Thursday, May 21, 2009

~Booking Through Thursday~A Second First Time~

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Deb suggested this weeks Booking Through Thursday question.

What book would you love to be able to read again for the first time?

(Interestingly, I thought that I had thought this one up myself, but when I started scrolling through the Suggestions, found that Rebecca had suggested almost exactly this question a couple months ago. So, we both get credit!)


Wow, this is a hard one for me. There have been quite a few books that have blown me away the first time I read them ~ So much so, that I didn't want them to end. These are the books that I purchase for my own personal library. I at least want to know that they are there so that I may be able to read them again...it is kind of a "safety blanket" type feeling.

I am going to have to say the one book that I would love to be able to read again for the first time would be Meridien 144 by Meg Files. The book was published in 1991, and I had checked it out of the public library. The cover is plain black, with the title in pink, so it certainly wasn't a "cover attraction". I used to grab books off of the shelves randomly, not reading the inside flap or the back. I have come across many good books and authors this way (of course, not all of them are winners) and this is how I found Meridian 144.

Excerpt from Amazon.com:

Files's riveting debut novel begins with a bang, literally and figuratively. Kit Manning, an American woman teaching on a South Pacific island, is underwater, deep-sea diving, when "everything suddenly flares bright yellow." It's a nuclear holocaust, and when Kit, protected by her oxygen tanks, resurfaces, she finds her world decimated. Carefully underplaying the story of the disaster, Files gives it psychological truth by introducing scenes from Kit's past, showing her adolescent struggles with an unfulfilled mother as well as her devastated marriage, and we see that even without the nuclear apocalypse, Kit has felt her life to be in ruins. The authenticity of the character development offsets the contrivances in the plot. (Kit's trusty dog, for example, has been protected from the bombs, and Kit eventually finds other survivors, some menacing, some friendly, each handily endowed with particular expertise.) Superb pacing maximizes the suspense, propelling the reader to discover exactly how Kit will resolve her memories and face an extraordinary future.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Publisher: Soho Press; First Edition edition (October 1991)
Hardcover: 264 pages
ISBN-10: 0939149591

I bought a copy from Amazon about 8 years ago, and I have re-read it once. I love the story and I know that I will read it again.

What is your Second First Time book?

2 comments:

Mary (Bookfan) said...

Wow! This is the first I've heard of that book. Sounds really great!

The Bumbles said...

I would pay money to experience To Kill A Mockingbird again for the first time. I read it again and again and love it dearly but the experience is never quite as special as the first - just like love.

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