- Blue van Meer – Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl. I love that Blue sees the world filtered through the dubious gauze of academia and literary thought and scientific theory, and that this isn’t necessarily a good thing. I can relate: it’s always tempting to overlay mundanity with deeper meaning.
- Catherine Morland – Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen. Catherine’s much like Blue: she sees everything in terms of her beloved Gothic novels, when there’s usually something less melodramatic but more insidiously serious going on.
- Lirael – Lirael, Garth Nix. Lirael’s bookishness is more a matter of convenience than a choice, I guess: she works in the fabulous Library of the Clayr because it’s quiet and she can avoid her endless cousins, rather than because she particularly likes books. But her librarian background stays with her through all her adventures, and it really is an awesome library, so I’m counting it.
- Alana – Saga, Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples. Alana believes, right down in the core of her being, that a book can change the world. What bookworm doesn’t relate to that fervour? And, who knows, she might be right.
- Ariel Manto – The End of Mr Y, Scarlett Thomas. Ariel spends her last £50 on a rare book. She’s one of us, all right.
- Meggie Folchart – Inkheart, Cornelia Funke. Meggie sleeps with a book under a pillow at night! When she goes on adventures she takes the books that will give her courage! Lots of my reading habits are modelled on hers – I read this when I was like eight, and it’s stayed with me ever since.
- Hermione Granger – the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling. I mean. I basically have to include Hermione, who is obviously the best of the three Harry Potter kids. (Much more interesting than Harry.)
- Francesca – A Novel Bookstore, Laurence Cosse. If only because her dream of opening the perfect bookshop, a bookshop that sells only the best literature, is so perfect, and a thing I want to see so much. “We want books that leave nothing out: neither human tragedy nor everyday wonders, books that bring fresh air to our lungs.”
- Katin Crawford – Nova, Samuel Delany. Katin’s…a little out of touch with the world, to put it mildly. In the far-future world of Nova, the novel as an art form is thousands of years obsolete. But Katin still wants to write one, to draw together all the strands of the historical moment he inhabits. He’s fascinated by them. He’s like all of us: a thinker, a dreamer, a person who knows there are other worlds than these.
- The creature – Frankenstein, Mary Shelley. The creature gets his entire education from Paradise Lost, basically. Which, in all honesty, is probably precisely as healthy as basing your childhood morality on The Lord of the Rings. Which I definitely did not do. Ever. *coughs*
(The prompt for this post comes from the weekly meme Top Ten Tuesday.)
The English Student 