook makes me think that Reader X is slightly older than I am? The Sound and the Fury (and Faulkner in general) daunts me.  I am super curious to find out if this title set Reader X off in a certain direction in life and how. Was it the inspiration for a career in literature, writing, or teaching? Or maybe a passion for Southern Gothic?

I would guess that Reader X is an eclectic reader who is not afraid to be challenged by the text or structure (Faulkner, Mitchell) but also loves becoming immersed in a good story (Dickens, Atkinson).

If Reader X hasn’t already dived into Kate Atkinson’s back list, I would recommend they read her Jackson Brodie series starting with Case Histories.  For a standalone novel, I would suggest The Goldfinch by Donna Tart to Reader X since it I found it to be a very compelling and immersive read in a similar way to Life After Life and Cloud Atlas.

Kay on Ruthiella’s choices: I’m guessing this person is female, although maybe boys read Laura Ingalls Wilder. I don’t know. (Sorry if I’m wrong.) I would guess she has varied tastes in literature, likes light reading (Babysitters) as well as something a bit more substantial (Elif Batuman), but also has a sense of humor. Maybe she also has a sense of adventure and an interest in other cultures. For this reader, I recommend Sisters on a River by Barbara Comyns.