Dragonlance and Drizzt might be more important to people my age than LOTR and The Hobbit were to the previous generation. They were to me.

I was just heading up to bed, now my head is buzzing. I feel like this is some kind of kismet!

I was a fan of the original when I was a kid (late 80s/early 90s), moreso than 90210. Now I've got to find it somewhere, don't I?

Degrassi informs SO MUCH of my writing. When I first started teaching the "next generation" series was on Nick Teen (man, that sounded old typing that) and I would sit at home on breaks and watch for HOURS. My wife worked during the day and it was just me and my dog watching Degrassi.

I have been limping through this book since June. I can't seem to find the reading groove on it!

And I considered myself a fantasy fanatic, but I read mostly tie-ins, which I contend are more akin to the old pulps than anything else.

I read way over my head as a preteen, reading lots of "men's adventure" books that no 11 yo should've been reading. I transitioned to DRAGONLANCE and DRIZZT novels for fun and stumbled my way through school reading. Except for LOTR, I read none of modern epic fantasy until Game of Thrones in 2000.

Then I tried to think, what was the first "classic" that grabbed me? And when? Johnny Tremaine? Where does that fall on the spectrum? Was it Gatsby? Or To Kill A Mockingbird? I loathed Lord of the Flies when I read it in HS (love it as a HS teacher).

What was my "first love?" What was the books that grabbed me? I tried to think and the best I could come up with was HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS followed by the ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN books. I started to wonder, were some of us "literary" while others were "popular?" I was clearly in the popular circle.

Okay, a buddy and I had a conversation about this last week. I had my college students read the Atlantic article about elite college students "not reading" the classics anymore then I listened to a podcast where an author said their "first love" was ALICE IN WONDERLAND. It got me thinking.

A student in my college writing course wrote a literacy narrative about Watership Down and all the trauma from the 70s movie came flooding back.

The book is one of the best examples of 3rd person omniscient I've ever read.

Also, RIchard Adams was 52 when it got published. YAY OLD GUYS!

We're all fans first. I get positively giddy when an author I admire even LIKES one of my posts! Especially the meaty ones where I almost sound like I know what I'm talking about.

Haven't gotten my email yet, but I'm waiting. C'mon @democrats.org, you usually aren't this late with this. Or are you going to at least wait 24 hours like that's going to make the anger go away?