Back to Books: College

I mentioned at the end of my last post on this topic that I had gone abroad as an exchange student. In fact, I went to Brazil and lived in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. When I came back for my senior year in high school, one of my big factors in considering colleges was whether the college offered Portuguese classes. When you're facing a large moving box full of college brochures, using Portuguese as a weeding criteria is actually very effective. I also wanted to go more than 100 miles from home.

In all three of the Portuguese literature classes I took in college, we were required to read Gabriela, Cravo e Canela by Jorge Amado. Amado is a prolific and varied writer. He's sort of a combination of Mark Twain, Louis L'Amour, and John Steinbeck. Gabriela is considered his seminal work, although I enjoyed The Violent Land more.

Another notable book from college was Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. This is the first book I ever purposefully did not finish. I just couldn't do it. I think I forced my way through until I was less than 50 pages from the end, and then I just gave up, sort of. Somewhere in storage, I still have the book, with the bookmark still in it. Maybe now that some time has past, when I retrieve it from storage, I'll re-read it and either finish it or give it 50 pp. and let it go. I've gotten better about the latter now that I'm older.

College also meant meeting people who shared my taste in reading. Several of my friends suggested books to me. It was like opening up whole new worlds, and I loved it. The challenge was not getting too distracted from my school work. Robin McKinley and Barbara Michaels (Elizabeth Peters) are two of the new authors I met through friends.