Today it is my honor to welcome Steve Watkins to Missy's Reads & Reviews as part of the tour for his novel, What Comes After. Steve was asked what books he would recommend to his past self at ages 5, 10, 15 and 20. Below is his answer. Enjoy!
At 5: Doctor Dan the Band-Aid Man, awesome because it had a little pouch inside the back cover with REAL BANDAIDS! Also at 5: every single picture book in our little town library. My mom’s only rule for how many I could check out at one time was that I had to be able to carry them all myself. That’s why I was so buff as a child—because of all that heavy, heavy lifting. I would read in the car until mom made me get out, read lying down on the carport until she made me get up, read on the back porch until she made me come inside, read on my bunk bed until she made me turn out the lights, read under the covers with a flashlight until the battery died.
At 10: Every Hardy Boy mystery and Alfred Hitchcock Presents mystery and Andre Norton fantasy and Chip Hilton sports book and exactly one Nancy Drew mystery, just to see if I could live with the secret shame of reading a girl’s book (I couldn’t; social pressure was just too great….). Best book ever: The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill. And my first grown-up book, The Virginian, which was the first place I ever read actual cussing.
At 15: The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I crawled into that hole and stayed there for a couple of years, with a Led Zeppelin soundtrack to keep me company. Also Love Story. And The Godfather.
At 20: Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five, David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest, The Last Best Hope, The Once and Future King, A.S. Neill’s Summerhill, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Frederic Nietzsche, Tom Robbins’ Another Roadside Attraction, Shogun, Johnny Got His Gun, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Trout Fishing in America, Season of the Witch, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, I could go on but I don’t think you have enough room on your wonderful blog.
At 5: Doctor Dan the Band-Aid Man, awesome because it had a little pouch inside the back cover with REAL BANDAIDS! Also at 5: every single picture book in our little town library. My mom’s only rule for how many I could check out at one time was that I had to be able to carry them all myself. That’s why I was so buff as a child—because of all that heavy, heavy lifting. I would read in the car until mom made me get out, read lying down on the carport until she made me get up, read on the back porch until she made me come inside, read on my bunk bed until she made me turn out the lights, read under the covers with a flashlight until the battery died.
At 10: Every Hardy Boy mystery and Alfred Hitchcock Presents mystery and Andre Norton fantasy and Chip Hilton sports book and exactly one Nancy Drew mystery, just to see if I could live with the secret shame of reading a girl’s book (I couldn’t; social pressure was just too great….). Best book ever: The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill. And my first grown-up book, The Virginian, which was the first place I ever read actual cussing.
At 15: The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I crawled into that hole and stayed there for a couple of years, with a Led Zeppelin soundtrack to keep me company. Also Love Story. And The Godfather.
At 20: Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five, David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest, The Last Best Hope, The Once and Future King, A.S. Neill’s Summerhill, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Frederic Nietzsche, Tom Robbins’ Another Roadside Attraction, Shogun, Johnny Got His Gun, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Trout Fishing in America, Season of the Witch, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, I could go on but I don’t think you have enough room on your wonderful blog.
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