Questions and answers about books...

[fajrdrako]

From tudorpot.

1) What author do you own the most books by? A few weeks ago, I'd have said J.R.R. Tolkien, since I seemed to have acquired infinite numbers of editions of The Lord of the Rings in my enthusiasm. Having dealt with that, possibly Dorothy Dunnett. I seem to have a lot of Barbara Hambly novels (which I haven't read) inherited from a friend, but I'm not sure how many. With Dunnett, of course, it's multiple editions of the same things. With Hambly, it's all different books.

I also own everything Shakespeare ever wrote in the Yale edition. Maybe that's the winner.

2) What book do you own the most copies of? The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett. By no coincidence, my favourite book. But I keep giving away or lending copies, so the number of copies changes.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions? Of course not. I heartily approve of prepositions as items to end sentences with.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with? That's a very hard one to answer: most of my fictional loves are far from secrets. I jabber about them all the time. Is there anyone here who doesn't know how much I love Francis Crawford of Lymond, or Aral Vorkosigan, or Cairo Azarcon? Sam Vimes? Hmm... Eugene Wrayburn isn't much of a secret either, or Hamlet, or... Shall we say Eugenides, as being someone I don't talk about much?

5) What book have you read the most times in your life? The Game of Kings. Easy. I stopped reading it when I had all the good bits memorized. Sometimes I pick it up again anyway, just for fun.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old? Sir Francis Drake.

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year? I don't read books I consider bad. I stop after a page or two. The last book I read (and finished) that I thought was bad was The Da Vinci Code, and it had a certain visceral fascination.

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year? Anything Goes by John Barrowman, or maybe Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be? I would never, never force anyone to read anything. I disapprove. I have never liked a book I was forced to read, however good it might be.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature? Dorothy Dunnett.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie? These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer, or Faro's Daughter, or Black Sheep.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie? The Da Vinci Code. Oops. Been there, saw that. The only thing that could have made it worse was casting Tom Hanks. (Uh-oh. Why did I torture myself?)

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character. ...I prefer not to remember my dreams.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult? Silly question. Lowbrow is in the eye of the beholder. I don't believe in "lowbrow".

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read? Anything I read in Latin.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen? Titus Andronicus, I suppose. I saw a brilliant, brilliant performance in Stratford Ontario done in a Frank Frazetta style.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians? Another silly question. I like Zola and Dostoevsky about equally. Well, maybe I prefer Dostoevsky if you're looking at Crime and Punishment I've read more French authors that Russian ones: does that give them the edge?

18) Roth or Updike? Neither.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers? Never heard of Dave Eggers. I tried to listen to one of Sedaris' audiobooks and was put off by his voice. Might try actually reading him sometime.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer? All of them, please. Those are three I love.

21) Austen or Eliot? I assume this means George, not T.S. I adore T.S. Eliot. Mixed feelings about Jane Austen. Haven't read George Eliot at all. Should I?

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading? Um... most of my gaps are deliberate and I refuse to be embarrassed. I suppose there's something.

23) What is your favorite novel? The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett.

24) Play? Hamlet, though Equus comes close.

25) Poem? Whimper. I have to choose one? Okay: Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot.

26) Essay? Best collection: Lord Chesterton's letters to his son, or the essay-type chapters of Tom Jones by Fielding.

27) Short story? "Chivalry" by Neil Gaiman.

28) Work of nonfiction? Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.

29) Who is your favorite writer? Dorothy Dunnett.

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today? Dan Brown.

31) What is your desert island book? Probably The Game of Kings.

32) And...what are you reading right now? Two books: Getting Stoned with the Savages by J. Maarten Troost, and (as an audiobook) Night Watch by Terry Pratchett.

Comments

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

I prefer not to remember my dreams

Really? Why not? You make it sound like a choice to forget and I'm curious - I like remembering mine.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My dreams are pretty boring. Or sometimes disturbing. I think they are the odds and ends of psychological debris thrown up by my subconscious and generally not worth remembering.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is a really highbrow set of questions, and I'm speaking as a former English major. I was going to copy them and answer them on my own journal, but the middle dozen or so questions? Kind of offended me, in the wanting to stick out my tongue and say "lit-ra-choor" sort of way. Although your answers didn't.

Oh, well. I'm lowbrow myself and proud of it, so I guess that's that [g].

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

this is a really highbrow set of questions, and I'm speaking as a former English major.

Some of the the question sounded as if they wanted me to be a pedant, or expected I would be. Of course, I refuse any such notion and deny any such imputation! I don't think I'm lowbrow in the least; I think I have the intelligence and insight to appreciate comic books, popular literature, and current media at their own value. Heh. So there! I'm an elite so elite I masquerade as eclectic.

Or something. [g]

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Snicker. yeah, and I'm responsible for several of those sets of LOTR... hee.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I figure a person can never have too much Lord of the Rings.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Nor too many books of poetry. I saw, alas, the other day that Grey's Used Books, here in town, is going out of business. I suspect that Dr. Grey, who retired from the university's English Department twenty years ago, is moving on to other things in his later life now. Everything's 50% off. Sigh. I'll miss that shop.

Tomorrow being payday, I'll be there looking for poetry books....

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I might go looking for poetry books, too. I keep remembering poems which I memorized in the past, but I don't trust my memory well enough to just do it by ear, and don't always know how to find the text. It's harder still with translations... I was thinking about a Yevgeny Yevtushenko poem I love, can't recall the title, something about a station, but it's not Zima Station:

Think. Meditate. Listen.
Count happiness conatural to the mind,
More than truth is, and yet
No truth can exist without it.

I hate it when a poem gets away.