Apr252009
Book Meme!
Filed under stuff by Kim at 11:56 am on Apr 25 2009
1. What author do you own the most books by?
Terry Pratchett or Martha Grimes, by virtue of either’s prolificness.
2. What book do you own the most copies of?
Handling Sin by Michael Malone. If you were my friend in 1997/8 I likely gave you a copy, since for Christmas I bought a box of them directly from the publisher. I have that edition, the latest edition (which I have bought, given away, and replaced multiple times), the mass market paperback edition (which is the first one I read), and the first edition.
3. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Have I ever kept my love for anyone or anything a secret? No secret that I love the Sam Vimes character from Discworld. In the same vein, Richard Jury, Martha Grimes’ detective.
4. What book have you read more than any other?
Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss. I think I’ll go read it again right now.
5. What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Ten, huh? I’d say Call of the Wild. I did love Sweet Valley High books, but I don’t know if I’d have called them my favorites. Oh wait – I just found that the novelization of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom came out in 1984. That means that was definitely my favorite book at the age of ten.
6. What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville.
7. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Val McDermid’s A Distant Echo or Di Morrissey’s Barra Creek. Thanks Audible!!
8. If you could tell everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Wow, this is tough. It couldn’t be that I get to tell them to read three books? Handling Sin (mentioned earlier), Start Where You Are by Pema Chodron, and Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, by Virginia Lee Burton. There are more but I’ll spare you.
9. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose springs to mind. Although I could say Virgil’s Aeneid because I read it in latin, but that would just be pretentious, because it was 20 years ago and I was in school?
10. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Going purely on Bulgakov vs. Camus, I’m going to say Russians. That’s the only evidence I have. Camus can have his dick bitten. There is my fancy literary criticism for you.
11. Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer?
I was never forced to read Milton as part of my education, but I was forced to read the other two, and with the exception of Richard III I considered Shakespeare to be torture. So I guess Chaucer wins by default.
12. Austen or Eliot?
Ambivalent.
13. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Undoubtedly The Hamlet by Faulkner. It’s my favorite author’s favorite book. How come I can’t read it?
14. What is your favorite novel?
In case you missed it the first seven times, Handling Sin.
15. Plays?
Uh. Uhm. Ermm. Do musicals count?
16. Poem?
I am not a poetry person. That said, there are some things that penetrate through my disdain for people not creating actual complete sentences. Pointy Bird by John Lillison. Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. The Raven. The Cremation of Sam McGee.
17. Essay?
There was amemorable 2004 article in the New Yorker called “The Brand” by David Grann on aryan prison gangs. This essay on torture struck me. Countless feminist essays, but this Ms. article by Gloria Steinem on women’s magazines was one I bookmarked. Pretty much anything Robert Jensen ever wrote.
18. Non Fiction?
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer. Anything by Oliver Sacks.
19. Graphic Novel?
Castle Waiting by Linda Medley
20. Science Fiction?
I kind of really don’t like science fiction. If you can count Making History by Stephen Fry, then that. It has time travel? Oh, or Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. (Also time travel.)
21. Horror?
I tend towards true crime or mystery instead of horror. It winds up being kind of the same effect. I’ve read King and Barker, but was never wowed by them or actively hated the books. Let’s go back to the classics then… how about Carmilla? Oh, and I did like all of the Lovecraft that I read. Whoah, I had no idea there was such a thing as Southern Ontario Gothic as a subgenre. I will say that I love Robertson Davies though!
22. Fantasy?
Most fantasy lands itself squarely in the 3 or 4 star area for me. I used to rapaciously read fantasy novels that came across my path, but not so much anymore. Burned too many times. I will say, however that despite the fact that it’s not tagged genre in my reading list, Little, Big by John Crowley blows the rest out of the water.
23. Who is your favorite writer?
Michael Malone. Surprised? I didn’t think so.
24. What are you reading right now?
Tilda Shalof’s A Nurse’s Story, Lou Schuler’s The New Rules of Lifting for Women, and Cherie Priest’s Four and Twenty Blackbirds.
25. Favorite Genre:
I tend towards mystery, things that might be called “magical realism”, nonfiction books about science written for the layman, and southern gothic or southern humor. No genre is my favorite.
1 Rachelon 30 Jul 2009 at 5:42 am
My favorite childhood book is another by Virginia Lee Burton – The Little House
[Reply]
Kim Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 7:26 am
I will have to look for that one, I have not read it!
[Reply]