Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.
Updates are now at That Artsy Reader Girl
November 30: Bookish Memories (Share stories of your reading life as a child, events you’ve gone to, books that made an impression on you, noteworthy experiences with books, authors you’ve met, etc. Reminisce with me!)
1) The Baby-sitters Club. My cousin and I would read the BSC books. It was like the first book club I joined. We also would play the board game and watch the TV series. I also remember seeing the movie in the theater with her and our siblings and our moms. It was my first fandom.
2) The Scholastic Book Fair in grade school. I so looked forward to going to the gym where they set up the book fair, even though I couldn’t go crazy because I was on a budget my parents gave me. But it was ok because all year long we also had catalogue that they gave out in school. I have bins of books from those orders.
3) My 4th grade teacher was really encouraging about the importance of reading. I still have a book she gave me as a Christmas gift. The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein by Carol Ryrie Brink. I don’t remember anything about the book itself (I should read it again) but I do remember her thoughtfulness.
4) She’s Come Undone. I didn’t get to read much for fun when I was in college because I was so busy with school work. But I do remember reading She’s Come Undone because my friend recommended it. We were so obsessed we even came up with our casting choices and it was our fantasy to adapt it into a movie ourselves.
5) The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This came out when I was a senior in high school. I remember by two best friends read it but were being really secretive about it. Like they were excluding me on purpose to have their own private book club. And then they would have all these inside jokes about the book. Teenagers are so annoying and don’t make sense, LOL. Anyway, I managed to find out what book all their inside jokes came from and I went to the mall and got the book too. And then at Book Con 2017 I met Stephen Chbosky and he autographed my first edition. 🙂
6) I’ve been a huge Star Wars fan since I was in junior high school. When I was in the 8th grade I got into reading the Expanded Universe books and (somewhere) there is a photo of me on my 13th birthday reading one of the Jedi Academy Trilogy books by Kevin J. Anderson. It’s odd that I didn’t start with the The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn. It probably had to do with the fact that Jedi Academy Trilogy synopsis mentioned that Han and Leia had kids and I was a shipper so I wanted to know about their kids. Spoiler alert: the books barely mention their kids. Anyway, for some reason that I cannot remember, I didn’t continue reading the EU books until 2005-ish when Revenge of the Sith came out. I wish I had spent my youth reading them because I would have been caught up! It took years to read most of the EU books and I still never caught up. Oh well…
7) Once a year my friend and I go on a book crawl. We go to the city and visit many different book sellers, most are independent. It’s a great way to spend the day with a book worm friend, give business to smaller sellers, and get some exercise walking the city.
8) Meeting a favorite author Pierce Brown. I have met him a few times now so he remembers me when I approach him. Pierce has an easy going and charming personality. He’s so friendly and has a good sense of humor. He loves to talk to his fans. He makes eye contact with you (his eyes are gorgeous) and really gets into whatever you’re discussing.
9) Meeting Deborah Harkness at Book Con 2014 and Sep. 24th, 2018 at the Time’s Convert book signing.
10) Carrie Fisher at New York Comic Con in 2012.
I decided to get 2 autographs from Carrie. One for the photo of us. The second autograph was for my copy of Wishful Drinking.
I also brought the “Wishful Drinking” Playbill with me, not to get signed, but to show her that on one side was Princess Leia and on the other was Anakin Skywalker. Well, really it was an advertisement with Hayden Christensen for Lacoste. I was being dorky, I know.
She thought that was amusing and then asked what Hayden was up too because she had not seen him in a while. I said I didn’t know. His imdb page mentions movies in “pre-production” but I wish they’d go into production because I miss him. Then I brought the topic back to Carrie and asked what she was working on next. She said she’s working on a show called “Any Questions?”
I said I would look for info about it and come see it. Then she wrote a long note in my book! CARRIE FISHER WROTE ME A NOTE!
For Stephanie,
Come see my new show, okay?
Love, Carrie Fisher
Any Questions?
11) J.K. Rowling on October 16, 2012 for the release of The Casual Vacancy. It was whiplash to get tickets but pretty freaking cool to see the author of Harry Potter.
Having attended many conventions and book releases I have met many more authors but I’m going to stop here.
Stephanie 