Zi71bFS9nQHnivtvUJquhejTHIQ The Story Factory Reading Zone: Guest Post: Ally Malinenko- You Have To Read This Book

Monday 19 August 2013

Guest Post: Ally Malinenko- You Have To Read This Book


Today I'm pleased to welcome 'Ally Malinenko' to 'The Story Factory Reading Zone'. I really enjoyed reading Ally's book 'Lizzy Spear and the Cursed Tomb'. I also hear that Ally is an avid reader, so she should fit in well here.

Welcome Ally:







About Ally
 
Hi. I’m Ally.

I live in Brooklyn which is good except when it’s not which is horrid. I’ve been writing for awhile, and have some stuff published and some stuff not.
I don’t like when people refer to pets as their children and I can’t resist a handful of cheez-its when offered.
I have a burning desire to go to Antarctica, specifically to the South Pole so I can see where Robert Falcon Scott died.
I like to read books. I like to write stories and poems. I even wrote a novel. Rumor has it, it got published. But I don’t believe rumors. And you shouldn’t either.



You Have to Read This Book

The book to read is not the one that thinks for you
but the one that makes you think
                                                                                                                -Harper Lee

People get really hung up on the answer to the question “What do you do?” We love to ask that. What do you? What do you do? The answer for most people 9 times out of 10 is what they do for a living. What brings in the money. What keeps a roof over their head. And that makes sense. But that’s what you do for a job. It’s not really what you do.

If I answered that question seriously, I would say I was a reader. It’s easily my favorite way to pass time. Maybe it’s being an introvert. Maybe it’s cause I started reading at a very young age and never stopped. Maybe it’s cause I’m a junky for the printed word. The library in my hometown was about the size of most people’s living room but to me, there was nowhere else I wanted to go on a weekend. When my mother would take me to the Big Library a few towns up, one that had more than one floor, I nearly fainted.

The fact of the matter is nothing is better than a book. They’re perfect. Compact. Lightweight (well, unless you’re reading Proust), and everyone takes from them a different experience, a different set of sensations. Love it or hate, a book changes you. I think if you rounded up all the other forms of life distractions, (internet, movies, television, games, etc) books would still win by a knockout.
They’re full of magic and memory and dreams and intrigue and laughter and sadness and heartbreak. I think if you could physical hold a soul, it would be in the shape of a book.

Even the places that house books are magical. How many hours can be spent wandering around a bookstore? I cannot recall ever walking into a bookstore and being alone. How many chances are there to pick up a story that will change your life? What other object do we speak about with that level of passion? To say, ‘this book changed my life’ is a common expression. How often do we ram them into the hands of friends and family, begging them to read, please you have to read this?

I read a book this year that describes perfectly the sensation of falling in love, with all the necessary anxiety and helplessness and joy and laughter and delight. (Eight White Nights by Andre Aicman)
I read a book this year that left me adrift in a boat facing the very reality of my impending death (Heart of the Sea by Nathan Philbrick).

I read a book this year that taught me that inside the dimension of spacetime is another little curled up world called the Calabi-Yau manifold (Elegant Universe by Brian Greene).

Every one of those books has changed me. Because that’s what books do. They are the only true magical thing I have ever encountered. So tell me, what did you read?

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