I've read that one lots, too. Two of the stories are fun to do voices to. Not a fan of Gertrude McFuzz.

I found the early protagonists to be violent and arrogant, and their master to be capricious at best and willingly cruel at worst.

Red Fish, Blue Fish is such utter nonsense. I had to read it at least two dozen times to Flim, Jr., and my God, there's just no narrative there to even be bored by. It's just random stuff thrown together.

Monster at the End of This Book is wonderfully terrifying. It's not actually scary, but Grover is FREAKING OUT, and the reader is complicit in his escalated sense of terror with every turn of the page. I can't think of a book quite like it.

The closest I can come to a book I enjoyed as a child that I still enjoy now might be Terry Brooks' Elfstones of Shannara. I don't read his stuff anymore and haven't for at least ten years, but I'll always like that book because it has things he often shies away from - real sacrifice, some semblance of sexual tension,…

I don't know what consumed me to read Grapes of Wrath at 13, but there was something about it I just didn't like. The ending was just so, "Well, that's that."

It really is the only thing I remember reading as a child that I still adore. Many of my stepping stones in reading were fun at the time but don't hold up nearly as well now.

[Licks it]

I didn't believe in hell until I laughed out loud at this. Now I'm sure we'll both be there.

This right here. Dude conjures up a desperate howl to nail a friend's wife but can't come up with the absolute soul-shattering destruction that is a dead son?

It really is. I liked the song better when I hadn't heard it ever for the first 25-odd years of my life to when I finally went ahead and heard it and it was terrible.

Maybe you are all homosexuals!

Ugh, I hate assigned reading at work. I had to do this crap in school, don't make me do it now, especially since it's not something you'll want me reading at my desk.

Even LISTENING to Better Angels takes forever and a day. Interesting, but dense.

Many people I know locally dislike that one the most, but I would be more inclined to trust the opinions of pop culture devotees at the AVC than i would be to trust co-workers who like Adam Sandler movies. I'll get back on the horse and finish it.

This sounds like a documentary about Arya Stark.

The city… of TOWNSVILLE!!!

I'm with Judkins on this one. Interesting, but certainly not a top whatever book.

Every time I think it's not THAT great, I go back, read it, and fall deeply in love with it all over again.

That pilot script has been in the works for something like two years.