Monday, July 25, 2016

Ten Things I Wish I Got From Books (Top Ten Tuesday #7)

Via The Broke and Bookish - July 26: Top Ten Things Books Have Made Me Want To Do or Learn About After Reading Them

I'm not sure if I interpreted the prompt correctly, but sometimes you read a book and wish a character's life or certain traits would diffuse through the pages and into your hands. Here are 10 things I wish I'd absorb by osmosis:

1. From All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: radio repair and all things electronic. One of the reasons why I love this book is that "all the light we cannot see" refers to (radio frequency) electromagnetic waves! It is on an old radio that Werner hones his tinkering skills, and it is radio that guides his life. For most of the book I understood the concepts and theory, but I can't imagine being faced with a broken radio and somehow fixing it by myself. 

2. From The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski: strategy games. Bite and Sting, a strategy game, is a recurring "theme" (concept? reference?) in the trilogy. Strategic thinking is one of the few things Kestrel inherited from her father and actually uses. Would be useful in games and in real life.

3. From The Wedding Officer by Anthony Capella: cooking. The title is actually The Wedding Officer: A Novel of Culinary Seduction. If that's not enough of an explanation, the officer falls for an Italian widow and the food she cooks. 

4. From The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner: sleight of hand or anything related to stealth and subtlety. Eugenides has an official title as The Queen's Thief, and I loved reading about how his skills can change the political landscape of three countries, mainly because of how everyone underestimates him. I'd like to be able to blend in at will, and to be better at hiding what I'm feeling in polite company.

5. From The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker: metalworking. Ahmad, the jinni, finds temporary employment in a tinsmith's shop. I've been fascinated by metalworking for a long time. The reforged Shards of Narsil from Lord of the Rings almost made me study metallurgical engineering in college. 

6. From The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater: horseback riding. Definitely not on water horses like Puck and Sean ride, but at least to be able to say that I rode the horse instead of just holding on for dear life and trying not to fall off.

7. From It was snowing butterflies by Charles Darwin: keeping such a beautifully detailed diary, someday worthy of publication. This is a selection of his notes from the voyage of The Beagle, and his field notes make for better reading than some of the bestsellers or critically acclaimed works I've read recently. Pretty high standards, huh? I just want to be better at journaling, so when I read my notebooks in the future I'll be able to reconstruct memories that might have already faded away.

8. From The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater: holding on to (things from) my dreams. Ronan brings back impossible objects from his dreams, sometimes with disastrous consequences. There are times when I feel like it'd be worth the risk, if only to have something to prove that yes, I did dream that.

9. From Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson: dressing however the hell I want. Frank is a very special child, and part of what makes him special is the way he dresses. It's a very shallow thing to take away from the book, but it's one of the things that most stuck with me.

10. From Perfume by Patrick Suskind: smelling things on a whole other level. I watched the movie with a very bad cold, and the whole time I was so envious of Grenouille when I just wanted to enjoy the taste of my food. Then I read the book, which was so lush and descriptive that I thought myself lucky to only have watched the movie during my cold.

9 comments

  1. Perfume is one of my favourite books. I absolutely love the way scents are described throughout that book and it made me wish I could take up becoming a perfumist!
    Metalworking is so interesting. I think I'll have to read that books about The Golem and the Djinn.

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  2. Omg we are TWINNING with The Scorpio Races!! That is exactly why I want to be absorbed into Thisby basically. :') Although, um, maybe I should start on an island pony instead of a waterhorse because IT WOULD EAT ME I'M SURE OF IT. Ahem. Also being epic at sleight of hand and strategy games would be aaaaamzing. :') Here's my TTT!

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  3. Be Frank With Me, sounds amazing! Just added to my TBR!
    My Top Ten Tuesday!

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  4. I would love to be able to hold on to things from my dreams! That would be awesome!
    My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/top-ten-tuesday-67/

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  5. It WAS horseback riding:). I really love number 7 and totally agree though I've not read the book that inspired (now I want to). I do journal on an irregular basis and my entries are never very interesting. I'd love to be more thoughtful about it.

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  6. It WAS horseback riding:). I really love number 7 and totally agree though I've not read the book that inspired (now I want to). I do journal on an irregular basis and my entries are never very interesting. I'd love to be more thoughtful about it.

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  7. It WAS horseback riding:). I really love number 7 and totally agree though I've not read the book that inspired (now I want to). I do journal on an irregular basis and my entries are never very interesting. I'd love to be more thoughtful about it.

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  8. I've always thought it would be so cool to keep a diary that I could one day get published, but as I got older, I realized ho unrealistic that is for me, because it would pretty much be all, "Dear diary, I left my couch exactly 3 times today for non-food-related reasons. I briefly considered going to the gym and then laughed hysterically for a solid 7 minutes." XD

    And honestly, it may seem like clothes are a shallow thing to take away from a book, but I don't think so at all. The power to dress however you want without worrying what others think is SO important. I'm a firm believer in the power of clothes. In my mind, a good outfit means a good day for me.

    My TTT! :)

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Maira Gall