Friday, January 29, 2016

TOP FIVE FRIDAY #16

TFF is based on TOP TEN TUESDAY by The Broke and the Bookish. I always frown in a defeated manner when trying to come up with ten answers for TTT, so...

This week is a freebie.

TOP FIVE HIPPIE BOOKS


I was a little hippie once. I was only 12 when Woodstock happened, but I was still able to catch the tailend of the heyday of the movement. I was even taken to the police station when I was 15 for protesting in front of our local federal building. They let me go after they called my house and nobody would come down to the station to get me. Ha! I even lived on a commune in Colorado for four months after I graduated from high school. I came home after Christmas because my sister, who was only three, cried until she choked while talking to me on the phone because I couldn't see her new holiday "church" dress. She was actually holding the phone out asking me to look at her dress. My heart couldn't take it. Anyway, these were my fave reads during that time.
GOODREADS
I read this when I was 14 and I thought it was fabulous, but when I read it again in my 20s, in preparation for reading the sequel...
which had just been released, I saw how cheesy some parts of it were. I mean, "Love means never having to say you are sorry," what does that even mean? Ha ha. It did make me cry again, though.  And now that I am thinking about it, maybe I will reread it again for Valentine's Day. It is a quick read if I am recalling correctly. I don't remember if Oliver's Story was good or not. It didn't leave much of an impression.

GOODREADS
I couldn't find a large cover image of this anywhere. I do not remember too much of this one, other than it is all about being your authentic self and embracing even the messed up parts of your personality. I should reread this one, too.

GOODREADS
I read this the first time when I was 16 and then again in my 20s and in my 30s. It is probably time to read it again. It was the tipping point in turning me away from Western organized religion. It is about a young man's journey to enlightenment during the time of The Buddha.

 "Through the narrator's first person account we hear the story of the people and the events of iDEATH. The central tension is created by Margaret, once a lover of the narrator, and inBOIL, a rebellious man who has left iDEATH to live near a forbidden area called the Forgotten Works. It is a huge trash heap where the remnants of a former civilization lie abandoned in great piles. Margaret, a collector of such 'forgotten things', is friendly with inBOIL and his followers, who explore the place and make whiskey." ~ Wikipedia
Yeah, I know, I always said I was more mature before I was 17 than I ever was after. I think I read this when I was 16. It basically tells about the ideals of the counter culture movement.

It is heartbreaking that the same socioeconomic changes called for in this book are still being sought today, 45 years later. This would be an applicable read to what is currently going on in the United States.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Quote from Demian by Hermann Hesse.

8 comments:

  1. Fun list! I was only 7 when Woodstock happened, but I still dressed like a hippie in college, wearing a navy pea coat and long hair when it was supposed to be the 80s. I could never read any book by Richard Brautigan, though I believe I tried a couple of times! I remember being very impressed by Jonathan Livingston Seagull and crying so hard at Love Story (but now can't remember if it was just the movie or if I read the book, too.) A great trip down Memory Lane! I never was a real hippie, though, because I never read Siddhartha!

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    1. It is never too late to read Siddhartha! Ha ha. It has shown me something different every time. I don't think I could handle reading Brautigan now. Hehe. I am back doing the hippie thing again after having to pretend to be normal for the years my son was in middle school and high school. He still lives in fear of me getting my eyebrow pierced, though. :D

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    2. Ouch! No piercings beyond my ears for me! I might reconsider my thinking that the Siddhartha train has passed, though...;)

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  2. Aw your poor sister, I am glad you came home!!

    I was a failed hippy during the early nineties when in my teens, we had awesome tie dye long flowing dresses, actually we had tie dye everything!

    I don't know any of these books but I love those vintage covers, thanks for sharing your stories!

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    1. My mother wasn't very motherly, so I was able to do a lot of things that my trends would not have been allowed to do; like protesting. :D

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  3. I think the only one of those books that I knew about was Siddharta! O_o

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    1. My group of friends read some really weird stuff. I live in a college toiwn and I started hanging out with a bunch of students from the university when I was 14 and they were a huge influence on my reading. When I went on the road with a band I was reading mostly drugstore paperbacks about naughty flight attendants! Hehe. :)

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