Loneliness and Books About the Great Beyond

I have some terrible, terrible news, everyone: my blogging partner Grace is away at sleepaway camp, where she will be deprived of Wifi, cell service and electricity (?) for the whole summer. This means that, despite my crippling loneliness, the job of keeping this blog going will fall to me and only me for the next two and a half months. I am very much afraid.
But don't worry! We can make this work. In honor of my current desolate state of mind my first post of the summer is going to be a list of great books about heroes who travel in time and space - a very lonely occupation, I've heard.

1. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: I am currently reading this crazy collection of 5 novels and enjoying every minute. The book follows the adventures of a group of hitchhikers of various species as they make their across the galaxy saving planets, drinking Pan-Galactic Gargle-Blasters, escaping prehistory and scouring the universe for a decent place to eat.

2. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle: This is one of the most classic and beautiful science-fiction stories of all time. With the help of their friend Cal and a group of mystical beings called Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which, outcasts Meg and her little brother Charles Wallace go on an adventure across the universe to rescue their father who went missing while he was studying the mysterious "tesserae."

3. The Pendragon Series by D.J. MacHale: This fast-paced and unpredictable series documents the life of a boy who, with the help of other Travelers, journeys from world to world to prevent the evil Saint Dane from sending all of Hallah into chaos.

4. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card: No, there is no time travel or planet-hopping in this book, but it is set in a cold space academy meant to train boys to fight a race of insect-like aliens who threaten to overrun our world and it is perfectly angsty and depressing.

5. Doctor Who: YES IT'S A TV SHOW BUT IT IS A QUINTESSENTIAL 'LONELY TIME TRAVELER' STORY AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME LEAVE IT OUT.

;)
Love and wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey,
Carly

Comments

Junkie Metaphors and Books About Our Inner Crazy

So, recently I was doing a spot of (mandatory) community service for my gym teacher when I experienced a rare instance of karmic payoff. Me and a bunch of other temporary bond-slaves were unloading this huge file cabinet onto the gym floor, sorting everything from Dance Revolution DVDs to pamphlets on Your First Visit to the Ob-Gyn! into neat piles, when I uncovered quite by chance a crumbling copy of Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. Elated, I carried it around for the remainder of the period until my teacher took pity on me and offered to let me borrow it. It's falling apart before my very eyes I swear... I fell in love with this book the moment I heard its title quite a while ago - Naked Lunch ? What the hell kind of weird awesome twisted name is that? I am only now realizing how twisted it really is. The book is a compilation of notes that Burroughs took while under the sick influence of heroin. It is rife with disgusting sex scenes and metaphors for

My Irrelevant Opinion on Teen Dystopias

I read books indiscriminately. I am just as happy reading Beowulf, a crusty old Scandinavian epic poem, as I am reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. So I'm not a snob who only reads first-edition classics bound in leather or anything like that. But I do have one requirement when it comes to the books I read and recommend, and that is that they be good . And I do see a problem emerging in one of YA's most popular new genres, the teen dystopian novel, and that is that many of these books are not good. The dystopia craze started, I believe, with the success of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (a book that I very much adore) . It's hard to make it as a writer, so when people saw how well her parable of futuristic teen angst and bloodshed did, they understandably thought Aha! Here is the formula for success!! And ten seconds later, the front display tables of every Barnes and Nobles' across the country were weighted down with hardcovers fea

Lessons to be Learned From the Princess Sara Crewe

Have any of you read A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett? It was the book that made me love books. (Does every book-lover have one of those? Do you?) I first read it when I was very little and have spent the last two days rereading it, as I tend to do every few years. But the thing that struck me about the story this time around is that the story's preteen heroine, Sara Crewe, seems to have life completely figured out. Even when she loses both her father and her fortune and is working as a hated scullery maid at her London boarding school to pay off her debts, she never sacrifices her virtues of benevolence, hope, and grace. Her secret is that she considers herself a princess in spirit, even when she is no longer as wealthy and privileged as one. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my life philosophies together and lack Sara's ability to gracefully accept whatever life throws at me. So, in order to stop feeling inferior, I have compiled a l

the book bum

Search This Blog