outside of a dog

 "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."
--Groucho Marx

Oh, Mr. Marx, you make me laugh. But what you say is so true, for what is one of the best things to do in the winter, when the cold, harsh weather resigns you to staying inside? Read, of course! I went to the library on Saturday and got some books. I usually like to mix it up in terms of genres: something historical fiction, something like fantasy/sci-fi, something romantic, something I haven't read in a long time. This time, though, I seemed to go for the fairy tale type, the kind of books that tell of princesses and castles and love in a time long ago and faraway. I guess it goes to show what sort of mood I was in. ^_^

But I also got an old favorite of mine, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. She was like my favorite author in the third and fourth grades. My favorite book of hers, thought, has to be Chasing Redbird. It's so lonely and beautiful and funny, all at once. The library didn't have it, though. I also got a volume of poetry by Pablo Neruda. At first I couldn't find any poetry but then I found it in the Spanish section. Thankfully there is a side-by-side English translation. I like to read them in Spanish, though. There's something there so lovely about reading literature in its original language, even if you can only understand every third word or so.

I've been toying with the idea of including a quote at the beginning of every post, like I have in this one and the previous one. It would be kind of hard to always find something relevant, but it would be fun, too. I have myriad quotes saved up on my Goodreads account (which unfortunately I cannot share since it has my real name and real friends on it)

So, what are your favorite books?

~Starr