1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?
The Hobbit, probably.
2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?
a)The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures In Narnia - Laura Miller
b)reread: Absolute Sandman Vol II
c)I have about nine books of folktales sitting on my floor. One of those? Or the Dexter series, I just requested all of them. I'm very excited because the plotlines I found silliest in the show are apparently not in the books, and one important development in the books did not occur in the show.
3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
Oh, probably Pride & Prejudice, only not everyone likes it, just a lot of people. We've been through this before.
4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?
I can't think of any books like that.
5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”
Dude, you could die tomorrow. *knocks wood* There is no time to waste. Get reading!
6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?
The only time I tried reading it first, it really backfired on me. When I was eight or so, I read the last paragraph of Anne of Green Gables, and it was so phenomenally boring I avoided it for a few years. Then one day I picked it up and started at the beginning, and while it's not my favorite LM Montgomery book, I enjoyed it very much. That might actually be when I started vetting based on first sentences. I don't always go to first sentences, but they are an extremely good litmus test.
7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
That depends on the writer, but generally I find them quite interesting, because they are so revealing, and I like to think about the people listed. Who is Helen, who made the author such delicious apple pie? Who is Jim from book group who saw the early draft? All those descriptions of tireless, patient editors sitting in their offices going over, and over, and over the text with the author. Also authors often put little tidbits of information in their acknowledgments. If the author doesn't blog, their acknowledgments are a window into their brain, even if you're on a train and you pass the window so fast you can barely see inside.
8. Which book character would you switch places with?
That is an impossible choice, but I should quite like to be a number of characters temporarily, which is not the same thing as switching places with them, because I would be very bad at being them if suddenly they were in my world and I in theirs. I could pull off some of them, but not most.
9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
I read Who's Eating Gilbert Grape? right after someone important died, and I remember the absolute bliss of sliding into story, letting everything real go. And that's not even really my sort of book, in a lot of ways.
I discovered Neil Gaiman one summer afternoon when I was shelving at the library. True Story: I was obsessed with David Bowie at the time, and the book I picked up was Stardust, and that's why I picked it up. I had been reading a lot of Anita Brookner, which in my mind is all taupe and tan and grey, and slowly realizing that I desperately needed something more in a book besides human drama and careful characterization. I also spent a lot of time agonizing over the fact that when adults set out to imagine things, they seemed to produce either pale copies of Lord of the Rings or some variation on People In Space Acting Out Politics & Religions Strangely Similar To Our Own. Anyway, so I picked up Stardust and read the first sentence, and went, "Oh." And then I read Neverwhere, and said, "Ah." And then somebody loaned me the first and last Sandman volumes AND THAT WAS IT. Stardust is actually the weakest of the lot, in my opinion.
It sounds silly now, but it was an arid summer for me, in terms of story, and Stardust was like finding a magic well. It gave me infinite faith that someone, somewhere, is writing the books I most want to read, and I just have to keep looking until I find them. I want to read a fuckton of books, but there is an upper layer of awesome that I don't just WANT to read, I MUST read.
10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
I am not very interesting in my methods of acquisition. I dream that one day an old woman or man in clothes not entirely from our world or time will startle me as I browse the musty shelves of a used bookshop and give me The Book, the Magic One, that One That Changes Everything. Or I will find it on the seat of a train. Or it will be mailed to me, special delivery, from a secret society.
11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?
A couple of times.
12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
Probably Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell because it came home from the UK with us, so it went to the Canaries, Barcelona, everywhere on the cruise, Miami, and Missouri, and then came out to Seattle. Because I am insane, it was a hardback copy, the burglar-stunner edition.
13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?
Being homeschooled, I read basically all the time, and it was more a question of prying the book out of my hands and making me do other things.
14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?
A Kotex pantiliner. Open and stuck to the flap. Unused. In a library book. It was in juvenile fiction, I might add.
15. Used or brand new?
Either, I am not at all particular. I love the smell of old books and the smell of new.
16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
I quite like Stephen King, I think he's the Dickens of our era. I've only read a few things by him, to be fair.
17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
I liked the film of Enchanted April better than the book, because the filmmaker's voice was less chatty and intrusive than the author's. Almost any Jane Austen book is better as a film, for the same reason, plus you get scenery. Also Prince Caspian, which I just watched, had some significant improvements over the book, and makes me very excited about the possibility they will actually make The Magician's Nephew. In fact, I wish they would skip the rest of the books and go straight to that one. It is first, chronologically.
18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
Need you ask?
19. Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?
Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder's account of her husband Almanzo's childhood, is FULL of awesome food, and they are always freaking eating. I actually knew better than to read that book at any other time than meal time.
20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?
It's more based on elements of the person. I would not take advice from certain people on certain types of books. But everyone has an area of expertise, and I read some of everything, so I need experts.
This one was ganked from![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_blue_fenix
Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack?
Er no. I do read while eating meals whenever possible, and I very much enjoy a cup of tea or coffee or glass of wine with a book, but I don't really snack.
Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
There are some books that are greatly improved by writing in them. Mostly I don't.
How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears?
Memory. But, barring that, scraps of paper.
Laying the book flat open?
I've been guilty.
Fiction, Non-fiction, or both?
Both
Hard copy or audiobooks?
Generally hard copy, although some stories seem meant to be read aloud.
Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?
So, although I had boundless time to read as a homeschooler, when you're a kid there is absolutely no respect for your autonomy, and for the longest time it was, 'stop reading, we're at church, stop reading, you have to do your schoolwork, stop reading, it's time to eat dinner, stop reading, you have to go to sleep.' One of the things I most enjoy about being a childless adult is that NO ONE CAN MAKE ME STOP READING. I do have to do grown-up shit, and that is unfortunate, but one of the pay-offs is that if I wake up on Saturday morning and I decide to read three books before getting out of bed, without showering or eating or anything, I can do that.
By which I mean to say, I CAN put down a book at any point, but I prefer to put it down at the end. Of the book. Not the chapter.
If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?
Nope. Most of my vocabulary has been absorbed through reading, and this has rarely been problematic, although it has occasionally screwed me over. There are still certain words that have secret meanings for me.
What are you currently reading?
See above meme.
What is the last book you bought?
Um. Oh! The little eighties paperback Doctor Who Wiki entry books.
Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?
Obviously, I can physically only read one book at a time, although an e-reader makes more than that almost possible. However, I can have any number of books in progress and be happy as a clam or a duck or whatever.
Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read?
Any time, anywhere. Comfy places are best, but a book is its own comfort. This is one of the things I like about e-readers. They are a smack in the face to life's assertion that at some point, somewhere, I might get stuck without a book. I have to be vigilant, I have to charge it, and carry the charger, but it's freaking WORTH it when you're suddenly at the DMV or the doctor's office or in an airport, and all signs point to you being there for a while, and you're at the end of whatever you're reading, and you have ONE THOUSAND MORE BOOKS on that thing.
Do you prefer series books or stand alone books?
I like both, although it is always sad when a series starts to feel worn and exhausted and mined.
Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over?
No, although lately I think I've been recommending The End of Mr Y a lot, largely because I gave my own copy to that douche on the bus in a fit of Scarlet Thomas's awesome glory, and now I want to read it and I have to buy another one, but she's SO WORTH IT.
How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?)
In glorious disarray. I like to pretend my books are a giant booksale, and I'm going through them, and instead of the occasional treasure, every single one is awesome and it is the best booksale ever. Except of course, I already own them, so it IS the best booksale ever.
The Hobbit, probably.
2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?
a)The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures In Narnia - Laura Miller
b)reread: Absolute Sandman Vol II
c)I have about nine books of folktales sitting on my floor. One of those? Or the Dexter series, I just requested all of them. I'm very excited because the plotlines I found silliest in the show are apparently not in the books, and one important development in the books did not occur in the show.
3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
Oh, probably Pride & Prejudice, only not everyone likes it, just a lot of people. We've been through this before.
4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?
I can't think of any books like that.
5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”
Dude, you could die tomorrow. *knocks wood* There is no time to waste. Get reading!
6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?
The only time I tried reading it first, it really backfired on me. When I was eight or so, I read the last paragraph of Anne of Green Gables, and it was so phenomenally boring I avoided it for a few years. Then one day I picked it up and started at the beginning, and while it's not my favorite LM Montgomery book, I enjoyed it very much. That might actually be when I started vetting based on first sentences. I don't always go to first sentences, but they are an extremely good litmus test.
7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
That depends on the writer, but generally I find them quite interesting, because they are so revealing, and I like to think about the people listed. Who is Helen, who made the author such delicious apple pie? Who is Jim from book group who saw the early draft? All those descriptions of tireless, patient editors sitting in their offices going over, and over, and over the text with the author. Also authors often put little tidbits of information in their acknowledgments. If the author doesn't blog, their acknowledgments are a window into their brain, even if you're on a train and you pass the window so fast you can barely see inside.
8. Which book character would you switch places with?
That is an impossible choice, but I should quite like to be a number of characters temporarily, which is not the same thing as switching places with them, because I would be very bad at being them if suddenly they were in my world and I in theirs. I could pull off some of them, but not most.
9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
I read Who's Eating Gilbert Grape? right after someone important died, and I remember the absolute bliss of sliding into story, letting everything real go. And that's not even really my sort of book, in a lot of ways.
I discovered Neil Gaiman one summer afternoon when I was shelving at the library. True Story: I was obsessed with David Bowie at the time, and the book I picked up was Stardust, and that's why I picked it up. I had been reading a lot of Anita Brookner, which in my mind is all taupe and tan and grey, and slowly realizing that I desperately needed something more in a book besides human drama and careful characterization. I also spent a lot of time agonizing over the fact that when adults set out to imagine things, they seemed to produce either pale copies of Lord of the Rings or some variation on People In Space Acting Out Politics & Religions Strangely Similar To Our Own. Anyway, so I picked up Stardust and read the first sentence, and went, "Oh." And then I read Neverwhere, and said, "Ah." And then somebody loaned me the first and last Sandman volumes AND THAT WAS IT. Stardust is actually the weakest of the lot, in my opinion.
It sounds silly now, but it was an arid summer for me, in terms of story, and Stardust was like finding a magic well. It gave me infinite faith that someone, somewhere, is writing the books I most want to read, and I just have to keep looking until I find them. I want to read a fuckton of books, but there is an upper layer of awesome that I don't just WANT to read, I MUST read.
10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
I am not very interesting in my methods of acquisition. I dream that one day an old woman or man in clothes not entirely from our world or time will startle me as I browse the musty shelves of a used bookshop and give me The Book, the Magic One, that One That Changes Everything. Or I will find it on the seat of a train. Or it will be mailed to me, special delivery, from a secret society.
11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?
A couple of times.
12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
Probably Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell because it came home from the UK with us, so it went to the Canaries, Barcelona, everywhere on the cruise, Miami, and Missouri, and then came out to Seattle. Because I am insane, it was a hardback copy, the burglar-stunner edition.
13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?
Being homeschooled, I read basically all the time, and it was more a question of prying the book out of my hands and making me do other things.
14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?
A Kotex pantiliner. Open and stuck to the flap. Unused. In a library book. It was in juvenile fiction, I might add.
15. Used or brand new?
Either, I am not at all particular. I love the smell of old books and the smell of new.
16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
I quite like Stephen King, I think he's the Dickens of our era. I've only read a few things by him, to be fair.
17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
I liked the film of Enchanted April better than the book, because the filmmaker's voice was less chatty and intrusive than the author's. Almost any Jane Austen book is better as a film, for the same reason, plus you get scenery. Also Prince Caspian, which I just watched, had some significant improvements over the book, and makes me very excited about the possibility they will actually make The Magician's Nephew. In fact, I wish they would skip the rest of the books and go straight to that one. It is first, chronologically.
18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
Need you ask?
19. Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?
Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder's account of her husband Almanzo's childhood, is FULL of awesome food, and they are always freaking eating. I actually knew better than to read that book at any other time than meal time.
20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?
It's more based on elements of the person. I would not take advice from certain people on certain types of books. But everyone has an area of expertise, and I read some of everything, so I need experts.
This one was ganked from
the_blue_fenixDo you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack?
Er no. I do read while eating meals whenever possible, and I very much enjoy a cup of tea or coffee or glass of wine with a book, but I don't really snack.
Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
There are some books that are greatly improved by writing in them. Mostly I don't.
How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears?
Memory. But, barring that, scraps of paper.
Laying the book flat open?
I've been guilty.
Fiction, Non-fiction, or both?
Both
Hard copy or audiobooks?
Generally hard copy, although some stories seem meant to be read aloud.
Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?
So, although I had boundless time to read as a homeschooler, when you're a kid there is absolutely no respect for your autonomy, and for the longest time it was, 'stop reading, we're at church, stop reading, you have to do your schoolwork, stop reading, it's time to eat dinner, stop reading, you have to go to sleep.' One of the things I most enjoy about being a childless adult is that NO ONE CAN MAKE ME STOP READING. I do have to do grown-up shit, and that is unfortunate, but one of the pay-offs is that if I wake up on Saturday morning and I decide to read three books before getting out of bed, without showering or eating or anything, I can do that.
By which I mean to say, I CAN put down a book at any point, but I prefer to put it down at the end. Of the book. Not the chapter.
If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?
Nope. Most of my vocabulary has been absorbed through reading, and this has rarely been problematic, although it has occasionally screwed me over. There are still certain words that have secret meanings for me.
What are you currently reading?
See above meme.
What is the last book you bought?
Um. Oh! The little eighties paperback Doctor Who Wiki entry books.
Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?
Obviously, I can physically only read one book at a time, although an e-reader makes more than that almost possible. However, I can have any number of books in progress and be happy as a clam or a duck or whatever.
Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read?
Any time, anywhere. Comfy places are best, but a book is its own comfort. This is one of the things I like about e-readers. They are a smack in the face to life's assertion that at some point, somewhere, I might get stuck without a book. I have to be vigilant, I have to charge it, and carry the charger, but it's freaking WORTH it when you're suddenly at the DMV or the doctor's office or in an airport, and all signs point to you being there for a while, and you're at the end of whatever you're reading, and you have ONE THOUSAND MORE BOOKS on that thing.
Do you prefer series books or stand alone books?
I like both, although it is always sad when a series starts to feel worn and exhausted and mined.
Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over?
No, although lately I think I've been recommending The End of Mr Y a lot, largely because I gave my own copy to that douche on the bus in a fit of Scarlet Thomas's awesome glory, and now I want to read it and I have to buy another one, but she's SO WORTH IT.
How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?)
In glorious disarray. I like to pretend my books are a giant booksale, and I'm going through them, and instead of the occasional treasure, every single one is awesome and it is the best booksale ever. Except of course, I already own them, so it IS the best booksale ever.
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