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Random Positivity Thread: Happy Book Memories (awful.systems)

submitted 5 hours ago by blakestacey@awful.systems to c/morewrite@awful.systems

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In the spirit of our earlier "happy computer memories" thread, I'll open one for happy book memories. What's a book you read that occupies a warm-and-fuzzy spot in your memory? What book calls you back to the first time you read it, the way the smell of a bakery brings back a conversation with a friend?

As a child, I was into mystery stories and Ancient Egypt both (not to mention dinosaurs and deep-sea animals and...). So, for a gift one year I got an omnibus set of the first three Amelia Peabody novels. Then I read the rest of the series, and then new ones kept coming out. I was off at science camp one summer when He Shall Thunder in the Sky hit the bookstores. I don't think I knew of it in advance, but I snapped it up and read it in one long summer afternoon with a bottle of soda and a bag of cookies.

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[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 4 points 4 hours ago (5 children)

I read this and immediately typed out a lesswrong length blog post about all the books I've read without thinking, but that might be a bit much so I'll only focus on "one":

Maze books and puzzle books. I was obsessed with mazes as a kid. Hedge mazes, mazes with twisty staircases, mazes with tunnels and shortcuts, mazes with monsters, mazes with puzzles. There is (almost) no such thing as a bad maze book! My friend and I would always check out maze books from the library and solve mazes together. One of the earlier puzzle books I read had some absolutely stupid stuff in it like a guy saying "I need some HJKLMNO" with the answer being he's thirsty and needs H2O. There were also a bunch of puzzle books I can't remember with these really great settings like exploring another world or stuff like that. Also I know it's not a maze book or a puzzle book but mentally Dinotopia fits in this category for me and that book was the bee's knees.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Did you ever read Mad Mazes by Robert Abbott? That was a book of 20 mazes that were practically lessons in graph theory. I remember one involved navigating a public transit map where you could make free transfers of the same type (bus to bus or train to train) or to the same color (e.g., a red bus line to a red train line). Another involved using a die to mark your position on a grid; you could only move to a square if tilting the die over in that direction brought the number printed on the square to the top of the die.

[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 4 points 3 hours ago

I don't think so, it looks pretty darn cool though. I've definitely seen mazes with those sorts of ideas, but I don't remember in what books.

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