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Thu 16 Mar, 2006 10:56 am
...effects you to this day?
Which book moved you to the core or scared seven shades of plop out of you.
How long ago did you read it, why has it stayed with you?
The Road Less Traveled, by M Scott Peck had such a
profound influence upon my whole life - I did not just give it
a cursory once over ... I studied it; and certain parts of that
book HURT to read. As I discussed this with my family therapist,
she urged me to continue even if I could only read a paragraph
a day - and sometimes that was all that I could do. She pointed
out that when something "moved me" profoundly, either in a
positive or negative way - that it was, in effect,
"speaking to me" Particularly the chapter about the
"sins of the father". It was recommended to me by my family
therapist for general study, on my own and at my own pace
and over the course of years, what I've learned from this
book has touched me and stayed with me, and served me
well, helping me out of some very tough situations, taught
me how to handle problems like an adult, how to accept the
responsibility for my own choices. How to deal with people
who are behaving rudely to me. Of course, I had a childhood
that was sort of a ghostlike existence, almost as if none of us
were there so I learned very, very little in my youth in terms
of social skills or social behavior. I did not really have a very
good friend until I was 12 years old. Ours was the ONE family
on the street of a very well to do neighborhood where the police
came in the middle of the night, where my drunken mother
raised hell all night long, every night and while my father
kept saying, "Your mother is sick, you just have to understand."
So guess what? I grew up understanding AND tolerating such
totally innapropriate behavior from others too ... because that
is the way I was taught. Genuine growing up came very late in
life for me. Better late than never. It really is amazing how
often a sentence or two from that book just pops into my mind.
And anytime somebody asks me if a particular book has played
an integral part in my life, I've continually referred to this one.
the land of laughs - johnathon carroll
i'm a big fan of the alice and oz books, and this book takes that genre in a whole different direction
The Land of Laughs was lit by eyes that saw the lights that no one's seen." To Thomas Abbey, lonely child of a famous movie actor, grown into a restive prep school teacher, this is one of the most memorable lines ever written. It is by Marshall France, the legendary author of children's books who wrote The Land of Laughs, Pool of Stars, Green Dog's Sorrow, and other haunting classics, hid himself away in tiny Galen, Missouri, and died of a heart attack at age 44.
This brilliantly imaginative and frightening novel is set in motion when Tom Abbey and his spirited girlfriend, Saxony Gardner, determine to write France's biography. They arrive in Galen on a slow, cloud-still summer day, both of them expectant and delighted and also a little scared of what they will find. France's enigmatic and reclusive shadow lingers on, and his lovely and mysterious daughter Anna is known to act as a fiercely protective keeper of the flame.
But to their deep surprise, Anna and Galen had been waiting for them--almost too eagerly. Slowly they begin to apprehend not only that this idyllic small Midwestern town and its inhabitants, human and animal, are not what they seem, but that the magic of Marshall France had extended far beyond the printed page.
Chilling possibilities begin to dawn on Tom and Saxony, and on the reader, who will at once revel in the grand tradition of horror stories and in the discovery of a wholly new talent.
Well now, it sounds as if THE LAND OF LAUGHS is a book
that's definetely worth reading, and it sounds like an Alice
in Wonderland kind of story? Would you describe this book
reading experience as being genuinely very frightening, or more
like a book that has moved and touched you so deeply, that you
can't forget it??
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