book meme

[shadowkat]

What book is on your night stand now?
My Kindle goes wherever I go...and at the moment it has a really bad contemporary gender war novel on it called Practice Makes Perfect. It's a romance. But my nickname for romance and chicklits is gender wars.

When and where do you like to read?
On the subway and the train, waiting for train and subway, and at home in armchair and in bed.

What was the last truly great book you read?
The Fault in Our Stars by John Gault Green. I haven't read anything in the past year that comes close to what he accomplished in this pseudo-young adult novel about adolescents struggling with cancer and death and the meaning of it all.


Are you a fiction or a nonfiction person? What’s your favorite literary genre? Any guilty pleasures?
Fiction. All genres - I have wildly eclectic taste and go on reading binges. Guilty pleasure? Erotica. What? It's funny.


What was the best book you read as a student? What books over the years have most influenced your thinking?
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Maquez blew me away, but Ulysess stays with me. What Joyce was able to do with one day. But is that the best book? I don't know.
There were so many. And so different.

*Maria Doria Russell's The Sparrow and The Children of God
* Donna Tartt's The Secret History
* John Gault's Fault in Our Stars
* Sherri Tepper's Grass
* Machiavelli's The Prince
* CS Lewis's Til We Have Faces and Cupid/Psyche myth
* A Man and His Symbols by Carl S Jung
* Dorothy Dunnett's Checkmate
* James Joyce's stories and writings

What is your ideal reading experience? Do you prefer a book that makes you laugh or makes you cry? One that teaches you something or one that distracts you?

Depends on my mood. But mostly? I'd prefer a book that did all of the above, I'm open to many experiences when reading.

What were your favorite books as a child? Did you have a favorite character or hero?
Nancy Drew and Judy Bloom books, also The Witches of Worm, The Hobbit, CS Lewis Chronicals of Narnia, Escape to Witch Mountain, The Westing Game, Bridge to Terribetha, Swallows and Amazons, My Side of the Mountain, Dune, and the EB White Books.

What are your reading habits? Do you take notes? Electronic or paper?

Notes? Why would you take notes unless you're doing homework of some sort. I read primarily for pleasure. (Keep in mind I have a full time job that is mentally exhausting.)

Read any good memoirs recently?
Nope, although Wishful Drink by Carrie Fisher which I read a few years back was not bad.

What’s the best movie based on a book you’ve seen recently?
The Lord of the Rings.


What do you plan to read next?
Too many choices...probably another gender wars book. I don't plan ahead of time. I do it spontaneously. My cultural habits are spontaneous. Too much planning in my life already, something has to be spontaneous.

Comments

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

The Fault in Our Stars by John Gault

That was a really good book, I thoroughly enjoyed the characters - especially Hazel.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

It continues to be the best Young Adult novel that I've read to date.
And certainly the best contemporary romance.

I adore that book. It still haunts me. I've also managed to get a lot of people to read it and every single person who has - loved it. Not one person who picked it up, stated otherwise. That's rare.

[notemily.livejournal.com]

John Gault? ITYM John Green?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yes, John Green. Sigh. John Gault is the nitwitty hero of Atlas Shrugged, get out of my brain Ayn Rand. ;-)

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

I stole this meme from you! ;-)

You remind me (again!) that i really should read more English and US-American authors.

But then, we were both moved and influenced by Joyce and Marquez - so maybe, maybe there is a universal language out there. :)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You remind me (again!) that i really should read more English and US-American authors.

While I should be reading more authors outside of the English/US.
It's hard. Harder than it should be. It's not that I haven't read non-US or non-English writers...it's just that often when I read them I'm relying on translation.

I think we tend to read whatever is readily available?