December 04, 2008
Book Meme
Book Meme
標hich book or books are you reading now?
I'm in the middle of Eats, Shoots and Leaves. It's funny, but I can only read about punctuation for so long at a time before my eyes glaze over. I just returned But Didn't We Have Fun? to the library. I wanted to like it, but the author who is trying to write an informal history of baseball's early years wasn't informal enough for me.
標hat is your favorite time to read?
Mostly in the evenings, because otherwise there are too many interruptions.
柊nd your favorite place?
Bed or the bathtub
標ho is your favorite novelist?
It depends on my mood and the moment -- sometimes Jane Austen or P.G. Wodehouse or sometimes someone else all together.
漂ou favorite poem?
I don't just pull poetry off the shelves to read it all that often, but I am rather fond of Robert W. Service.
標hat is the most difficult book you致e ever read?
The most difficult book I ever have finished was Kafka's The Castle, but then there are books like The Grapes of Wrath and Plato's Republic that for me have been such a long hard slog that I've never finished them.
標hat was the first book you remember reading?
I think something by Dr. Seuss, but I'm not sure. I do remember checking this book about Edith and a Bear out very frequently from the library before I could read.
疋o you have a comfort book that you re-read?
Several. The Anne of Green Gables books, some Wodehouse, mostly books I read first when I was a kid or a teenager.
標hat is the most erotic book you致e read?
My friends and I got our hands on Anais Nin one time, but it isn't a category I dabble in much.
標hich classic should you have read?
Lots of them. I some how graduated from a college that is famous for its English major without taking a single English class. Which means I missed out on many things I should have read. But I've probably read more German literary classics than you have. Not that I remember them anymore though.
標hich book did you never want to end?
I can't think of a single book, but I wanted the Anne books and the books about Betsy and Tacy to continue on forever.
標hat is your most overrated book?
Besides anything by James Joyce?
標hich character could you have an affair with?
Mr. Darcy
標ho is your favorite character?
It all depends. There are so many great characters in books, it would be hard to pick just one.
標hich character do you most dislike?
Again, I'm not sure. I mean there are some really evil characters to hate out there. Kafka excels in some, for instance.
標hich character do you identify with most?
I always liked Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy and Anne, when she's in trouble. Maybe Ramona. And of course, Elizabeth Bennet.
標hich book changed your life?
Oddly enough (because I am not Eastern Orthodox) it was a book called Facing East: A Pilgrim's Journey into the Mysteries of Orthodoxy by Frederica Matthewes-Greene that started me down the road to Catholicism.
Meme highjacked from Robbo.
I just finished The Long Winter, one of the Little House books. Like the Anne books and Jane Austen, they are books I can come back to and enjoy re-reading.
I was totally surprised that a friend's daughter, who I babysat for often in grad school, had no interest in the Little House books or Anne. She was a big TV watcher, and I think maybe they just moved too slow or were too far outside her experience. It was sad! I sure hope my kids will enjoy them too.
For a while, as a librarian, I felt I ought to try to read some more of the newer fiction, so I could do better reader's advisory. There were a few good ones (like the Time Traveler's Wife), but for the most part I find they are not worth my time. I'd rather read fiction that is more likely to be good (often older) or, more likely, some good non-fiction.
Posted by: Jennifer at December 4, 2008 05:40 PMConfession: I have never read a single Wodehouse book.
I did, however, finish and almost enjoy the Grapes of Wrath.
Posted by: Meredith at December 4, 2008 10:34 PM
Jordana Adams, Chief Pontificator