After reading The Wednesday Wars, J was interested in reading some Shakespeare. I obligingly pulled out my Riverside, and although he had fun looking at it, deemed it too large to read in bed. We took a little trip to B&N and he picked out one of those little pb copies of Hamlet that you can buy. He hasn't read it yet, but it's in his pile (must be genetic, that pile!)
The whole situation, as it played out, reminded me so much of books I'd read as a kid that would lead me to other "real" books. I went out and bought Ivanhoe with my babysitting money, sure that I, too, would have to read it during some summer of highschool like Betsy and the Crowd at Deep Valley High. And wasn't Marmee always reading Pilgrim's Progress to the girls? Never read more than a few pages of either of those.
Do you remember books within books that you always wanted to read?
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4 comments:
I meant to read Ivanhoe because of Edward Eager's Knight's Castle, but I never have. The characters in Madeleine L'Engle's books quote lots of poetry - John Donne, Robert Frost - that I always meant to read, but didn't get around to. (Though I know the bits quoted in her books by heart.)
Like NJ, I immediately thought of Edward Eager--because one of the children was always reading E. Nesbitt (and I believe that in one book, they meet some E. Nesbitt characters). I tried to read a Nesbitt book or two but don't remember liking them near so much as Edward Eager.
I know there must be other meta-mentions of books in books but I might need another cup of coffee to get at them.
doc jen :)
Does it have to be from childhood? I read The Eyre Affair all the way through, never having read Jane Eyre. I then immediately read it.... and perhaps am one of the few who laughed hysterically at parts because they were so well spoofed in The Eyre Affair!
crossons! We are now free to be friends, because now I don't have to force you to read Eyre Affair!
Hmmm. Louisa May Alcott books always had references to Scottish songs I never knew and even now (30+ years after reading Eight Cousins) I still perk up when I find one.
Anne of Green Gables and Lady of Shalott--that whole pushing off in the leaky boat thing.
T.H. White's Once and Future King made me feel like I should read Mallory's Morte D'Arthur, but I never did.
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