What Makes a book memorable

[kk]

Silverclaw: Oooh, yes! That's definitely right!

A book really becomes memorable to me (wow, I have a lot of reasons), when I start memorizing the words without really trying. Like, if it's an audiobook, I can mimic the words, pauses, and also narrator's accent. All without trying. And then the next few times I listen to it again, I speak along with the narrator, and it helps me remember the book better.

Heh.... I like books, a lot.

[Jacq]

For me, I know a book will be a favourite if immediately after I finish reading it I want to go back to the beginning and start all over again right away. I'm not sure exactly what qualities make the book a favourite, but the ones that do are able to grab my attention to the exclusion of nearly everything around me, even on the second or third or tenth reread. If I've missed my bus stop, it's probably a favourite. :3

Also, I have a few books that are the best of the best. I call them my "comfort books" because I can open them to any page and jump in. Does that sound too weird? If I've had one of those days where it seems like everyone is asking too much, I just open to Nita's telephone call with CArl and it makes my day a little more bearable.
(Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, DW, and American Gods by Neil Gaiman are a few of my fictional comfort books)

[seabiscuit1009]

For me, I know a book will be a favourite if immediately after I finish reading it I want to go back to the beginning and start all over again right away. I'm not sure exactly what qualities make the book a favourite, but the ones that do are able to grab my attention to the exclusion of nearly everything around me, even on the second or third or tenth reread. If I've missed my bus stop, it's probably a favourite. :3

Also, I have a few books that are the best of the best. I call them my "comfort books" because I can open them to any page and jump in. Does that sound too weird? If I've had one of those days where it seems like everyone is asking too much, I just open to Nita's telephone call with CArl and it makes my day a little more bearable.
(Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, DW, and American Gods by Neil Gaiman are a few of my fictional comfort books)

I completely agree with this, although I hate it when that happens-when you finish a book and just want to read it again and again, or continue reading the series obsessively...that actually happens to me a lot. I have a few books like that-Pride & Prejudice, because I'm a huge Jane Austen dork, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, which is this history of philosophy in the form of a novel...I could go on, but that'd just be redundant.

I also love those books that you can just open to any page and reread, and they feel like coming home. Most of my books like that are books I read when I was a bit younger, like Deep Wizardry, A Wizard Abroad, and more recently, Eclipse. When I have a bad day...I don't necessarily want to read a book that makes me think too much, but I want something that makes me feel good. All of those books, but especially those two YW books, are my comfort books, and I will pretty much be using them as such for awhile, because they made such an impression on me...

[Tuttle]

Comfort books is one of the things that makes a book memorable, but its not necessary to have a memorable book.

Personally, my biggest comfort book is AWAl, and that's why its possibly my favourite in the series. The other books are just as good, but when I was rereading the books when wizard's holiday came out, it just caught me as I was going through dealing with being told I was almost certainly an aspie. I can understand why people would not like the book in terms of 'the autism is what was left behind because he didn't want it' but I liked the interactions between autism and wizardry as I was being told I likely was on the low end of the autistic spectrum.

As for other things that make books memorable, the amount you can get out of the book besides the plot. I really like this when you could read the same book as something to get a lot out of or just enjoy the story. Lord of the Rings is like this too me. The story needs to make sense though or it just is like it doesn't have a story. A very straightforward but easily memorable thing about a book is it relating things you are interested in. A good example for me is the Wizardry books by Rick Cook (The puns are hilarious if you're the type who'd get them). The computer puns make the book easy to remember and as it is already a good series, makes it even better. Also, books which draw in math (flatterland jumps out here as an example, even more than flatland) are memorable because of the connection to math.

Losing track of yourself in the book is a quality of a book which is memorable, but I do not think it has to do with why the book is easily remembered. It's a way to pull out what books are in that catagory though.

Unlike others, it being easily visualized isn't anything to me. I don't picture the characters or the setting when I read no matter the description. However, I do like a lot of description (that may not make sense, but it is how I am).

[Wiccangixie]

...Losing track of yourself in the book is a quality of a book which is memorable, but I do not think it has to do with why the book is easily remembered. It's a way to pull out what books are in that catagory though.

Unlike others, it being easily visualized isn't anything to me. I don't picture the characters or the setting when I read no matter the description. However, I do like a lot of description (that may not make sense, but it is how I am).

No, that definitely makes since Tuttle. Sometimes reading the description and finding myself lost in it helps me think of what I want to do when I create a poem or a story on Quizilla. I love making the words create a live picture in my mind, and I love being able to tweak the picture when I reread a passage. (I know that the sentence here is a little weird, but if you think about it, well it makes since to me) When I read a passage and the words combine to form a picture of a land or an emotion, it makes the book feel more alive. I guess that's what makes it memorable for me. Feeling the book come alive in a way that inspires me to write beautiful poetry and (weird) stories of my pastime.

[--edited to cut the quoting down to the relevant bit. kli]

[Dancing Glitter]

For me, what makes a book memorable is.... hard to describe.

Much of it does seem to be the characters. If the characters, for good or for bad, reach out and grab me, then I'm likely to keep reading and see where they carry me. Sometimes, even when a plotline isn't one that normally would catch my interest, then I find myself following along because the characters are just so compelling. Then, I'm a character girl, so what can I say other than that?

But it's that, and the ability to drag me into the world, into the surroundings to the point where the book seems to have lodged in part of my head, or I find myself thinking about aspects of the book long past putting it down... that's what really gets me about my favourite books.

[Tsakaki]

Hmm, well, I usually start by reading the back cover, and if that appeals to me, the first few pages (if I'm at the bookstore and haven't bought it yet). I buy it if I find I'm being pulled into the story or feel an urge to keep reading.

I'm also very big on characters. If I like the characters, and feel they are well formed/developed, then I usually like the book. I can get through a blah story for good characters.
I prefer books that have some humor in them, something that'll make me laugh. I read a lot of books without much humor, and I like them, but my favourites all have a good amount of humor.

[LifeSong]

1) Well developed characters
2) I slow down as I near the end, just so it can last longer
3) It keeps me up late at night to read
4) It makes me laugh/cry out loud
5) Makes me annoyed when I finish it because I can't read it again the same way
6) A plot line that makes sense
7) Little to no contrivances (I *hate* contrivances)
8) It has a point
9) I stay obsessed with it for more than three months

Books like Young Wizards (which is my record for being obsessed with something - two or three years now?), Touch the Earth (which is my record for crying over a book - and I was depressed for weeks afterward, but it was still an awesome book), Fullmetal Alchemist (which is my record for requesting books from the library - 5 or 10 at once), and probably a whole lot more that I can't think of right now.

I second Tsakaki about the humor. For example, I seriously love DD's sense of humor. Wizards At War was a big depress-fest but oddly had probably the most humorous moments of all the books. It was also probably the most quotable.

Also, if a book has pairing/s that I feel strongly about or that I really like, I'm probably going to remember/like it. Unless it's got horrible plot holes or contrivances or bad writing or something. But an average-to-awesome book that has great pairing/s is going to be memorable. It's funny, because I'm normally not a romance person in that I don't like novels that center around a romance, but I'm a sucker for well-written pairings. (Like Sarek and Amanda from Star Trek, for instance. Or Roy and Riza from Fullmetal Alchemist. I love them *so much* )

[Tuttle]

5) Makes me annoyed when I finish it because I can't read it again the same way

This is one thing that I can understand that some people would think, but its also one I pretty strongly disagree with. When a book is one of those defining books of your life and one of the most memorable books, its one that is re-read a lot, possibly because you can get the same thing out of it again, but more likely because each time you read it there is more there that was missed the first time through, or details combining differently such that a different point is made.

To me its often a memorable book is one that is not only entirely re-readable, but one that you gain /more/ from reading it again, and reading it the same way would be actually be lesser. I've read parts of Tale of the Five multiple times, at various points it was about there being a larger force in the universe, hope against gender-norms, acceptance and understanding, and simply an entertaining plot, because at the time those were what I was needing out of a book. The other bits were always noticeable each time through, but there was a different primary aspect depending on what I needed to get out of it.


(And reading through some of this topic again was probably bad for my budget... I'm really being tempted to go through and buy ebooks for some of my comfort books that I've been avoiding doing so for because of having paper copies. I want the paper copies, but sometimes I drastically prefer reading on the kindle.)

[LifeSong]

I do feel like the first time around is the most fun because I've got no idea what will happen, but thinking about it now, you have a point . . . another reason I love YW is because it's so detailed, every time I re-read it, I catch something new. So I guess that's #10 for me, that I can re-read it and still enjoy it.

LifeSong

[96bookworms]

I agree with lots of these! For me, the Young Wizards series and all the Tortall books by Tamora Pierce are my favorites of all time. The Tortall books I re-read so often that there are parts that I can quote! And my favorite thing about those books is how detailed they are. There are so many details that aren't even relevant to the story line, and yet it makes the book just a little bit more real, because you can think "hey, isn't that person related to the other person that was mentioned ONCE in a different series completely?" and if you ask Tamora Pierce about the characters, she can give you up to date information about them, even if it has nothing to do with any of the main characters! That's what makes the books memorable for me....and also lots of the other ideas mentioned above.

[Gibby Gibson]

For me, there is only one thing that makes a book memorable, and that is the character development.

I've never really been a fan of books that are one and done things. I've always loved series for the main reason that after the first story, there are more out there to tell about this world, these characters, their stuggles and triumphs. For this reason, one main aspect of a series is how do the characters grow, adapt and change as the series progresses.

Now I won't say that all one-and-done books are bad; they just were never for me. When I get invested and spend time in something, I want to spend as much time in that 'world' as possible; learning all there is. That is the main reason why I don't watch movies much anymore and would rather focus on TV series. More time in those worlds, more is revealed to me.

And all that leads to the main reason of allowing me a chance to just imagine what happens in that world 'between the pages.'

When you start to wonder what is happening to the characters when they are not the focus at that point, then you know you are invested and interested in a series; and that leads to one that is memorable, one that I want my children to read when they grow up.

Gibby Gibson