HAPPY GENOCIDE DAY, AUTHOR-FRIENDS
Monday, October 12, 2009
In the Spirit of Resistance embodied by the fantabulous Janet Reid, we are officially naming this week Rejectionist Book Review Week. Also, y'all seem to have gotten the impression somehow that we dislike everything. We do not, in fact, dislike everything. We like: our Support Team, Ann Demeulemeester f/w '09 (HOLY F*CK THOSE COATS THOSE COATS THOSE COATS), hamburgers, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Maker's, cute rescue pitbulls, um, one or two other things, and The People's Revolution, which is AROUND THE CORNER SO GET READY. Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will, people! Oh yeah! and we like books. So this week, Author-friends, in no particular order, we shall present to you a Random Sampling of the Rejectionist's Best-Beloved. Okay? Okay!
ATTENTION FTC: We did not get paid by nobody to review no books. Nope. Also, bought all of these books our own self, except for the ones we begged "Steve" to procure for us at one of "Steve's" many "meetings" (read: liquid lunches) with various editors. Although if someone wanted to pay us, or send us more books, we would certainly not say no or anything. Ahem, publicists!
TODAY'S THEME SONG: The Coup, "50 Million Ways to Kill A CEO"
No. 1: Michael Ende, The Neverending Story
This, Author-friends, is the first book the wee infant Rejectionist ever fetched from the Adult Fiction Shelves of our local library, which were appropriately located in a dimly lit and somewhat cavernous back room, and we remember very distinctly the sense of Import we felt pulling this extraordinary volume off the towering shelf with our tiny hands. The first edition (which we are now very pleased to own ourself, in both the UK and American editions, and we would really like the German as well, but can't afford it; so we're a dork, shoot us) is printed in green and red type; red for when hero Bastian Balthazar Bux is moving about in the humdrum and dreary world of the everyday, and green for when he is adventuring in the magical kingdom of Fantastica; its cover is resplendent with a vivid scene of mysterious creatures, jesters, wise men, and noble knights, with the Childlike Empress's motto DO WHAT YOU WISH emblazoned across the back. An entire universe predicated on the idea that good books should never have to come to an end is one we'd very much like to live in, Author-friends, and over the years this book, which we reread at least once annually, has never lost its seductive power. The Gmork still scares us, the Childlike Empress still fascinates us, the devious and manipulative Xayide and the wedge she drives between self-crowned emperor Bastian and loyal Atreyu infuriates us, and we have never forgotten the surreal and gorgeous imagery of Bastian's final silent labor in the dream mines and the still winter plain that surrounds them. We read the entire book for the first time in a single day, holed up Bastian-like with a store of snacks, and no book since, no matter how lovely, how moving, or how perfectly crafted, has ever had a magic quite like this one.
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You make me almost want to read the book.... :)
Oh my. That book, that book was something I loved just as much. I remember thinking, wow, somebody actually wrote a book about how I read books, and this could be so real!
There was a movie, too, but it never made the same impression for me. Except for the dragon. And the depressive turtle.
That was me with The Hobbit when I was a wee whippernsnapper.
And, by the way, I just bought a Tom Spanbauer book because of you. So it better be good. Or I'm sending you the bill.
Which Tom Spanbauer!!?
Growing up in Germany, this was one of the first "big kid books" I remember reading. Someone "borrowed" my copy ten years ago, though. Grrr.
(Also, does genocide day=Columbus day, or do I just need more caffeine this morning? I get it. Really.)
I'll have to look into this one. When you have an ecstatic fit on just the cover and the way the book is printed, you know it has to be good.
I absolutely love this book. I probably own 4 or 5 copies. My dream is for someone to make some kind of collector's edition that is hardback and as fancy as the novel describes it. I WANNNNNT.
I'll see your HOLY F*CK THOSE COATS THOSE COATS THOSE COATS and raise you an OMG THE STRIPES THE BEAUTIFUL STRIPES!!
Oh, and books are nice, too.
I didn't read this until I was an adult. That must have been one long childhood day.
I do have childhood memories of the movie.
I saw (and loved) the movie first, so the book probably didn't make as much of an impression on me as it would have had I read it first. I did enjoy it, though.
I'm with Ink, though in my case it was Lord of the Rings. I've lost count of how many copies of those books I've worn completely out, and still every time I read them I find something new to wonder at. Just a couple weeks ago I was riding with Merry to the muster of Rohan and marvelling at Tolkein's masterful use of light and shadow. And how, in all my past readings, did I manage to overlook the Pukel men?!?
(My word verification is "seste". Is the Internet trying to tell me to take a nap?)
I collect first editions of my favorite books, too, so if you're a dork, at least you have company :).
I can't believe I haven't read this book! Neverending Story was one of my favorite movies ever (and still is--I own the DVD.) I must check this out immediately.
I think what you've described is a universal memory among "book people". For myself, it was "Little House in the Big Woods"--that feeling of slipping from reality, from myself and into another time, gently, vividly.
I reread it. I still feel the hushed sense of walking on tiptoe across some boundry and entering a forest in Wisconsin some 150 years ago.
I so hate that I cannot read it to my class of elementary students because a higher grade reserved it for a unit of study. Curses!
In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya... "I went back to the beginning."
So, Spanbauer's Faraway Places. Looked dark and intriguing.
Faraway Places is good but the Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon and In the City of Shy Hunters will change your entire life and how you view the universe. For reals.
I was a Hobbit girl. I still have the same copy, 1938 edition (not a 1st, but not a problem.) The author's illustrations amaze me still, the ink drawings and the colored plates and the maps for endpapers.
There's something about the books we imprint on, or that imprint on us. I still think of Bilbo as the ultimate hero. And dread the coming movie, for some reason.
Now I'll have to check out The Neverending Story.
We also looked into purchasing a first edition of the Hobbit but couldn't quite swing the $65K price tag.
Your FTC disclosure is hilarious.
My first grown-up book was The Firm by John Grisham which was given to me by my dad (who's a lawyer, of course)... it looked so grown-up. I think I was ten or eleven?
I've never had the pleasure of reading "Never-Ending Tale"... You describe it in a way that would make me want to read it... if I could sit through a fantasy novel. I can't even make it through fantasy movies :(
I would read this except...I saw the movie at a birthday party when I was 5 and it scared the holy bejeebies out of me. I've blocked most of it out of memory, and now at 26 still can't bring myself to not shudder when I hear about it. The book sounds much better though...
I was like this with Harriet the Spy. My in-laws got me a well-loved first edition last Christmas and I nearly cried when I opened it. I love that book so much.
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