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I hung in till about 2/3 of the way through "Wicked" and just got bored which made me all pissy. Annie is indeed adorable. That book almost made me homesick for Oklahoma, which is no small feat.
Yes, I loved it too, and was surprised because the setting is definitely not one that I thought I would enjoy being submerged in as the atmosphere for a novel.
Anyway, it made the husband-cut. I read all the books, and only give him the ones that I think are especially wonderful. He also adored it.
Funny my twinkie, I liked Wicked quite a bit at first and then it just lost narrative steam for me. It seems like a lot of those reimagined stories do that at some point. (Plus, you shouldn't muck around with that particular story unless you really have some chops.)
What makes me swoon? Well, I reread Jane Eyre every year, usually around fall or winter, though I did it this summer. One of the more distressing class experiences I ever had was with a bunch of women who thought Jane capitulated by marrying Rochester. As if "Reader, I married him" wasn't a revolutionary sentence for that character and that historical moment. I've worn out so many cheap copies that wish I could find a really beautiful old one -- no need that it be valuable, just that it's a well edited edition and feels good in my hands.
Other books that I revisit again and again: Out of Africa, My Family and Other Animals, In Cold Blood...I've got a big omnibus of MFK Fisher I love. Really, too many to list, and more that I fall for all the time. I went through a big Marguerite Duras, Angela Carter, and Dashiell Hammett phase recently. An odd group, but I like those.
Oh, anything Oliver Sacks writes is wonderful for a layperson like me. I love really good pop science writing but it's hard to find, at least for me. I like more modern things too, like David Foster Wallace (annoying tics and all) but my heart is really with tightly controlled, disciplined narratives where the passion is in the subtext.
I started Wicked, liked the bit about the clockwork cult, but it all went downhill from there. Too soap opera-y and I wanted Elphaba to be just a bit more Wicked. Just a tad.
It took me awhile to get into Wicked... it was all right, if only for the explanation of how the Wicked Witch takes baths. I usually don't like authors that piggyback on the success of other, better authors.
And speaking of good authors, The Time Traveler's Wife is one of the best books I've ever read. Check it out!
I didn't like Wicked much either - boring. I was surprised, because so many people love it.
John Crowley makes me swoon - I reread Little, Big every couple of years. Ditto Mark Helprin and A Winter's Tale. Anything John Fowles or Doris Lessing ever wrote. Peter S. Beagle. Neal Stephenson. Neil Gaiman. China Mieville. Samuel R. Delaney. Margaret Atwood. Fay Weldon. MFK Fisher. Walker Percy. Faulkner, Fitzgerald and lots more that I can't think of offhand. There are lots of writers I like or love for various reasons, but the ones I've listed above can really write. Then there are those who don't write quite as well but have great stories: John Varley and Robin Hobb and Charles de Lint and I confess: J. Rowling - I loves loves loves me some Harry Potter.
Mmmm...Annie Proulx - haven't read her latest yet, but I've been meaning to. I re-read Jane Austen books (mostly Pride and Prejudice) all the time, because I'm on a decade-long course in Improving My Manners (it's not helping).
If you like Annie Proulx, check out Louise Erdrich! By the way, I liked Wicked, but these authors are a different breed than McGuire.
My mother has been on me to read The Time Traveler's Wife, but my aunt has her copy and keeps forgetting to bring it to me when we have our weekly lunch date.
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