Stereotyping People by Their Favorite Author

Yes I know stereotyping is frowned upon but I found this really interesting post on StumbleUpon and I couldn't help but post it here. I've made a few alterations to the original list which can be found here.

• J.D. Salinger
• Kids who don’t fit in.
• Stephenie Meyer
• People within the age group of 12-18 who lost faith in human love too early and now put their trust in shiny vampires
• J.K. Rowling
• People who detest their school.
• Jodi Picoult
• Your mom when she’s at her time of the month.
• Leo Tolstoy
• Guys I want to date.
• Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Guys I want to sleep with.
• David Foster Wallace
• Confirmed 90’s literati.
• Jane Austen (or Bronte Sisters)
• Girls who made out with other girls in college when they were going through a “phase”.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• People who can start a fire.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• People who used to sleep so heavy that they would pee their pants.
• Charles Dickens
• Ninth graders who think they’re going to be authors someday but end up in marketing.
• Mark Twain
• Proud bastards
• Anne Rice
• People who appreciate real vampires
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Men who live in their mother’s basements.
• John Grisham
• Doctors who went to medical schools in the Dominican Republic.
• Dan Brown
• People who used to get lost in supermarkets when they were kids.
• Nicholas Sparks
• Women who are usually constipated.
• Sylvia Plath
• Suicidal girls who keep journals
• George Orwell
• Conspiracy theorists
• Harper Lee
• People who have read only one book in their life and it was To Kill A Mockingbird (and it was their assigned reading in the ninth grade).
• Ernest Hemingway
• Tough army men with a soft spot for stirring prose.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald
• People who get adjustable-rate mortgages and party hard.
• Vladimir Nabokov
• Men who use words like ‘dubious’ and ‘tenacity’.
• Lewis Carroll
• People who move to Thailand after high school for the drug scene.
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Men who can’t lie but will instead be silent if they know you don’t want to hear the truth.
• Stieg Larsson
• Girls who are too frightened to go skydiving.
• Virginia Woolf
• Girls who like talking about death with their suicidal friends.
• Salman Rushdie
• People who google images of Padma Lakshmi late at night. (True story!)
• James Joyce
• People who do not like John Cusack movies.
• Oscar Wilde
• People who can’t resist anything. See also: people who claim they’re going to change but never do!
• Franz Kafka
• People with daddy issues.

Any other author you want to see in the list?

Simple words- Memorable sentences.

A couple of months back I started a list. A list where I'd jot down the the opening and closing sentence or paragraph of a good book. Here are a few that gripped my attention and compelled me to note them down.

1. The catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger: 

First paragraph: "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

(This first paragraph was enough to capture my attention. There is a seriousness in the casually written lines which set the tone for the entire novel. Refreshing, to say the least).

Last sentence: "Don't ever tell anybody anything, if you do, you start missing everybody."

(By the time I finished the novel, I had fallen in love with the narrator. This last sentence was a perfect ending to a brilliant novel).

2. The metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

First sentence: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from unsettling dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin."


(This powerful first sentence draws in the reader and lets his/her imagination wonder for a while as to how the character transformed and what has he changed into overnight?)


I saved the best for last! 
3. Love in the time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

First sentence: "It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love."

(Lyrical. Nostalgic. Magical! The first sentence is exactly what you'd expect from a literary genius.)

Last paragraph:  "And how long do you think we can keep up this goddamn coming and going?’ he asked.  Florentino Ariza had kept his answer ready for fifty-three years, seven months, and eleven day and nights.  ‘Forever,’ he said.”

(Okay so I really can not contain my love for this book. The romance genre has never really caught my fancy, this was my first love story and oh boy! did it make me go bonkers!? lol. I would just not stop talking about it. The eloquent narrative and its beautiful prose completely immersed me into the world of Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza. The last sentence is a memorable line summing up the triumph of irrevocable love.)

 

Worst books I've read!

Don't call me hater! Because I'm not. I love books, hence this book blog! But to be honest there have been a few books Ive read that were awful! So to save who ever is reading this, from the mental trauma I went through after reading these true masterpieces of nonsense, here is my list of the 5 worst books. 

5. An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It
by  Al Gore. 
Movie- Brilliant! Book- Mind numbingly boring. 
  
4. How to Marry the Man of your Choice by Margaret Kent
 My mum has been giving me better advices than Ms (I highly doubt its Mrs.) Kent did in her 187 page long book.

3. Skinny Bitch: A No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide for Savvy Girls Who Want to Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous!
by Rory Freedman, Kim Barnouin
 Dear drill sergeants, if I wanted to commit suicide, I'd go to Seaview, NOT become a Vegan! 
 Thanks for calling me a fat whore though. Cheers!  

2. House rules by Jodi picolt
 I am all for intensely dramatic books but this book was just painful. I have been a loyal fan of the author since I was recommended My sister's keeper by a friend (thanks beebs) but House rules was far from reality. And frankly Jodi, Ive had enough of the courtroom drama in every book!

1. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
 Okay so I haven't read the entire book but two chapters in and my brain cells were dead. My fingernails were too short to pull my eyes out so I stopped, pulled out a pencil and scribbled on the front page 'A life changing book' and put it back on the library shelf. I wanted everyone to go through the agony I had gone through! WRONG move. 
Weeks later, twilight was EVERYWHERE. I believe I played a major part in the success in of the book. Afterall, had I not written that remark, people my age would never have read it. Strange part- they actually loved it. 
Well if dumb characters, awful dialogues and grammatically weak sentences are your thing then go ahead. Give it a try, you'll love it.  
P.S. Twilight fans, don't kill me!

Ill-fated enough to have read a bad book?