Books like friends .....

[PimpinAintEasy]

I dont simply mean favorite books. I mean the books whose characters and settings and dialogs are like friends of yours. You identify so much with the feelings of the characters and the situations they find themselves in, you feel like you are reading about characters who could be your friends in real life.

For me the three books by Irvine Welsh - TRAINSPOTTING, PORNO and SKAGBOYS would always be like close friends. When I finished SKAGBOYS last year, I felt like some friends had left my home.

I also get the same feeling when I am reading the work of Charles Bukowski. I really identify with the Hank Chinaski character and his exploits.

I also enjoy the work of the cartoonist Robert Crumb in the same way. His comics are hilarious and sometimes slapstick but the social commentary is amazing too. It is hard not to like Fritz the Cat and Doggo!

 

[Meadow337]

I have a few, mostly when I was a child though, not so much now. um gosh I'd have to have a think. There were lots that I identified with strongly.

 

[EquusAmor]

I know I do connect with the characters in the Immortal Instruments series and the Infernal Devices series. I am sad to say I am on the last book of the Infernal Devices series and I am dreading the end where I will close the book and not see the characters again unless I feel like rereading them (which I am sure I will eventually)

 

[SFG75]

For me, The Grapes of Wrath is one that I most identify with. It's not the characters so much as it is the setting and time period. My grandfather lived through the great depression and was part of the generation that got to live through that and two world wars. We would have car rides where he would show me how he would walk past and count fence posts on the way to the country school house to pick up his little sister who needed to be picked up......amidst a sandstorm. There were other stories of how he had to help his father lead an entire herd of swine to a ditch and shoot them as it wasn't worth taking them to the market. He had strong political views, in particular about bankers and their ilk. We don't have many members here who identify strongly with the Bible, but if I were to compare my reading of Grapes, it would be something as intense and personal as a person gets from being inspired by the good book.