07 July 2009

do I have to bring a note?


I've been absent a lot. I'm sorry. How about a lit survey I just did on Facebook? Pardon the formatting...
1) What author do you own the most books by? Joyce Carol Oates.
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I don't duplicate books on purpose - but my bookshelves are so disorganized that I might have duplicates or triplicates - or I might be the Octomom of books!
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions? No - that's not one of the things I'm preoccupied with.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with? You mean, today? I'd have to say Mrs. Ramsay from "To the Lighthouse."
5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)?
"Little Women."
6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
"Jane Eyre."
7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year? "The Song of the Lark" by Willa Cather. I was snarling by the end of it.
8) What is the best book you've read in the past year? "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. (Not that I actually have a dilemma, since I'm not an omnivore, but when you read that food-industry lunatics are feeding corn to salmon, it's hard to be sanguine about any aspect of our food-chain...)
9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
"The Omnivore's Dilemma."
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature? Anne Tyler
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Any Maisie Dobbs mystery.
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie? It's too late - they already did "Left Behind."
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
When I first read "Crime and Punishment," it infiltrated my dreams. I was seeing through Raskolnikov's eyes. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult? "Da Vinci Code." Oh.dear.God.
15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read? I'm still reading it - "The Madwoman in the Attic."
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen? I never saw any of the really obscure ones.
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians? Salad dressings? Oh, books. Russians.
18) Roth or Updike? Please don't make me choose.... oh, all right, Roth, for "The Plot Against America."
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers? Sedaris. 20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer? Shakespeare
21) Austen or Eliot?
Austen
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading? I've never read "Moby Dick" - and you can't make me.
23) What is your favourite novel?
"Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke.
24) Play?
(I'll fudge on this one...) Screenplay: "My Dinner with Andre."
25) Poem?
One need not be a chamber to be haunted... Emily Dickinson, ever and always Emily.
26) Essay?
"Some Memories of the Glorious Bird and an Earlier Self" by Gore Vidal.
27) Short story? Dostoevsky - "White Nights." (or, "The Beast in the Jungle" by Henry James.)
28) Work of nonfiction? "The White Album" - Joan Didion. (Substitute any title by Joan Didion.)
29) Who is your favorite writer? Jane Austen.
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Dan Brown.
31) What is your desert island book?
Jane Austen - "Emma."
32) And ... what are you reading right now?
"Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks.

5 comments:

Daphne said...

What fun to read! I think I might be filling my blog with memes in the next few days as I attempt to set myself right-side up. My #5 would be Little Women, too... although I have to say I have read more low-brow books than you. :)

Beverly said...

I really enjoyed reading this!!

Anonymous said...

I'm reading To The Lighthouse right now, for the Classics Reading Challenge. So far, so very good. Mrs. Ramsay is, indeed, lovely.

I couldn't finish The DaVinci Code and have never attempted another Dan Brown book. The author I hate most is Jodi Picoult. She's the one driving me permanently from any "real life" book clubs. They all love her. And I just.cannot.stand.her.

Nana Sadie said...

LOL.
Didn't surprise me one second...should probably go do my own version on Facebook...It won't be nearly the quality of yours!
Happy to see you!!!
(((hugs)))

Carrie K said...

Great meme. I have no idea what my favorite book was at the age of ten but I know I didn't appreciate Jane Austen until I hit my thirties.