What Was the Book

[popmuze]

...you carried around in your back pocket all through high school and college hoping to attract members of the opposite sex with your high literary sensibilities?
Mine was "Notes from Underground" by Dostoyevski (sp?). Never did finish it. But I met a lot of pseudo intellectual girls. So what, I was a pseudo intellectual too.

[Siddow]

I was a stoner in high school. So it was Catcher in the Rye, of course!

[Harper K]

I was all about the poetry then. I kept the following books rotating:

Howl - Allen Ginsberg
Lunch Poems - Frank O'Hara
A Coney Island of the Mind - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

... But I was so very tiny in high school and couldn't fit any of those books in the back pocket of my jeans. I would read them in study hall, though, ostensibly because I was too deep for everyone else... but really because I just didn't have anyone to talk to.

A friend of mine topped me, though. She carried around James Joyce's Finnegans Wake for most of junior year. Swore she read it and that it was the greatest book ever.

[JoNightshade]

I spent college attempting to avoid the opposite sex. And I carried whatever book I was currently reading.

EDIT: On the other hand, the book that brought my husband and I together (in college) was A Canticle for Leibowitz. We discovered accidentally that we're the only two people on the face of the earth who truly appreciate that book... and yep, he managed to bag me.

[popmuze]

She carried around James Joyce's Finnegans Wake for most of junior year. Swore she read it and that it was the greatest book ever.


Whatever she's reading now it's gonna be all downhill from there.

[MidnightMuse]

In college I found medical text books to be the best way to weed out the prospects, and beat the others over the head with. They also kept my arms nicely slimmed down and strong.

Did a number on my back, though.

[kristie911]

I took welding in college...there was no need to carry around books. Nothing attracts men like a woman that can weld. :)

But I usually had too many college books to carry around...I didn't have the energy to carry a book to read for pleasure.

[zahra]

The blokes round where I grew up were as thick as pigshit, so carrying a book would have had the opposite effect. Carrying 'Photo Secret Love' magazine, now - they'd have understood that.:)

[Stew21]

in college I was reading a ton of kurt vonnegut, also got interested in tom robbins and read a couple of those, and read a bunch of the classics that I hadn't paid enough attention to in high school.
if someone asked me for a recommendation on what to read my answer was
"Start with Slaughterhouse Five, then read Breakfast of Champions. When you're done with those, let your new found Vonnegut addiction lead you to the rest."

[Alexandra Little]

Harry Potter, and a Hellsing manga (guess which crowd I hung out with?) I was going more for the...oh....geeky sensibilties.

[popmuze]

[quote=kristie911;1460758]Nothing attracts men like a woman that can weld. :)

I think there's a t-shirt in that slogan. Maybe even a movie script.

[Anonymisty]

During junior year of high school I was seriously interested in a senior who read science fiction. I worked the pass desk in the library and he came in almost every day, so I would always make sure I was reading some huge science fiction tome. Dune was the book that finally caught his attention.

We never dated, but we sure did have some great conversations the rest of that year.

[Devil Ledbetter]

...you carried around in your back pocket all through high school and college hoping to attract members of the opposite sex with your high literary sensibilities?
Uhh, you mean, what book did a boy give me to read that impressed me in high school?

Cat's Cradle. Vonnegut.

[Devil Ledbetter]

I took welding in college...there was no need to carry around books. Nothing attracts men like a woman that can weld. :)
That's pretty much the premise of my WIP. Well, it's not welding, per se ... that plot was taken up in Flashdance, I think.

[DarkLight]

Well, I'm in high school right now. It's summer break but I plan on carrying Paradise Lost with me. It helps attract intellectuals and convinces teachers that you are smart and deserve good grades. In the event that a single point determines whether or not your essay is an A or a B, the person who carries around the thick classic and reads it at lunch will get the A everytime.

[scarletpeaches]

I didn't even kiss a boy until after I'd left high school. Impressing the opposite sex with my reading material was the last thing on my mind - I used books to avoid people, not attract them.

[Jen_D]

I used books to avoid people, not attract them.

Pitifully sad, but same here.

[popmuze]

I bet you attracted a lot of people by trying to avoid them. Those were the ones I usually went after. I think they were reading Hesse or Sartre or Anais Nin or Sylvia Plath.

[NeuroFizz]

I carried a condom



in my wallet



it made a suggestive ring-mark in the leather



it rotted in the wrapper...

[blacbird]

...you carried around in your back pocket all through high school and college hoping to attract members of the opposite sex with your high literary sensibilities?


Impress chicks with a book?????? Surely you jest. Me, I played basketball.

That didn't work, either.

caw

[popmuze]

Me, I played basketball.

That didn't work, either.

caw

Worked pretty well for Wilt Chamberlain.

[maestrowork]

Books? LOL.

I carried my credit card.

[blacbird]

Worked pretty well for Wilt Chamberlain.

He was . . . like . . . better than I was.

caw

[kristie911]

I carried my credit card.

Hell, that works on me now.

Who needs a man with books when he's got plastic? Yes, I mean a credit card, you perverts! :)

[popmuze]

I didn't get a credit card until I was 35. Maybe that explains something about the kind of women I attracted.

[Jamesaritchie]

I wore a wedding ring in college. It seemed to attract a lot more women than it repelled.

[III]

No books, but long, beautiful, flowing hair that chicks loved. Oh me oh my how I do miss my hair. I'm as bald as an emoticon. :cry:

[Pisarz]

I was kind of a snot. I checked a collection of Shakespeare plays out of the school library three times when I was in the sixth grade (but didn't read them). In high school I read and toted around Poe and Anna Karenina. In college I sat in the dining hall by myself reading Dostoyevski and Flaubert.

And then I wonder why no one asked me out. Or come to think of it, why I made very few friends in college. Or why I had something like three friends at last count, even now. Sigh.

[Sean D. Schaffer]

...you carried around in your back pocket all through high school and college hoping to attract members of the opposite sex with your high literary sensibilities?
Mine was "Notes from Underground" by Dostoyevski (sp?). Never did finish it. But I met a lot of pseudo intellectual girls. So what, I was a pseudo intellectual too.


I never did, but then again I wasn't trying to meet anyone. My self-esteem was pretty low in High School. It still is to an extent, but that's beside the point.

If I had been thinking about such things as a teenager, I probably would have started by taking better care of myself and then I would have probably carried a Fantasy novel around. In those days, the novel most likely would have been Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen, or one of Anne McCaffrey's early Dragonriders of Pern novels. I thought pretty highly of both authors at the time -- heck, I still do -- and they would have been the best examples of good writing that I had read at the time ... and that I would think would attract members of the opposite sex, like you mentioned.


Cool thread.

:)

[Cassidy]

Fun question. For me, Herman Hesse, Jack Kerouac, any of the beat poets.

[Ab_Normal]

I didn't even kiss a boy until after I'd left high school. Impressing the opposite sex with my reading material was the last thing on my mind - I used books to avoid people, not attract them.
Yep. If anything, I was embarrassed by what I read for pleasure (mysteries, science fiction, fantasy -- yes, Anne McCaffrey :D) and tried to keep what I was reading out of sight.

Thank goodness I've outgrown that.

Norma

[sassandgroove]

I didn't even kiss a boy until after I'd left high school. Impressing the opposite sex with my reading material was the last thing on my mind - I used books to avoid people, not attract them.

Pitifully sad, but same here. Me three.

But i did carry around reading material. Just not to attract boys. There were boys I liked, but I admired them from afar. One book I carried around during freshman year was "Animal Instinct" a book about Def Leppard. That acutally garnered quite a bit of attention. But I was too scared to talk to boys I liked so I focused my affection on Rick Savage, the bass player, instead. :) I also carried around whatever book I was reading at the time. I had a tendancy to want to read anything that wasn't assigned in class.

[sunna]

Attracting boys in my high school was done with extra tight jeans, heavy eye makeup and a BJ, or at least the promise of one, if I recall. Books weren't a flirting accessory so much as they were a method of deflection, and one I used often, if largely inadvertently. :D

And in college we were generally better off carrying a flask.

[sassandgroove]

\Books weren't a flirting accessory so much as they were a method of deflection, and one I used often, if largely inadvertently. :D
.
Oh I know. There was this one boy. I am sure he is a nice boy. He had good goals, he wanted to own his own landscaping business if I recall. Very reasonable and laudable. But I wasn't from NC and wasn't going to stay and he was a permanent fixture in that town. My friend kept saying, why don't you go out with him, he likes you. But it takes more than someone liking me. (not her apparently.) I was out of there as soon as I graduated. It wouldn't have been fair to him, really. He was the marrying kind, not the fling kind. No worries. One after noon I was reading up on colleges to decide where to apply when he sat down and asked me what i was reading. When I told him he said, "oh," and didn't talk to me much after that. I hope he found a good woman and has that business.

[Madican]

Back in junior high about 5 years ago, I carried around anything Anne McCafferey, Harry Potter books, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Brian Jacques' Redwall series, etc.

In high school, I could frequently be seen reading The Iliad and The Odyssey for fun. Not to mention any thick, interesting book. Sorry, but I tear through 300-400 page novels in mere hours. I need something with substance. Like Shakespeare (read quite a few of his), Charles Dickinson, Pilgrim's Progress, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), etc.

Best part? I was firmly against dating, as it would interfere with my education and free time. Guess what the latter went towards? You got it. Writing came first and foremost. Still didn't stop me receiving notes, being asked out for dates, just being asked if I'd like to sit with them (generally refused this one because when a girl sits down it's going to be in the midst of one hundred of her closest friends, and I get extremely nervous around mass quantities of people who may or may not understand my interests), or them talking to me (I did this quite often, but made sure they knew I was off-limits for at least four more years, college depending).

You know how they say the forbidden fruit is always the sweetest? Yeah, livng proof of that. From then on I had to hide up in the large tree at lunch or break to get any decent reading time in. And then there were the ants...

[edwardcullen13]

Im a junior in high school this year...i carry around whatever book i am reading which right now would be Lynsay Sands's Love Bites...

[Akuma]

Really, people, I just stuck a potato in the back of my pants.

Turns out, it's supposed to go in the front.

[Jen_D]

I had a tendancy to want to read anything that wasn't assigned in class.


I actually got into trouble for that on more then a few occasion.

[Madican]

I actually got into trouble for that on more then a few occasion.

Same. Ended up getting banned from the library for the rest of the year because I pulled it one time too many.

Thank God I was friends with the school librarians.

[Zoombie]

I carried around whatever the hell I was interested in at the time. I suppose the most often though:

Eyre Affair. I mean...


Eyre Affair! Not only is it devilishly funny, but the villain can hear whenever someone says his name, no matter where they are. And he is defeated inside a book. Jane Eyre to be specific.

And...

Chasm City. I just love that book. If I were a soldier, it would be the book in my breast pocket that stops the bullet that was going to hit my heart. That kind of book.

Flatlander. Gil, the Arm, Hampton! He's got an imaginary arm! And he solves crimes! What's NOT to like is my question?

Mossflower: I realized that Brian Jacques gets away with horrible torture and murder and violence by having the characters be fuzzy animals. I loved that book as a kid. Read the cover off of it.

And, of course, the book that has actually saved my life and the lives of my freinds and family.

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. It's worn, a bit battered and is awesome. It covers every single possible thing that could come up in the case of a zombie break out. It is the reason I never leave home without my bike, why I have two machetes and pracitce with them daily. It is the reason why I know exactly to do if fifteen or so G's start battering at the door.

Answer? Get up the stairs, then destroy them. Zack can't climb, see. Then, wait for extraction or dispatch them yourself. Either one works.

I can not overstate how important the Zombie Survival Guide was to my development as a young adult. It and, later, World War Z have been two of my favorite books. Ever. And I just got the WWZ audio book. Staring Mark Hamel as Tod Wineo, who survived Yonkers, the greatest American defeat in WWZ. He was just lucky someone dragged him into the APC before the carpet bombing. That just goes to show, poor planning and logistics and topple pretty much any military force.

And, lastly, how can I forgo mentioning my illegally obtained, fan-translated version of Elfen Leid, the manga. I totally had to hide that from watchful parents, thanks to the full frontal nudity and decapitations and dismemberments. But I love angst and have a thing for girls with horns. They're adorable I say!

Another good one (I know I said lastly, but whatever), was Starship Troopers, the Forever War and Starship Troopers again.

Now, normally, I'd carry one of these books...and then two or three more. Those are my backup books for when I finished my primary ahead of time.

Once, I took in a book and I was halfway done. My freind asked me when I started. I said this morning. Then, at the end of the school day, my freind asked me how far I was. I said I was finished and was already starting on the other one.

Just the other day, the very same friend announced he had finished East of Eden. Which he started on our freshman year of high school.

Three years ago.

:D

[EriRae]

I embarrassed one guy b/c I saw him reading Jane M Auel in the library...so I told him to flip to page 100 if he wanted to read the first sex scene....he said he didn't, but when he thought I wasn't looking, I saw him flipping the pages. That's right. Guess he needed pointers for his big date.

I read everything King and everything Dickens in high school. I think I carried the Hobbit around for a year but couldn't get past the first few pages. I was too distracted by the boys in the library to do much reading, so I saved that for every night at home. No big dates for me.

[Zoombie]

And then there were the people who would throw my book over the fence and they'd get off because they would say, "Oh, we were just being freindly."

What...the...hell. They would sit next to me, stick their faces in mine while I'm trying to read and say, "Hey <name withheld> What are you REEEEEADING?"

As if you care, you literate son of a bitch!

Well, the nice thing is all those bullies...they're ALL dead! You hear that, down there? <Bangs foot on the floor> I bet you find the cellar very comfy, don't you you SOBs!

Sorry, I just have to rant about those morons once a year. It's reflexive.

[JoNightshade]

Only once a year? I'm impressed.

[Madican]

At elementary school I was constantly tormented by bullies when reading.

Until I took karate.

I had previously considered a certain area between the legs to be off-limits when fighting. But since they weren't responding so well to words and it was getting physical...

Oh yeah, and did you know the adam's apple can bring down any male? It's like the family jewels of the neck!

I wasn't bothered again.

[Zoombie]

I handled it in a far far nerdier way. Me and my freinds hid near the band room and played Fallout pencil and paper. So, the bullies never found us, and I could say: "The radscorpion lurches forward and stabs at you with its stinger! What do you do!"

"I shoot it with my shotgun!"

"Okay." <roll dice> "Uh...you blow it's tail off in a splatter of green ooze.

"Awsome!"

"Is it my turn?"

And so on.

[Madican]

Rest assured, if I had had friends, we would have enacted similar events.

Closest I ever got to friends was every lunch period on the shady side of the handball court where we would debate politics, religion, etc. Yes, 4th, 5th, and 6th graders seriously discussing such things. About six of us altogether, none in my class.

[Zoombie]

We saved the geo-political discussions for after school.

What's funny though, is kids...teenagers really, always think they know everything. I should know. I'm one of them!

[OverTheHills&FarAway]

The most attention I ever got in school was when I read "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" by Chuck Klosterman. Shows the state this world is in. Whenever I read anything more meaningful (although don't get me wrong, that book's pretty pretty insightful, so I'm convinced they were only interested in the title) everyone just continued their regular practice of ignoring me. Once I read "On the Road," half expecting people to say "Hey! That book changed my life!" No such luck. I had to be changed on my own.

At my school, no one cared if kids were interested in things not so immediate as studying for tests, going to Starbucks and listening to the newest Shins album. Even though we had the International Baccalaureate program and tons of intelligent and articulate teachers and students, everyone viewed reading and literature and knowledge as a means to an end, and that end was a prestigious college and a successful career behind a desk for the rest of your life doing something that's probably not worth more than the money they're paying you to do it.

So yeah, I read. But no one cared. I didn't even get teased for it. Any reaction would have been an improvement.

[Esopha]

Heehee...I hide all my books in school. My least favorite question in the world is, "What are you reading?"

The. Title. Is. On. The. Cover.

Thank you.

[Nyna]

Heehee...I hide all my books in school. My least favorite question in the world is, "What are you reading?"

The. Title. Is. On. The. Cover.

Thank you.

Which is why my answer to this was always to slouch lower in my seat and raise the book -- read it for yourself, dude.

I was kind of antisocial in high school. The book I carried around for the better part of two years was the collected Icelandic Sagas -- and that was mostly because it took me that long to read them. Still, I would whip them out whenever I felt the need to intimidate someone -- easily the biggest book I've ever owned. I probably could have killed someone with it if I hit them over the head.

In college, I met my first boyfriend because he was reading a collection of Frost's poetry, and when I tried to strike up a conversation he blew me off to keep reading. Which was, of course, when I decided that I really liked him, and his later revelation that he didn't read all that much, actually, was a stunning let down. But he was a musician, so that was okay. :)

[IrishScribbler]

In high school I found myself returning again and again to Jane Eyre not to attract anyone, but because I loved the story.

In college I carried around anything I could...whatever I was reading. I took lots of literature courses, so I was fortunate to get a pretty good variety.

And, for the record, never in my back pocket. Safely in my waterproof bag or clutched in my arms protectively.

[Anonymisty]

My least favorite question in the world is, "What are you reading?"

Do you ever get the feeling the people who do this think they're rescuing you from a fate worse than death? I wonder what's going through their minds..."Oh, that poor woman. She has nothing better to do than read a book - how sad! She must be so lonesome. I shall go over and chat with her!"

Lucky me. *rolls eyes*

[IrishScribbler]

Do you ever get the feeling the people who do this think they're rescuing you from a fate worse than death? I wonder what's going through their minds..."Oh, that poor woman. She has nothing better to do than read a book - how sad! She must be so lonesome. I shall go over and chat with her!"

Lucky me. *rolls eyes*

Ha! I feel the same with the question "Have I read anything you've written?"

(Read: "You must be a starving writer since I've never heard of you, so if you give me a title, maybe I'll go buy it so you can autograph it and feel important.")

[Shadow_Ferret]

Then, as now, I was my own person. I never did anything to attract anyone. Not deliberately. If they found me interesting it was on my own terms, not theirs.

That said, I had a lot of Conan, Tarzan, The Shadow, Doc Savage, and similar fantasy and pulp fiction sticking out of my back pocket.

[Danger Jane]

I don't carry books around...no time to read in school. When I want to be antisocial, I take out my iPod and if necessary, if I am a high-demand person on that day, I walk around the halls for a while and maybe "check my email" in the library. Or take a nap.

My iPod is a MAJOR component of me coping with everything.

[Zoombie]

In high school I found myself returning again and again to Jane Eyre not to attract anyone, but because I loved the story.


I find that amusing, seeing as how I keep returning to The Eyre Affair, which takes place in a world where they take literature very seriously, time is as mailable as putty and the bad guy has kidnapped Jane Eyre from the pages of her own book and is demanding a ransom. 10 Million pounds, or Eyre gets it in the neck! Muahahahaha.

I also just remembered that I also read a whole lot of Xanth. Lots and lots of Xanth. Till it went crazy. Same with Dune. Though Xanth went about 11 books before going insane, while Dune only made it to 3.

[Esopha]

In college, I met my first boyfriend because he was reading a collection of Frost's poetry, and when I tried to strike up a conversation he blew me off to keep reading. Which was, of course, when I decided that I really liked him, and his later revelation that he didn't read all that much, actually, was a stunning let down. But he was a musician, so that was okay. :)

Ha! Only girly men read Robert Frost. William Blake's where all the hotties are. ;)

Do you ever get the feeling the people who do this think they're rescuing you from a fate worse than death? I wonder what's going through their minds..."Oh, that poor woman. She has nothing better to do than read a book - how sad! She must be so lonesome. I shall go over and chat with her!"

Lucky me. *rolls eyes*

I like to think that a quick death glare on my part quells that notion. I've been practicing since I was a wee lass and I am proud to say that all that practice paid off.

Honestly, if I wanted to have anything to do with you, I'd have made sure you knew. Just a hint: a smile and a wave on my part, rather than a look of sheer doom.

[scarletpeaches]

Do you ever get the feeling the people who do this think they're rescuing you from a fate worse than death? I wonder what's going through their minds..."Oh, that poor woman. She has nothing better to do than read a book - how sad! She must be so lonesome. I shall go over and chat with her!"

Lucky me. *rolls eyes*

Yeah, like this morning while I was waiting for something, I read a book and someone came over and said to me, "Come sit with us; it's better than sitting on your own."

Uh, not if you're trying to read, it isn't. And the fact is, unless you're a very, very special person, I prefer reading to talking to you.

I've only met a handful of people who are important enough to me to make me voluntarily put a book down.