Page One: Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Page One: Jonathan Livingston Seagull

I get a feeling that I’m not supposed to like Jonathan Livingston Seagull (by Richard Bach), but while I certainly admit that it’s cheesy and its mysticism can be kind-of bizarre, I’ve determined that I’m unlikely to ever lose my soft spot for this book. So much of Bach reads like a New Age mystical version of Nicholas Sparks (minus the insistence on having someone in each book die horribly), but even now I still occasionally get the desire to dip into him a little bit again.

I wrote a couple of years back about my experience with Richard Bach, and that’s generally how I still feel about him today. But that one quote from Jonathan — “You will be ready to begin to fly up and know the meaning of kindness and of love” — still speaks to me.

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Page One: A Tale of Two Cities


Page One: A Tale of Two Cities, originally uploaded by Jaquandor.

I posted about A Tale of Two Cities last week, but I figured it was still a prime candidate for Page One feature.

(BTW, is this feature popular at all amongst the readership? I’m enjoying it, but I’m not sure anyone else is….)

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Page One: 2001 – A Space Odyssey

I mentioned this book in yesterday’s NPR 100 SF Books list, so it seemed right to use it today for Page One. I actually think I prefer the book to the movie, as amazing as the movie is.

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Page One: The Hobbit


Page One: The Hobbit, originally uploaded by Jaquandor.

I saw someone do this on Tumblr a couple weeks ago, and I fell in love with the idea, so I’m starting a whole new series of blog posts, which I will intend to do weekly but which, as with all such things, I will actually do whenever I think to do one. The idea is a simple one: the first page of books that mean a great deal to me.

For my purposes, I will generally define “page one” as the first page of the actual story, whether that be a prologue or the first chapter. Anyway, here is Page One of The Annotated Hobbit, featuring the complete text by JRRT with annotations by Douglas A. Anderson. This book is full of fascinating details about the writing and publication history of The Hobbit, and of course, the ever-wonderful story of The Hobbit, which I continue to believe is absolutely essential to any proper reading of The Lord of the Rings.

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