Eric and I have an ongoing "discussion." I read quite a bit, and so does he. I have recommended countless books to him, and he has only ever read ONE book that I have recommended.* Granted, we have read several books together that were my picks, but he doesn't seem to trust my opinions on books when it comes to reading the books on his own. As we were talking about this with his aunt the other night Eric said that the problem is that my interests are too broad. I find so many things interesting that it is easy to find a book I like. This, of course, gave me an opportunity to tease Eric about being narrow-minded. (He's not, but he did set himself up for that one.) The thing is, there are plenty of books that I read that I don't recommend to Eric because I know that my interests are more broad than his. Also, there have been a number of times where I've strongly recommended a book, and he hasn't read it until somebody else (usually his dad) seconds my recommendation (i.e.
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln and
David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism).
Anyway, I started thinking about what books I have read at Eric's recommendation. They are as follows (since 2007, when I started keeping lists of the books I've read):
- Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng
- Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose
- Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (I had read the first half in high school. Eric convinced me to read it again.)
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
- The Pearl by John Steinbeck
- Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Okay, okay, okay. So when I actually got down to listing them there were only six. Plus I'm reading
Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose right now. But still. I've read six of his suggestions. He's just read one of mine.
*The book was
Suite Francais by Irene Nemirovsky. I read it in 2007, and I told Eric to read it. A few months ago he decided he would go ahead and read one of my suggestions. By this time I knew that it wouldn't be something Eric would enjoy, and I told him to read something else. Still, he chose that one. Exasperation.
3 comments:
I've suggested books to Chris in the past. In particular Ursula LeQuin's Earthsea trilogy (which he is FINALLY reading!! - but only cos I bought it for him) and also Paddy Clarke Ha ha ha by Roddy Doyle. Well, this last Christmas I finally decided I would just BUY him the books and then he would HAVE to read them. And this has led to him starting to read the Earthsea series - hoorah! Triumph! It has also led to a continuing warm disagreement over how to pronounce the lead character's (Ged) name.
Now it's more a fun competition though to see who can accumulate the most people who agrees with you and your pronunciation and how many points certain people should have assigned to them - like say, Chris' Mother!! :D
I read and re-read Watership Down SO many times growing up, and now I can hardly remember what it's about!! (Not that my comment has anything to do with spouse suggestions...)
:)
How good that you both read!!
I LOVE Man's Search for Meaning, it is one of my top 5 favorite books, so yay for taking that suggestion!
As for the rest? I've started only taking reading suggestions from people who I feel are smarter than me. Does this make me a snob? Probably. But I just am not interested in reading some fluffy, mushy, romantic YA book that was "soooo gooooood!!!1!" Ya know?
xox
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