, here tomorrow!
Some of My Favorite
Books
By Leann Neal Reilly
I subscribe to a newsmagazine called The Week. One feature in The
Week is a guest column by a famous author who describes half a dozen of his
or her favorite books. I doubt that I’ll ever be asked to write this column for
The Week, but I think that I should
be prepared just in case. Fortunately, I don’t have to identify a single book
because I don’t think I can do that. I’d probably focus on the books I read as
a child or teenager that had the most impact on me, mostly because I find
myself less moved by novels as I get older. While this might be natural, it
makes me wistful for those heady days when every book I opened contained a
mysterious and exciting world filled with adventure and possibility. Looking
back, I can identify numerous books that transported me:
Star Wars
At eight, I read the book released after the movie before going to the drive-in to see it
when it was re-released. This was the perfect
story for my unformed tastes: action, adventure, romance, exotic locale,
and clearly defined conflict between good and evil.
Shogun
I was 11 when I read James Clavell’s blockbuster novel after
seeing the TV miniseries version starring Richard Chamberlain. While I don’t
believe I was emotionally ready for much of the story, I still remember that
learning about medieval Japan
The Far Pavilions
Not long after Shogun,
I discovered M. M. Kaye’s epic novel of British India
during the mid-19th century in a woman’s magazine. The excerpt
hooked me and I had to buy the book. Although the details are hazy now, I can
still remember that the excerpt described the electric—and forbidden—encounter
between an Indian princess named Juli traveling to her wedding and a British
soldier named Ash, who escorts the wedding party. The horror of a fiery death
from the practice of suttee that Juli faces along with the other widows of the
rajah still fills me. I loved The Far
Pavilions so much that I read several other M. M. Kaye’s books set in British India .
The Thorn Birds
At 15, I saw The Thorn
Birds on TV and fell in love with Richard Chamberlain all over again. Of
course, I had to read the novel from which the series had been taken. Coleen
McCullough’s epic novel of forbidden love, ambition, manipulation, betrayal,
and tragedy set in exotic (to me) New Zealand Australia
Saga of The Pliocene Exile
Julian May’s series continued my long love affair with the
fantasy genre, begun at eight when I discovered fairy tales. I’d never heard of
the Celts or any of their mythology, so May’s borrowing of the Tuatha De Dannan
for her alien master race during the Pliocene Epoch mesmerized me. Her
willingness to mix in science and history added to the richness of her tale.
Remembering these epic tales makes me long to experience
them again. What books made a lasting impression on you?
LeAnn Neal Reilly grew up in St.
Joseph, Missouri, near the Missouri River, in that fertile land where corn,
children, and daydreams take root and thrive. She spent countless hours reading
and typing chapters on an old Smith-Corona in her closet, which luckily for her
didn’t have doors. Then she put away her daydreams and her stories and headed
off, first to graduate magna cum laude from Missouri Western State
University Carnegie
Mellon University Pittsburgh Columbus , Ohio
After graduate school, LeAnn worked
first for a small multimedia startup and then a research group in the Carnegie Mellon School
After years of working in an office
not much better than an unfinished closet, LeAnn has finished The Mermaid’s Pendant and is currently working on her next novel.
LeAnn joined GoodReads three years ago where she writes reviews regularly.
LeAnn lives outside Boston with one
husband, three children, a dog named Hobbes (after Calvin &), and a cat
named Attila.
LeAnn’s Web site is www.nealreilly.com.
