Today’s TTT is about happiness, but first — the Teaseday Tuese!

We are the first people to cave dive inside an iceberg. And we may not live to tell the story. – INTO THE PLANET

And now, happy books!

(1) The Call of the Wild. I am ten years old and just received this for Christmas; it is my first grown-up novel, and my grandparents’ house is warm and smells of ham on this cold winter day. 

(2) Redwall. EULALIAAAAAAAA!  My children’s librarian recommended this to me, and it was my first brush with fantasy.  Redwall is an unusual fantasy in that there’s no overt magic, but there are talking woodland creatures who dress in medieval kit and carry around swords. I read a lot of this outside and have memories of fording a swamp (using cinder blocks, pieces of plywood, etc) to reach a ‘secluded’ area to read in peace.

(3) The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Max Shulman. On the last day of high school, I was the only senior to show up because of a bit of a contretemps between the senior class, who declared it Senior Skip Day, and the principal, who declared those who skipped could not walk. I was told to go home, so I wandered around campus that morning, saying  goodbye to teachers and such. The librarian gave me a book she was being forced to discard for wear and tear; Max Shulman’s humor, and the 1940s campus setting, wow-dowed me. I mean, I was fractured.   Nothing else Shulman wrote was CLOSE to Many Loves for me, and not until I read Wodehouse did I find a superior humorist.

(4) The Airman’s War,  Albert Marrin. Noticed this in my high school library and became obsessed with it; checked it out to use for a paper, lost it, and then on the day where I was required to pay for the book, I found it. I decided to pay for the book and give it a home on my shelves.  It’s led to a lifelong obsession with WW2 aviation. 

(5) The Night of the Living Trekkies.   I bought this  zombie apocalypse/Star Trek satire book at an indie bookstore in Las Cruces, COAS Books, and reading it later that night in the Big Chile Inn’s heavily-planted patio  went a long way to redeeming a stay that had started fairly gloomily, with rain and heavy cloud cover. 

(6) ANYTHING P.G. Wodehouse.   When a sour mood threatens, I leg over to Wodehouse as Bertie might do to a lemon squash at the Drones. 

(7) Harry Potter, books 1-3.  I fell in love with the world of Harry Potter back in 2007, reading through the entire series in a couple of months (I had to wait on Deathly Hallows). Finding Harry coincided with my moving to university,  and my and Harry’s delight in finding adventure and meaning were completely conjoined. 

(8)  Anything Sean Dietrich. Sean is a southern humorist and feel-goodist who recovered from childhood tragedy to become a storyteller,  both through his real-world column and through his novels.

(9) Ditto but especially Rick Bragg.   Bragg is a different kind of storyteller because he’s a journalist who tells real stories – or recounts those told to him –  and does so with both affection and style.

“I remember this time, up in Rich Bundrum’s barn loft, we found this case of dynamite,” Jack said, and then he paused and shook his head, as if realizing now what he should have then: that there are no good endings to stories that begin with ‘we found this case of dynamite.’

(10) And Rachel Joyce!  Her novels hinge on human connection and most everything I’ve read by her was a favorite for the year.