I haven’t had a good idea for a post since the last post. Well I had some ideas, but I bet you do not want to read any of my lame random questions about advertising and appliance repair services or rants about bent politics. For that reason (and because I enjoyed the answers at Eve’s Lungs) I am writing about my literary tastes prompted by this post.
1) What author do you own the most books by?
A toss up between Robin McKinley, Anne Perry, Jane Austen, Katherine Neville, and Dean Koontz
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I collect variations of the Beauty and The Beast tale
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
They did? I must be immune because of the rampant lack of respect for grammar among the media.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Probably The Scarlet Pimpernel
5) What book have you read the most times in your life?
Variations of the Beauty and the Beast tale or perhaps Robin McKinley’s (who does two variations of the Beauty and the Beast tale) The Blue Sword, a book I wish every mother would read to her ten year old daughter.
6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
That was when I really began to love reading and I read “We Were There” books from a book club my mother gave me during the summer. After that my nose was always in a book.
7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
I think I must forget worst books because there is always a next book. However, a couple of years ago I read The Rule of Four and it still sticks out as a waste of my time.
What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Don’t make me choose, but I reread all of Katherine Neville’s previous books while waiting for The Fire, her most recent . She wrote a Da Vinci Code style of book years ago and her books should be on the big screen. Hey, Ron, are you listening?
9) If you could force everyone to read one book, what would it be?
See number 5.
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
I am so impressed that Mallika actually had someone in mind. I don’t think my reading is intellectual enough to know. The only other person who might have a good idea would be Lalla Lydia .
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
See number 5 (The Blue Sword) and number 8 (The Eight).
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
The Rule of Four (see 7)
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Well, I dream in technicolor with big adventures but they come from the inner reaches of my own mind.
14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
I suspect many of my choices would be considered lowbrow by the Pulitzer or Nobel committees but I used to have a Christmas holiday tradition of reading Christmas Regency Anthologies. I just loved all the holly and ivy and postcard stories from England. They are just so sweet. Haven’t done it in several years though.
15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Moby Dick. It is difficult because I have had to read it twice. Once as an undergrad and once as part of a theology course. I HATE that book.
16) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare.
17) Austen or Eliot?
Austen — Eliot is way to grim.
18) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Non fiction especially philosophy as well as the great thinkers.
19) What is your favorite novel?
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley or The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver.
20) Play?
King Lear
21) Short story?
Something by Flannery O’Conner.
22) Work of non-fiction?
James Burke’s Connections which is based on the TV series.
23) Who is your favorite writer
See answer 1. Okay, Austen. She is so funny and her takes on people and society are just as valid today.