Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews? Any Stephen King novel. I just can’t take horror anymore. Maybe that’s not irrational, though. It used to be the Harry Potter series, but I’ve resolved to read them all this year. So far I’ve enjoyed the first two.
If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be? I would bring the two main characters from Everyman by Philip Roth and The Sea by John Banville to life to be grilled and skewered (verbally, not literally) by the strongest feminist character available. Who would that be? Give me some ideas.
(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave? A book on housekeeping or maybe party planning? Hee hee. Maybe that’s why I didn’t like Mrs. Dalloway.
Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it? The Hobbit. I’ve only seen the cartoon version a bazillion times.
As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book? I don’t think I’ve done that, but I HAVE forgotten that I’ve read some books when I thought I hadn’t. I forgot that I had already read Emma and Sense and Sensibility. I had seen the movies so many times that I guess I just forgot. I never used to forget things like that. It must be a sign of age. Sigh.
You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead of personalise the VIP) To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s just a classic that everyone should read and almost everyone loves. If the VIP wanted something humorous instead, I’d go with Tom Sawyer. I loved this book when I was a kid, and my kids got the biggest kick out of it a few months ago. Even adults can appreciate it-at least I do.
A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with? Russian! I love Russian literature.
A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick? To Kill a Mockingbird,The Book Thief, Persuasion, or Jane Eyre. I can’t decide, any of the four would do.
I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)? Margaret Atwood and/or Carol Shields. I’d never even heard of them until last year. Now I want to read everything they’ve written.
That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free. It would be a library as big as a house with gorgeous wood bookcases. It would have comfortable leather chairs and a fireplace or two. A few tables would be needed, as well as some lamps. It would be in the ‘Arts and Crafts’ architectural style. All the classics and newer ‘keepers’ that I’ve read would be leatherbound, while new titles I haven’t read would be brand new trade paperbacks.
These are the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users. Bold what you have read, italicize books you’ve started but couldn’t finish, and strike through books you hated. Add an asterisk* to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your tbr list.
Jonathan Strange & M. Norrell
Anna Karenina Crime and Punishment (I didn’t finish, but it’s not because I didn’t want to. I plan on reading it in ’08)
Catch-22 One hundred years of solitude Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion Life of Pi: a novel (tbr in ’08)
The Name of the Rose Don Quixote Moby Dick
Ulysses Madame Bovary The Odyssey Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre* A Tale of Two Cities The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies War and Peace (tbr in ’08)
Vanity Fair The Time Traveller’s Wife (can’t wait for the movie) The Iliad
Emma (tbr in ’08) The Blind Assassin (love Atwood, but didn’t care for this)
The Kite Runner (tbr in ’07) Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran Memoirs of a Geisha Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West The Canterbury tales
The Historian A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum Middlemarch (tbr in ’08) Frankenstein The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King The Grapes of Wrath The Poisonwood Bible (tbr in ’08) 1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses Sense and sensibility (tbr in ’08) The Picture of Dorian Gray (tbr in ’07) Mansfield Park (tbr in ’08) One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles (tbr in ’08) Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les misérables The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time (tbr in ’08)
Dune The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes The God of Small Things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon Neverwhere A confederacy of dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners The unbearable lightness of being (tbr in ’07) Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The mists of Avalon Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed Cloud Atlas
The Confusion Lolita Persuasion Northanger Abbey (tbr in ’08) The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White teeth Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
What are you reading right now? I am reading The Known World by Edward P. Jones and desperately trying to finish it before midnight Friday so I can complete the Southern Reading Challenge.
Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that? I have a reading schedule that I’m following for the rest of this year. My next reading selections will be (not necessarily in this order):
Middlesex (Pulitzer, BAC)
Blue Like Jazz (NF5)
The Travels of Marco Polo (NF5)
Bookseller of Kabul (NF5, RAB)
Half of a Yellow Sun (NYT, BookAwards)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (FC, RIP)
Lisey’s Story (NYT, BAC, RIP)
Never Let Me Go (DC)
What magazines do you have in your bathroom right now? I don’t read in the bathroom; I just think it’s gross. But the magazines I do subscribe to are Bookmarks, National Geographic, and Smithsonian.
What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read? I usually like almost anything, but in high school I really didn’t care for The Red Badge of Courage.
What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone?To Kill a Mockingbird
Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they? I know they recognize my face, but it’s a big library. I’m not sure they know my name or not.
Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all? I really loved Gilead, which some people love, but others are bored to tears by it. I think it has truly magnificent writing.
Do you read books while you do other things? Not really. Of course I listen to audiobooks while I’m driving. I usually bring a book to the doctor’s office or anywhere else I might be kept waiting.
When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits?I don’t think so; I know my family and friends used to call me Bookworm or Bookgeek, though.
What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down? Sometimes I read late just so I can finish a challenge! I actually do this quite frequently, sad to say. The last two books I read almost straight through were The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler and We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.
This meme has been circulating the blogosphere and turned out really well using 3M. If you want to participate just type in “(your name) needs” into google and see the fun results.
3M needs little introduction (I’m so vain–hee!)
3M needs to be relocated (relocation 80% complete)
3M needs some refurbishing (sad, but true)
3M needs a heavy tined rear (not that kind of refurbishing!)
3M needs to be custom built (tell me about it!)
3M needs to get its top-line growth moving (I’m past the age for any growth here-ha!)
3M needs information about Procter & Gamble’s production schedule of diapers (I hope not!)
3M needs a little miracle (that WOULD be a miracle!)
3M needs to maintain financial discipline (maybe. . . )
3M needs to start spending again (thanks for your permission!)
3M needs to have a webcam watching that thing so we can have a good laugh (no, and on that note. . . )
3M needs to make privacy filters for this screen
3M needs some time on your lap (I guess that’s what the screen’s for!)
3M needs to send me a free box or two, don’t you agree? (stay away from my books!)
It’s very simple. When this is passed on to you, copy the whole thing, skim the list and put a * star beside those that you like. (Check out especially the * starred ones.)
Add the next number (1. 2. 3. 4. 5., etc.) and write your own blogging tip for other bloggers. Try to make your tip general.
After that, tag 10 other people. Link love some friends!
Just think – if 10 people start this and the 10 people pass it on to another 10 people, you have 100 links already!
"Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." (John 6:27, ESV)
