Book Meme: Parts 10, 11, and 12

Part 10--A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving: This is an easy one--Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens! I read this for a Victorian literature course my sophomore year of undergrad and at the time I was under the (sad, false) impression that I HATE Dickens (for reasons detailed in an earlier post). O how wrong was I. I came away from that course obsessed with Victorian lit in general and a die-hard Dickens fan in particular. A good teacher armed with a good Dickens book is a magic charm and cure-all for every student who comes into college loathing Great Expectations. Dombey and Son is, along with Bleak House, the very best Dickens turned out: hilarious, tragic, layered, modern.

Part 11--A book that disappointed you: Also an easy one. The answer here is The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. Really, really disappointed by that book. I'm not even sure what I was expecting, but it didn't deliver. The anachronisms bothered me (characters use adjectives and other words that weren't coined yet or that they would've had no way of knowing--"sexy" and "clairvoyant" come to mind), as did the deus ex machina-y occurrences throughout the plot, and most of the characters I found uncompelling or downright irritating. Just an overlong, blah, badly written historical non-epic. Meh. Perhaps the miniseries will be better.

("sexy" wasn't coined until 1905!)

Part 12--A book or series that you've read more than five times: Hahahahahahahahaha--oh wait, this is a srs question and I are srs reader. Ok. I'm a chronic re-reader; I love to re-read my favorites and am as likely to read something I know I love as to pick out something new at the library (a bad habit, perhaps, but there it is). So here are a few worn-out covers:

+The Prize in the Game by Jo Walton

+The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

+Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

+Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

+Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

+Kilmeny of the Orchard by L.M. Montgomery

+Wrapt in Crystal by Sharon Shinn

+Saturday by Ian McEwan

+In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce

+Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

+Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier