Book meme

Aug. 28th, 2010 09:24 pm
shadowkat: (writing)
[personal profile] shadowkat
To avoid ranting in livejournal, I doing a book meme. It's ganked from [livejournal.com profile] flake_sake and [livejournal.com profile] shipperx and [livejournal.com profile] frenchani. And like all memes, I'm only answering the questions I can think of an answer to. Memory - it's an odd thing. Had a discussion with Momster about this recently, she was reciting all the famous people that I thought were dead that are actually still alive. Such as Doris Day, Olivia De Havilland, Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, etc. I asked how she knew this? She said their birthdays keep appearing in Parade Magazine each Sunday. Then I asked how in the heck she remembered it? I mean, my mother can't remember my phone number, but she can remember which celebrity is still alive and how old they are? Only the old ones - she tells me - I can't remember any of the younger ones.


1. What author do you own the most books by?

I don't know. I have books in two locations, my parents house in Hilton Head and in my apartment in NYC. For a while it was Minette Walters and Elizabeth Peters Vicky Bliss mysteries, but I got bored. Then it was Janet Evanoich - also got bored. Then I went through a Dorothy Dunnett phase and a Neil Gaiman phase. When I was younger? Anne McCaffrey and Anne Rice. Andre Norton. Now apparently have Butcher and Harrison. It keeps changing, and I usually get rid of them at some point - usually by taking them down south and unloading them on my parents, who will either read or take to the nearest library.

2. What book do you own the most copies of?

Are you kidding, I don't have enough space for one copy let alone two. Hence the reason, I finally bought a kindle. Can we say small apartment, yes, we can.

3. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?

Sigh. At the moment? Harry Dresden, although Lymond, Sir John Smythe, Frodo (yes, I know he's a hobbit and this was as a child), Paul Atredis (also as a child), and Spike all come to mind.

4. What book have you read more than any other?

Do I have to answer this? I plead the fifth? Sigh, okay. Night Train to Memphis. No wait, maybe Sandition - the book written by Austen and another lady, or Pride and Prejudice? Ack! The Outsiders. Too many... (I also have re-read Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett) and well, The Hobbit. Also, let's see...The Bride of the McHugh (as a child), and Dune. There was also of course Ulysess by James Joyce - which I wrote five papers on. I was seriously obsessed with Ulysess in college - I think I was trying to figure it out.

5. What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?

It was either Lisa Bright and Dark or Watership Down ( hard to remember). I remember my favorite book in the 6th grade - that was The Hobbit. I was in love with the Lord of the Rings at that age. Also my favorite book when I was in the 8th grade - was The Girl Who Owned A City.
And my favorite book as a little girl was Stuart Little. Also loved the Little House books, Charlie and the Chocolat Factory, The book about the Peach - that everyone was living in by Ronald Dahl, and of course Nancy Drew Mysteries. Trying to remember what I read at ten.
I want to say Carson McCuller's Member of the Wedding - but I think that was later. (I'm 43, who remembers what they read at ten?)

6. What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?

Do books that I started and couldn't finish count? There are too many unfortunately to list here. A Sookie Stackhouse mystery that I couldn't get through entitled "All Together Dead" (these books actually get worse as you go forward, which makes me wonder about the reading public and well the publishing industry). Stephen King's The Stand (can we say over-written and sexist, yes we can! And I think I've somehow internalized Obama's campaign rhetoric). And oh yes, least I forget, Peter Straub's atrocious "A Dark Matter." (It's my own fault - buy best-selling pulp, you get best-selling pulp.)

7. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?

Hmmm. This is a harder question to answer than question 6, sadly enough. I'm really enjoying George RR Martin's Storm of Swords at the moment, but that could change. Only 136 pages into it and it is 1157 pages in length. (I started out liking The Stand too, if you'll recall.)

I'd have to say the most enjoyable was Jim Butcher's "Changes" but I'm not sure it's the best.
Probably The Unquiet Earth - the story about the West Virgina Coal Mines. It's the only one I remember at any rate.

8. If you could tell everyone reading this to read one book, what would it be?

That would depend on the person really. It's hard to recommend books to people. People have widely divergent tastes. I mean, I know people who love the Twilight novels - not to my taste personally. So what do I rec to them? Sookie Stackhouse mysteries?

I think it would most likely be John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath ( a haunting depiction of the Great Depression and how hope survives through it - and Steinbeck is a true artist when it comes to description and dialogue), or maybe Carson McCuller's brilliant Member of the Wedding.
There's also the amazing To Kill A Mockingbird - the quintessential little girl's coming of age tale. I may always be a bit in love with Scout. Go read that! Now! And then go watch the black and white film of the same name.

9. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?

James Joyce's Ulysess. Although reading Voltaire's Candide in French was no picnic.

10. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?

The French. I'm a francophile - I admit it. I fell deeply in love with all things French in the 7th grade when my family visited Paris, and that has never changed. It's the only book I've ever read in another language. (My father ironically enough was into the Russians, he took Russian as a second language and read Russian literature.)

11. Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer?

Shakeaspeare - seen most of his plays, and even acted in a few of them. (Milton reminds me of one of those insane fundamentalist preachers - actually I sort of blame him for the Puritans and ugh, Chaucer. My college roommate quoted Chaucer constantly. She loved him so much, she legally changed her last name to one of the names in Chaucer's Canterberly Tales. English majors - we're obsessive about weird things. I was the Joycian and she was the Chaucerian - we made a fine pair. And if you were an English Lit major - you were forced to read Milton and Chaucer at some point.)

12. Austen or Eliot?

Austen. ( I find Eliot unreadable. I keep trying and never get anywhere). Austen on the other hand, I was rather in love with as a child (not at ten, at least I don't think it was at ten).
I devoured most of her books, including one that was written by another lady - Sandition (which wait - is another most read book.)

13. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?

Don't read enough non-fiction or historical non-fiction, and well the Russian writers - who I keep meaning to read and never get around to (ETC: I've actually read more of these than I remember, so it's really the popular classics that I haven't read - such as Tolstoy's War & Peace, Anna Karenia, and Dosteovsky's Crime and Punishment and Brother's Karamov - for some reason long tragic novels sort of put me off...), along with Dickens (who I don't much like) and a lot of 19th century writers who annoy me - such as Stoker, James, Wharton, Hawthorne - the snooty thrumps I call them.

14. What is your favorite novel?

Depends on the day really. Sigh. It really really does. Right now? I'm going to say Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett, but it'll probably be something else tomorrow. At the age of 21 it was 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

15. Play?

Damn. Too many. Thinking...Same Time Next Year...no, Auntie Mame? No. Oh, I know - Les Liasons Dangereux by Christopher something or other. Can't remember who wrote the play. It was brilliant. Loved both the play in written form and on the stage - and that's rare. So much better than the film versions. Another really good play - was Tennessee Williams classic - Streetcar Named Desire - can't forget that one. Every character had an edge.

16. Poem?

For a long time it was Sylvia Plath...but I can't remember the poem. Dorothy Parker's poem about suicide is a favorite. Yes, I like dark poets, does this really surprise you? Another favorite is Robert Frost's chilling Miles to Go Before I Sleep - so beautifully used in The Boys From Brazil (the classic Laurence Olivier/Gregory Peck film - which you should rent if you haven't seen it.) And Nothing Gold Can Stay - another classic Frost poem. But, if pushed to pick a favorite? It's either TS Eliot's The Hollow Men or the Yeats poem about this rough beast slumps in...

17. Essay?

Difficult one. I always like Swifts essay - A Modest Proposal. Pure Satire and on the mark.
Also like the personal essays of Jonathan Franzen. Don't like his fictional work, but his essays are good.

18. Short Story?

The Veldt by Ray Bradbury. It's the only one that I can vividly remember. We read it in the 6th grade and I haven't read it since, yet it sticks in my head as clear as day. It's a story about a home that has a virtual reality tv - high tech and the kids spend all their time in it. Another Bradbury novel - I'll never forget is Fareheit 451. A young David McCallum (younger than Man From Uncle) starred in the film version.

19. Non Fiction

I'm trying to remember one. I know I've read non-fiction novels that I've raved about. Oh, there was the gripping novel about the elboa virus - entitled The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, scary and informative. Another favorite - was the World's Most Dangerous Places. I also loved Stephen King's Memoir - On Writing. And Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking - was a fun read.

Did read most of Che by Jonathan Anderson (have a signed copy) - this was the biography of Che (that they used to make the two part movie starring Javier Badeem a few years back - reminding me that I still need to rent that film at some point.)

20. Graphic Novel?

A Neil Gaiman story, beautifully illustrated - entitled Blood Orchid about a female superhero.
The 9/11 Report - A Graphic Adaptation. (I lost both of them.)

21. Science Fiction?

The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell. Hands down the most haunting sci-fi novel I've read.
Next - Grass by Sherri Teppar. Can't forget either novel. Both will stick with you and haunt you for days. They say things about aliens and race that few authors have the guts to discuss.
Also both are fairly feminist.

Another is Kindred by Octavia Butler.

22. Who is your favorite writer?

I really have a different one for every mood. Impossible to pick one.

23. Who is the most over rated writer alive today?

Stephenie Meyer. (Also most likely the worst writer)

24. What are you reading right now?

George RR Martin's Storm of Swords


25. Best Memoir?

Stephen King's On Writing.

26. Best History?

Can't think of one. I've been told by people in my family who are obsessed with this - 1492.
Don't really like to read history books...too many frigging footnotes.

27. Best Mystery or Noir

Minette Walters - The Ice House. Although...Agatha Christie's Curtain is hard to beat.
I've read so many...

28. Best Horror Novel

Jonathan Carroll's Marriage of Sticks - a vampire novel, but of a different sort.


Date: 2010-08-29 05:31 am (UTC)
ext_15392: (Default)
From: [identity profile] flake-sake.livejournal.com
I think I read Ulysses pretty much out of defiance because some English teacher said it was too hard. I remember spending a lot of time with dictionaries and still ending up mostly confused after I've read it, not in a bad way though.

If you ever give the Russsians a try, start with Bulgakow's Master and Margerita. It's so funny.

Date: 2010-08-29 07:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowkat67.livejournal.com
I have that one somewhere - just haven't been in the mood yet. It looks like a spy thriller? But a comedic one?
(I actually have read Russian writers - just none of the novels. I've read essays by Tolstoy, short stories by Tolstoy, Checkov and Dostevosky, as well as others - whose names I can't remember - it was 20 years ago.)

For some reason - I just can't get myself to read the popular classic Russian writers. Have the same problem with some of the 19th and early 20th century British writers. They are incredibly dour and tragic.

Date: 2010-08-29 07:45 pm (UTC)
ext_15392: (Default)
From: [identity profile] flake-sake.livejournal.com
Hm, no, no spy thriller, it's about the devil coming to communist moskow where no one believes in him.

It's big very dark humored comedy.

I actually like most russian writers espencially Dostojewski the same way I love Austen, because they have an eye for people and how they tick, what their quirks and weaknesses are + they have a great sense of humor.

I somehow avoided most of the dour and tragic bits of the russians. It helps if you try the less known books. My favorite book by Dostojewski is actually "The demons" a book no one knows, with nothing really happening (much like Austen novels that way) but it has a brilliantly interesting cast of characters and is great satire ( I especially love the scene where they all try to make sense of a very bad poet, who is also very famous).

I also highly recommend "The idiot", but deffinitely not "crime and punishment" to start out.

Date: 2010-08-29 08:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowkat67.livejournal.com
I actually read The Idiot in college - even wrote a paper on it. I vaguely remember loving that one, was quite funny in places. We had to write a paper comparing it to a writing by Plato (can't remember what the essay by Plato was). And of course "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Aleksandra Solizhentisn. This was for a freshman college course and way back in 1985. So, my memory is a bit foggy on it.

Apparently I've read more of the Russian writers than I originally remembered. Ugh. It's really sad that I can remember the plot of Interview with the Vampire over the plot of The Idiot. Of course I saw the film version of Interview with the Vampire - and I read that novel ten years after I read The Idiot, but still.

I've read a lot of books that I just don't remember until someone throws a title at me or a plot synopsis, and I think, oh wait, I read that! (Like Checkov - totally forgot that I'd read a volumn of his short stories and plays in the 1980s, also read several Ibsen. But don't ask me to remember the plot of them.)

Date: 2010-08-29 01:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] frenchani.livejournal.com
Concerning the Russian writers you could start with Chekhov's short stories. It might be easier than to jump into big novels like those by Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy or Grossman.

Date: 2010-08-29 07:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowkat67.livejournal.com
Read them ten years ago. The Kiss is by far the best. Also read his plays, Three Sisters - which I also saw on stage. And Uncle Vanya - twice. Plus the short stories of Leo Tolstoy. And I've read the Idiot and the short stories of Dosetovosky. It's just the long - 1000 page works that I haven't read such as Anna Karenia, War & Peace, Crime and Punishment, and Brother's Karamov. I have them. I just haven't been in the mood to read them. The short works? Read all those in college - about 20 years ago.

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