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It's hard to pick favourites!

I have a task for one of my classes to draw a leaf, and write inside it my favourite poem, book and movie. Drawing the leaf itself was the easy part, although I think it's barely recognisable as a leaf! What is really difficult is choosing just one title from each category.

In our very first tutorial, as a get-to-know-you exercise, we were asked to introduce ourselves and tell everyone our favourite book. Not one of us could narrow it down to just one book, so each gave a few examples of what we like to read.

To select just one book, I have to think of it as a Desert Island book. If I was stranded on a desert island, and could only have one book for company, what would take? My answer: Laura Ingalls Wilders' "The Long Winter." It's an amazing story of her family's survival through a seven-month blizzard, stranded in their tiny frontier town.  It affected me deeply when I read it, and it still affects me each time I re-read it.

I think that, even more than the story itself, I remember it for the deep impression it made on me. It always comes to mind when I'm asked the "favourite book"question, as does the movie I selected as my favourite.

I first saw American Flyers back in my cycling days, and when I was interested in long distance, endurance cycling. It does have a similar theme of human achievement in the face of overwhelming challenges, although in a completely different setting. However, I can't find a copy of the movie to buy, so haven't seen it for years, but it still remains my top pick.

Selecting one poem is even harder still, although the choice of poet was easy: Emily Dickinson. I took out  my Complete Works to have a flip through to see if I could make a choice, and found that I had already made it (back in 1998 when I was doing A Level English). I found it easily, as it was heavily circled in pencil:

For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.

For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years,
Bitter contested farthings
And coffers heaped with tears.








I'm very keen to find out about my colleagues' favourites, and to see if I've read any of theirs. If not, I'll add them to my ever-growing reading list!


















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