Amanda
Curtin tagged me in this questionnaire about my bookish behavior. Some of the
questions were easy (we all know that b0ok recommended by a friend which ended
up secreted in the recycle bin via over-arm bowl). But choosing favourites from favourites and
all the time feeling I have betrayed those who don’t make my paltry lists? – I
needed to drink to get through this.
Please feel free to join in. You
can read Amanda Curtin’s responses here.
Mine are below (no heckling please)...
What are you
reading right now?
The Lucifer
Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Lombardo
(Several people from my past make cameos
appearances in this one...)
Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re
done with that?
(I have a cameo in
this...)
What 5 books have you always wanted to read but
haven’t got round to?
Room by Emma Donoghue
New York by Edward Rutherford
Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor
Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
Herzog by Saul Bellow
(Not necessarily in
that order, but they are all here and accusing me every time I pick up
something else).
What magazines do you have in your bathroom/lounge
right now?
None. And why do people have
magazines (and books) in their toilets?
I really want to know. When you
visit a friend’s loo and it’s decked out like a second hand book shop, do you
automatically pick something up and start browsing? No!
And do you know why? Because
you’d get cholera! I’d rather drive to a
gas station than pee amongst literature...
What’s the
worst book you’ve ever read?
Twilight by Stephanie
Meyer. It may have found its feet
further in *whispers* - I didn’t finish
it...
What book
seemed really popular but you didn’t like?
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
What’s the one
book you always recommend to just about everyone?
We Need To Talk About
Kevin by
Lionel Shriver
The Hour I First
Believed by
Wally Lamb
(Yes, I know that’s two but it’s my Blog, get over it)
What are your
three favourite poems?
The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams
The Difference Between Despair by Emily Dickinson
Child by Sylvia Plath
Where do you
usually get your books?
Almost
exclusively online, both hard copies and downloads.
Where do you
usually read your books?
In
bed or lying on the couch. I prefer to
read supine. When the book becomes too
heavy I turn on my side until my glasses are skewiff. Then I roll onto my back again and prop my
book up on the dog.
When you were
little, did you have any particular reading habits?
If
I could find a book then I would read it.
What’s the
last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you
couldn’t put it down?
I
don’t like to read into the night, especially if I am loving something – I want
it to last. I have only every done this
once. I pulled an all-nighter many years
ago with Possession by A.S
Byatt. (Damn you, Byatt!) I then re-read it, tasting every word.
Have you ever
‘faked’ reading a book?
I
“fake-read” Flowers in the Attic by
V.C. Andrews when I was in high school.
All I had to do was read the two pages my borrowed copy fell open to
(the sex scene) and I was in with everyone else! I hear she’s publishing from beyond the grave
now...
Have you ever
bought a book just because you liked the cover?
Yes
– a couple of cook books. And cook books
tend to use that paper that smells so beautiful, and feels so smooth. I
was not disappointed.
What book
changed your life?
My
life is changing constantly so I am changed by books constantly. This is an awful question and I had to think
about it long and hard. I came up with Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish. This was the first book ever read aloud to
me. I was 6. It was read to me by my primary school
librarian, Ethel Watson. I discovered
books that day.
What is your
favourite passage from a book?
“You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you
suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as
it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved
in a more gentlemanlike manner." Pride
and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Who are your
top five favourite authors?
Five?! You want five. Jane Austen.
Lionel Shriver. Graham
Greene. Isaac Bashevis Singer. John Wyndham.
Colleen McCullough. John Le
Carre. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. (I could go on...)
What book has
no one heard about but should read?
Killing Time: One Man’s Race To
Stop an Execution by David R. Dow. Personal memoir that reads like
thriller. Intimate yet universal. One man fighting against a corrupt and
ineffective legal system.
What 3 books
are you an ‘evangelist’ for?
Mothers of the Novel by Dale Spender (and you all thought we were
adjusting our bustles and getting the vapours)
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
What are your
favourite books by a first-time author?
The Good Wife by Emma Chapman
(Yes, I know that’s one but it’s my Blog, get over it)
What is your
favourite classic book?
There are so many. Everything by
Jane Austen and The Midwich Cuckoos
by John Wyndham.
Five other
notable mentions?
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Happy As Larry by Scot Gardner
American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis
The Magus by John Fowles
THE RULES
1. Post these rules
2. Post a photo of your favourite book cover (see mine below)
3. Answer the questions above
4. Tag a few people to answer them too
5. Go to their blog/twitter and tell them you’ve tagged them
6. Make sure you tell the person who tagged you that you’ve taken part!
1. Post these rules
2. Post a photo of your favourite book cover (see mine below)
3. Answer the questions above
4. Tag a few people to answer them too
5. Go to their blog/twitter and tell them you’ve tagged them
6. Make sure you tell the person who tagged you that you’ve taken part!
I'm tagging Robert Schofield, Suzanne Covich and Vikki Wakefield.
