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roaringgirl · 3 years

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Books read in January

I am keeping this as a little record for myself, as I already keep a list (my best new year’s resolution - begun Jan 2018) but don’t record my thoughts

General thoughts on this - I read a lot this month but it played into my worst tendencies to read very very fast and not reflect, something I’m particularly prone too with modern fiction. I just, so to speak, swallow it without thinking. First 5 or so entries apart, I did quite well in my usually miserably failed attempt to have my reading be at least half books by women.

1. John le Carré - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974): I liked this a lot! I sort of lost track of the Cold War and shall we say ethics-concerned parts of it and ended up reading a fair bit of it as an English comedy of manners - but I absolutely love all the bizarre rules about what is in bad taste (are these real? Did le Carré make them up?).

2. John le Carré - The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963): I liked this a lot less. It seemed at the same time wilfully opaque and entirely predictable. Have been thinking a lot about genre fiction - I love westerns and noir, so wonder if for me British genre fiction doesn’t quite scratch the same itch.

3. David Lodge - Ginger You’re Barmy (1962): This was fine. I don’t have much to say about it - I was interested in reading about National Service and a bit bogged down in a history of it so read a novel. As with most comic novels, it was perfectly readable but not very funny.

4. Dan Simmons - Song of Kali (1985): His first novel. This is quite enjoyable just for the amount of Grand Guignol gore, and also because I like to imagine it caused the Calcutta tourist board some consternation. Wildly structurally flawed, however. Best/worst quote: ‘Hearing Amrita speak was like being stroked by a firm but well-oiled palm.’ Continues in that vein.

5. Richard Vinen - National Service: A Generation in Uniform (2014): If you are interested in National Service, this is a good overview! If not, not.

6. Sarah Moss - Ghost Wall (2018): I absolutely loved this. About a camping trip trying to recreate Iron Age Britain. Just, very upsetting but so so good - a horror story where the horror is male violence and abuse within the (un)natural family unit.

7. Kate Grenville - A Room Made of Leaves (2020): Excellent idea, but not amazing execution - the style is kind of bland in that ‘ironed out in MFA workshops’ way (I have no idea if she did an MFA but that’s what it felt like). Rewriting the story of early Australian colonisation through the POV of John Macarthur’s wife Elizabeth.

8. Ruth Goodman - How to Be a Victorian (2013): I mostly read this for Terror fic reasons, if I’m honest. I skimmed a lot of it but she has a charming authorial voice and I really like that she covers the beginning of the period, not just post-1870.

9. Gary Shteyngart - Super Sad True Love Story (2010): I read this on a recommendation from Ms Poose after I asked for good fiction mostly concerned with the internet, and I thought it was excellent - it’s very exaggerated/non-realistic and that heightening of incident and affect works so well.

10. Brenda Wineapple - The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation (2019): What a great book. I had to keep putting it down because reading about Reconstruction always makes me so sad and frustrated with what might have been - the lost dream of a better world.

11. Halle Butler - The New Me (2019): Reading this while single, starting antidepressants and stuck in an office job that bores me to death but is too stable/undemanding to complain about maybe wasn’t a great decision, for me, emotionally.

12. Halle Butler - Jillian (2015): Ditto.

13. Ottessa Moshfegh - Death in Her Hands (2020): Very disappointed by this. I don’t really like meta-fiction unless it’s really something special and this wasn’t. Also, I’m stupid and really bad at reading, like, postmodern allegorical fiction I just never get it.

14. Andrea Lawlor - Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl (2017): This was really really hot! I will admit I don’t think the reflections on gender, homophobia, AIDS etc are very deep or as revealing as some reviews made out, but I also don’t think they’re supposed to be? It’s a lot of fun and all of the characters in it are so precisely, fondly but meanly sketched.

15. Catherine Lacey - The Answers (2017): This was fine! Readable, enjoyable, but honestly it has not stuck with me. There are only so many sad girl dystopias you can read and I think I overdid it with them this month.

16. Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall (2010, reread): Was supposed to read the first 55 pages of this for my two-person book club, but I completely lack self-restraint so reread the whole thing in four days. Like, I love it I don’t really know what else to say. I was posing for years that ‘Oh, Mantel’s earlier novels are better, they’re such an interesting development of Muriel Spark and the problem of evil and farce’ blah blah blah but nope, this is great.

17. Oisin Fagan - Hostages (2016): Book of short stories that I disliked intensely, which disappointed me because I tore through Nobber in horrified fascination (his novel set in Ireland during the Black Death - which I really cannot recommend enough. It’s so intensely horrible but, like Mantel although in a completely different style/method, he has the trick of not taking the past on modern terms). A lot of this is sci-fi dystopia short stories which just aren’t... very good or well-sustained. BUT I did appreciate it because it is absolutely the opposite of pleasant, competently-written but forgettable MFA fiction.

18. Muriel Spark - Loitering with Intent (1981): Probably my least favourite Spark so far, but still good. I think the Ealing Comedy-esque elements of her style are most evident and most dated here. It just doesn’t have the same sentence-by-sentence sting as most of her work, and again I don’t like meta-fiction.

19. Hilary Mantel - Bring up the Bodies (2012, reread): Having (re)read all of these in about 3 months, I think this is probably my favourite of the three. I just love the way a whole world, whole centuries and centuries of history and society spiral out from every paragraph. And just stylistically, how perfect - every sentence is a cracker. I’m just perpetually in awe of Mantel as a prose stylist (although I dislike that everyone seems to write in the present tense now and blame her for it).

20. Muriel Spark - The Girls of Slender Means (1963, reread): (TW weight talk etc ) As always, Hilary Mantel sets me off on a Muriel Spark spree. I’ve read this too many times to say much about it other than that the denouement always makes me go... my hips definitely wouldn’t fit through that window. Maybe I should lose weight in case I have to crawl out of a bathroom window due to a fire caused by an unexploded bomb from WW2???? Which is a wild throwback to my mentality as a 16 year old.

21. China Mieville - Perdido Street Station (2000, reread): What a lot of fun. I know we don’t do steampunk anymore BUT I do like that he got in the whole economic and justice system of the early British Industrial Revolution and not just like steam engines. God, maybe I should read more sci-fi. Maybe I should reread the rest of this trilogy but that’s like 2000 pages. Maybe I should reread the City and the City because at least that’s short and ties exactly into my Disco Elysium obsession (the mod I downloaded to unlock all dialogue keeps breaking the game though. Is there a script online???)

22. Stephen King - Carrie (1974): I have a confession to make: I was supposed to teach this to one of my tutees and then just never read it, but to be honest we’re still doing basic reading comprehension anyway. That sounds mean but she’s very sweet and I love teaching her because she gets perceptibly less intimidated/critical of herself every lesson. ANYWAY I read half of this in the bath having just finished my period, which I think was perfect. It’s fun! Stephen King is fun! I don’t have anything deeper to say.

23. Hilary Mantel - Every Day is Mother’s Day (1985): You can def tell this is a first novel because it doesn’t quite crackle with the same demonic energy as like, An Experiment in Love or Beyond Black, but all the recurring themes are there. If it were by anyone else I’d be like good novel! But it’s not as good as her other novels.

24. Dominique Fortier - On the Proper Usage of Stars (2010): This was... perfectly competent. Kind of dull? It made me think of what I appreciate about Dan Simmons which is how viscerally unpleasant he makes being in the Navy seem generally, and man-hauling with scurvy specifically. This had the same problem with some other FE fiction which is that they’re mostly not willing to go wild and invent enough so the whole thing is kind of diffuse and under-characterised. Although I hated the invented plucky Victorian orphan who’s great at magnetism and taxonomy and read all ONE THOUSAND BOOKS or whatever on the ships before they got thawed out at Beechey (and then the plotline just went nowhere because they immediately all died???) I had to skim all his bits in irritation. I liked the books more than this makes it sound I was just like Mr Tuesday I hope you fall down a crevasse sooner rather than later.

25. Muriel Spark - The Abbess of Crewe (1974): Transposing Watergate to an English convent is quite funny, although it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that’s what she was doing even though I lit read a book covering Watergate in detail in December. Muriel Spark is just so, so stylish I’m always consumed with envy. I think a lot of her books don’t quite hang together as books but sentence by sentence... they’re exquisite and incomparable.

Overall thoughts: This month was very indulgent since I basically just inhaled a lot of not challenging fiction. I need to enjoy myself less, so next month we’re finishing a biography of Napoleon, reading the Woman in White and finishing the Lesser Bohemians which currently I’m struggling with since it’s like nearly as impenetrable Joyce c. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man but, so far... well I hesitate to say bad since I think once I get into I’ll be into it but. Bad.

#book club

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halfincubus · 7 years

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tagged by @soulfulspikethekiller tagging: @whoawhatwhoa @ghoshts @pauldrons

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?

It’s either my Famous Five collection or my Agatha Christies. My grandad gave me both around the same time, so I’m not sure which I started reading first.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?

The last book I read was The Knife of Never Letting Go (And I’m never going to let go of the shitty way that book killed the dog, not touching that pointlessly miserable series again) and I’m probably going to start reading Cormoran Strike next because my friends recommended it and I’m a glutton for murder mysteries.

3. Which book does everyone like and you hated?

I have a fair few books that still make me Angry, many of them from the Victorian novel period I was forced to study in uni. Madame Bovary stands out as a novel full of boring twats who don’t know what they want and all they do for like 300 fucking pages is have their heads in the clouds. Why is it a fucking classic, it’s so damn irritating. If we’re talking about more modern novels I particularly despise that Fever series by Karen Marie Moning. The ‘romantic’ lead in that is honestly such an arrogant unloving knobhead I don’t understand why he’s allowed to exist. To say nothing of the GROSSNESS of many different aspects of the way females are treated… yeah I would say if you value yourself as a woman just don’t read it.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?

I bought the first two instalments to Anne Rice’s vampire books since I loved the film Interview with the Vampire. I remember trying to read it at one point but I think I got bored 1/5 of the way through and never tried again. I think I’ve grown too out of my vampire phase to read it now.

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”

War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, Les Miserables. Any one of those massive classics that everyone is supposed to read but is just too long and requires too much brainpower after a long week at work to bother with.

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?

Let it be known that I have never once looked at the end. I am pure and disciplined in this. I’m not even tempted.

7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?

They can be interesting, and lovely. Karen Chance’s recent one was for the fans and I loved it. Same for the last Harry Potter book, however many years ago it came out, I remember it because it included an acknowledgement to the fans. Definitely worth perusing when you’ve finished an amazing book and don’t know what to do with yourself for like a week (which is when I start absentmindedly flicking through the entire book).

8. Which book character would you switch places with?

It would have to be a character that can do magic and cool stuff like that, but without all the difficult lifeyness of a Harry Potter character. I think I’d be someone from The Worst Witch, like one of the minor characters that never gets in trouble.

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?

Yeah, who doesn’t? All my Cassie books remind me of summer holidays because that’s when I like reading them the most. My Japanese murder book Out reminds me of the girl in my history class who lent it to me. My Agatha Christies remind me of my grandpa (who still loves the odd Poirot episode). I have lots more, too many to list.

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.

I entered a random giveaway and won an advanced reading copy of RTS. I don’t know how many people entered but I was one of the first to win, which is pretty cool.

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?

No. I lent my sister When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit once and she left it on the plane. I’ve never let anyone have one of my books since.

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?

I think my Catch 22. Before I got my Cassies, that was my go-to book to read on holidays and any free time I had. I don’t even know how many times I’ve read it, it’s so good.

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?

I thought Winter’s Tale was stupid for the longest time (and I still think Leontes is a massive idiot) but when I had to study it again in uni I found its familiarity oddly comforting. It wasn’t ten years, but hey, I’ve only just reached that milestone.

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?

I can’t remember that sort of thing unfortunately, even if I did ever find anything. I’m sure I’ve never found anything odd, I mostly buy new books.

15. Used or brand new?

Brand new. I don’t have anything against used books but I guess it’s just easier for me to buy new?

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?

Never read one [shrug]

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?

Lord of the Rings might actually be better than the books. You know what, it is. The books had some funny things that weren’t in the films, yes, but they also had useless stuff like Tom Bombadil that were thankfully cut out. The films made me FEEL SO MUCH. I FEEL SO ALIVE WHEN I MARATHON LOTR.

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?

I’m gonna go ahead and copy Mai here because I TOO LOATHE ‘2005 Pride and Prejudice’ WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING IT WAS TERRIBLE THE CASTING WAS TERRIBLE IT WAS ALL WRONG WRONG WRONG WHY DOES EVERYONE LOVE IT IT WAS AWFUL COLIN FIRTH IS THE ONE AND ONLY SUPREME DARCY. Also Northern Lights (Golden Compass) was so perfectly casted (except for Lyra) and then they just fucked up the entire film’s adaptation idk I think maybe the book was just meant for TV more than film, like Harry Potter.

19. Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?

God all of the Famous Five books ALWAYS had food and even though it described stuff that was gross in theory like ‘tongue’ I would get hungry and salivate because it was so deliciously and meticulously written.

20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?

Oh man any one of my supertrash gang are 100% trustworthy.

book meme 2

1) Do you have a certain place at home for reading?

My bed, most often.

2) Bookmark or random piece of paper?

I have homemade and bought bookmarks, I practically collect them.

3) Can you just stop reading or do you have to stop after a chapter/a certain amount of pages?

It’s very difficult for me to stop reading once I get a good rhythm going. It’d be like stopping your dinner in the middle of your meal and going out for a walk or to do chores and it’s just weird I can’t do it. If I’m really in love with the book I’ll go without food and sleep lol

4) Do you eat or drink while reading?

Depends how much I’m into the book. If I’m really enjoying it, I’ll forget to do basic human functions like that haha (see above). If I can manage to tear myself away for a few minutes I’ll grab some easy insta-food like bananas or snacks and eat while I read.

5) Music or TV while reading?

NOTHING. THERE MUST BE ABSOLUTE SILENCE. But once I get into the book you could fly a plane into my room and I wouldn’t notice.

6) Reading at home or everywhere?

Has to be somewhere I can be mostly by myself and I’ve got at least an hour of peace ahead. If in public, only on a long journey and I have nobody sitting next to me on a seat.

7) Reading out loud or silently in your head?

Silently. I don’t think I ever read out loud, even when I was a child.

8) Do you read ahead or even skip pages?

I might sometimes come upon a scene that makes me go UUUGGGGHHH but I will struggle through it rather than skip ahead. I might read it faster and with less attempt at full comprehension though (rest in pieces Mircass scenes)

9) Breaking the spine or keeping it like new?

Fuck keeping it new, you need to break in the spine so your hands don’t hurt when you’re reading it.

10) Do you write in your books?

Nope. They made us do it for high school but it always felt wrong to me on some level. I couldn’t just 100% focus on reading if I had a pen in my hand the whole time. I’m starting to do it with my kindle though, I like it there.

#about me #tag meme//*

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notprincehamlet · 7 years

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the bookworm tag

I was tagged by @ladyhamiltons ♥♥♥

I’m tagging: @borispavlikvsky @la-violet-sent-mari @asapphicmess @sherlocks-east-wind @sarahlancashire (not sure if you all like to read or would like to do this, so feel free to ignore!)

1. Do you remember how you developed a love for reading?

I dunno, I feel like it didn’t even have to develop. I’ve been into reading ever since I finally grasped the concept of it, really.

2. Where do you usually read?

At the moment, my favourite spot for reading (and napping) is my parents’ bedroom for reasons unknown. But I’m also okay with reading while lying on my own bed lol

3. Do you prefer to read one book at a time or several at once?

I would prefer to read one book at a time but I’m too impatient for that, so it’s like a million books at once.

4. What is/are your favourite book(s)?

I’ll list some off the top of my head: Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O’Neill, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams...

5. Do you have a least favourite book?

Oh man. I don’t really have a book that I absolutely hated, but there is a couple that I didn’t like, like Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. To be fair though, I started reading it while knowing I don’t even like Dan Brown (ha!). I just wanted to watch the movie and used the opportunity to read the book first. But at least I got to imagine Ayelet Zurer in shorts while reading it, so... not a complete waste of time.

6. What is your favourite genre?

Crime fiction, thrillers, classic, anything really? I’m not even sure which genre is my favourite anymore, but it used to be crime fiction.

7. Is there a genre you won’t read?

Nope, I doubt there is one at this point

8. What is the longest book you ever read?

Uhh, it’s been a while since I’ve read a really long book... I would say It by Stephen King was at least one of the longer ones - idk how long it is in English, but the Russian edition is quite a brick. Oh, and speaking of bricks, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo definitely counts as the longest book or one of them.

9. What book are you currently reading?

The Martian by Andy Weir, End of Watch by Stephen King, Paradise Lost by John Milton, and doing a reread of The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket.

10. What was the last book you finished?

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

11. What was the last book you bought?

I may have ordered five books... accidentally... knowing that I have to save money for the Pia trips which are supposed to happen later this year... oopsies. Anyway, I ordered The Beatrice Letters and The Unauthorized Autobiography by Lemony Snicket because the Netflix show rekindled my love for ASoUE ♥ And the other three books are fragments of Sappho translated by Anne Carson, A Self-Portrait in Letters by Anne Sexton and four plays by Noёl Coward (in one book).

12. Do you have a favourite book quote?

I definitely have a lot of favourites but I can’t really pick one right now (as usual, I forgot every single one of them as soon as I read the question lol). I’ll go with the first verse of T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock because a). I love it, and b). it calms me down when I’m anxious.

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question ... Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit.

13. Do you prefer library books or buying books?

Libraries are wonderful, but I personally prefer buying books. I like having them all to myself and reading them whenever I want.

14. Where do you buy your books?

In Russian chain bookshops, mostly, but if I’m abroad I usually take some time to visit English bookshops (preferably the ones selling used books because I love a bargain)

15. How many books do you buy a month?

I don’t really keep score on that. Sometimes it’s zero, sometimes it’s 33456 if there’s a sale or if I want to cheer myself up

16. How many books do you own?

I haven’t the slightest idea.

17. How do you feel about second hand books?

THEY ARE AMAZING, LOVE THEM

18. Do you prefer E-books or physical books?

Physical books, but I’m totally okay with e-books most of the time

19. Do you prefer paperback or hardback?

Paperback. I hardly ever buy hardbacks for myself because they are overpriced and heavy, albeit nice to look at. Not that I’m a huge fan of paperbacks (definitely not lmao) but they just seem more practical.

20. Do you prefer to read trilogies/series or standalones?

Depends on wether I like the book, I suppose. Some books are better as a part of a series, some are better as standalones. I may get bored and not continue reading a series if I disliked one of the books, but sometimes I wish a standalone got a sequel or something. I really have no preference here. It depends.

21. What is the weirdest thing you’ve used as a bookmark?

I don’t think I’ve ever used anything weird as a bookmark? I usually use old price tags and stuff like that but if I don’t have one of those, I have plenty of random paper scraps on my table or a spare notebook in my bag. Also, if the book is mine, I may just dog-ear it and carry on with my life.

22. What is more important to you: characters or plot?

Godddddd. Well, to me, either of them can save the book. I like it when the book has a character I love or relate to, in this case I can let the bad plot slide. The same happens the other way around, so I feel like they are equally important for me.

23. Do you ever judge a book by its cover?

I hardly ever buy books that are completely unknown to me, but I still do judge books by their covers sometimes. Especially if the cover is a still from a film adaptation.

24. What’s the most beautiful book you own?

I initially struggled with this question because most book covers in Russia are ugly as fuck, but probably The Rendezvous and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier! It’s really pretty.

25. What is your favorite book to movie/tv adaptation?

I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed an adaptation as much as I have enjoyed Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events so I’m gonna go with that :)

26. What is the best beverage to drink while reading a book?

Any kind of tea ♥ not vanilla flavoured though, that one’s gross

27. Are you looking forward to any book release? If so, which one?

Hmm, I’m not really informed about upcoming book releases, so I’m not looking forward to any book in particular. But I’m gonna buy whatever Stephen King writes next as soon as it hits Russian bookstores.

28. Recommend me a book :3

The Color Purple by Alice Walker, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, everything I mentioned in the ‘favourite books’ question :)

#about me #~#meme ma'am

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comicreliefmorlock · 7 years

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QUESTIONS ABOUT BOOKS

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?

...oh lord... I have so many. I'd have to say Ender's Game because I've ALWAYS had a copy of it. I don't even remember when I first read it; my mother threw it at my brother and I both when we were smols and it's been a yearly read ever since.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you'll read next?

Let's see... I won't count all the rereads I've done because I reread a LOT of books. The current read is "Sideshow U.S.A" (nonfiction) and my most recent read is "The Last Wish" (fiction). The upcoming read is "The Prince of Darkness" (nonfiction) and I haven't gotten anything set up after that.

3. Which book does everyone like and you hated?

...

Fuck you, Patricia Cornwell. Fuck you.

{"Portrait of a Killer" and I will ALWAYS cover it up when I find it in bookstores.}

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?

"The House of the Seven Gables" has been my Mt. Everest for nearly twenty-five years. I just canNOT get past that opening chapter, my GODS.

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”

None. If I have a book, I'm going to read it. If I hear about a book that interests me, I am going to read it. I do NOT put off books. Reading is LIFE.

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?

I wait until the end. To be fair, I read very, very quickly, so it's not much of a "wait" for me to reach that last page. Plus it's fun to make guesses and collect evidence to see if I'm right or wrong at the end!

7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?

Interesting asides! I always glance through the acknowledgements to see who was influential to the author, who they thought of when they finished penning that last word and who the book wouldn't be in my hands without.

8. Which book character would you switch places with?

...oh gods it's so hard... >.< Ummmm... either Kassafeh or Dunziel from "Tales from the Flat Earth" and yes, it's entirely because I'd HAPPILY take Night's Master or Death's Master as my eternal lover, thank you very much.

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?

So very many... SO MANY.

"Alanna: the First Adventure" literally reminds me of my first period because I read it shortly before and oh boy, when that time of the month first came, I reread that scene with Alanna many times. It was surprisingly helpful for coping with the whole "wait what do you mean this happens forever and I'm now a 'woman' excuse you???"

All of my White Wolf rulebooks remind me of my college years when I'd read them at my ex-boyfriend's house. "Rose Red" reminds me of my second ex-boyfriend's house because it was the only book I'd left there, so I read it a LOT. "The Blue Sword" reminds me of my mother--she told me to read it, said I'd like it and she was SO right. "The Tales of Peter Rabbit" makes me think of my maternal grandmother's house. The Dragonlance Trilogy reminds me of my brother, as does the Sword of Truth series--we have dissected and discussed those books for YEARS.

Even though I've read it once and haven't really read it since, "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad will ALWAYS remind me of when @tlbodine and I met. (She knows why. :D) And rereading the play "Hamlet" is always guaranteed to make me grin because of that shared Shakespeare class and the tangent about fruit.

...I read a lot. A LOT. So I make a lot of associations to books. :D

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.

-ahem- I hope I can't get in legal trouble for this now, but... >.>

I have a book called "Superstitions" that I found in the middle school library when I worked there. I fell in LOVE with it; it was my first introduction to folklore research and the details involved. I was never able to FIND a copy of the damn thing.

...so when I graduated high school, I went BACK to the middle school during the summer and... quite frankly, I stole the damn thing. :D (I know, I'm a horrible person.) It's still on my shelf and is consulted quite regularly.

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?

Ask @tlbodine about the shiny new copy of Les Miserables I got her. :D Books, to me, are always a viable gift. I've bought and shipped copies of Tanith Lee (my goddess) books to people; I read one about the French Revolution and sent a copy to @house-leours because she is a History Buff™. And there was a book on dollmaking that my mother and I spent MONTHS hunting down via a rare book finder for my paternal grandmother.

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?

Considering how many books I have and how often I drag them all over the place, I don't think any ONE book has been with me to a ton of places. Except maybe my copy of "Paradise Lost" because I used to care about looking 'smart' and I'd read it in public places.

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?

"Romeo & Juliet" drove me nuts because EVERY FUCKING YEAR involved reading or analyzing it. I don't mind it so much now, but I still kind of wrinkle my nose when I pick it up. (I don't read it often.)

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?

A voucher for a D&D book given as a prize at a convention from 1987--it's still in a book on my shelf somewhere.

15. Used or brand new?

If the book is in my face and I want it, I'll buy it. Thriftbooks.com owns my soul, Amazon knows me intimately and the library book sale can hear me coming a mile away. Anywhere books are to be found, I will buy. I do like used bookstores better because I get MORE BOOKS for the same amount of money.

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?

I wouldn't call Master King a "literary genius." What I would call him is a damn good storyteller who creates PEOPLE, not characters. Even if I don't always find his books frightening, I find them enjoyable to read. {But that line in "The Green Mile" about "I can hear them screaming" will for-fucking-ever give me chills.}

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?

Jurassic Park. (@tlbodine --I TOLD YOU.) And Jaws. Those books were soOO tedious.

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?

My personal feelings on this may have little bearing to do with what others enjoy, but "The Legend of the Seeker" (it was a TV show that SURPRISE didn't last) was the worst mistake of all time. And Ender's Game just pissed me the hell off because it missed sO MUCH of what made the book a staple of my life.

19. Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?

"Personal Darkness" by Tanith Lee. I canNOT read that book without eating something, gawd. EVERY TIME.

20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?

@tlbodine because she knows what I like. I'll always listen to my mother about science fiction (even if I don't dare confess to her that I didn't find "Rendevouz with Rama" riveting...) and my brother knows my book tastes very well, too.

#BOOKS ARE LIFE #READING IS LIFE #I AM BOOK OBSESSED #BIBLIOMANCER 4EVUR

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