Yet Another Book Meme

[callmemadam]

The Literary Note Meme came to me via Harriet Devine’s Blog.

1) What author do you own the most books by?
It must be Elinor M Brent-Dyer as I have the entire Chalet School series in a mixture of hardback and paperback books.
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
The Pursuit of Love, I think.
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
No.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
It’s no secret: Lord Peter Wimsey.
5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children)?
Probably Emma by Jane Austen.
6) What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?
Toss up between The Secret Garden and Summer of the Great Secret.
7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
I couldn’t get through The Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower, but that’s not to say it’s a bad book.
8 ) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Oh dear. Perhaps What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn. The one that made me happiest and which I’m most likely to reread is Summertime by Raffaella Barker.
9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing but I can’t understand people who won’t even try Jane Austen.
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Don’t know, don’t care.
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Something by Georgette Heyer.
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Any horror book.
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Errm, it was a dream about Kingsley Amis and I refuse to describe it.
14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
I suppose Valley of the Dolls or something similar.
15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
It was obviously so difficult I’ve forgotten all about it.
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
I’ve only seen popular Shakespeare plays.
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
French, I suppose as I can read them in the original.
18 ) Roth or Updike?
Read both, not bothered. Oh all right, Roth.
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Who?
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
What kind of a question is that? On the grounds that I can probably quote more Shakespeare, I’ll go for him.
21) Austen or Eliot?
Ouch. Middlemarch is my favourite book but for the total oeuvre, it has to be Austen.
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I’ve never read Catch 22 on the grounds that I know all about it. I’ve never read anything by Walter Scott.
23) What is your favorite novel?
Middlemarch
24) Play?
Anthony & Cleopatra or something by Congreve.
25) Poem?
Something by Keats. OK. Ode to a Nightingale.
26) Essay?
Good grief. I can’t think of any.
27) Short story?
I’m not keen on short stories. I can only think of Mr Loveday’s Little Outing by Evelyn Waugh.
28) Work of nonfiction?
Down the Garden Path by Beverley Nichols, though some would call it fiction.
29) Who is your favourite writer?
Jane Austen. Or Dickens.
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Doris Lessing.
31) What is your desert island book?
Can’t choose between Middlemarch and Bleak House. Or maybe David Copperfield.
32) And… what are you reading right now?
Madresfield by Jane Mulvagh

No tagging, but I guess anyone is free to have a go.

Comments

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

> it was a dream about Kingsley Amis and I refuse to describe it.

I take it it wasn't about making cocoa?

I'll read Austen if you read Catch-22.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Hee! No.

It's a deal.

[sloopjonb.livejournal.com]

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Terry Pratchett. Almost everything wot he ever wrote. A sequence that will not be maintained, I shouldn't think.
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
The Well of Lost Plots, by Jasper Fforde. A trade paperback the publisher sent me, a proof hardback a friend in America sent me, and an ordinary paperback for reading.
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Slightly.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
None.
5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children)?
Probably Peter Duck by Arthur Ransome.
6) What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?
The Borrowers.
7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Wintersmith, by Terry Pratchett.
8 ) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
In fiction, The Rotters Club, Jonathan Coe.
9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
I'd write one myself, and force everybody to buy that. Actually reading it would be optional.
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Somebody who needs the brass. Literary prizes are all bullsh*t, anyway.
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
I wouldn't. Movies ruin good books.
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Any book I actually like. Leave them alone.
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I don't remember dreams.
14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
Ambition, by Julie Burchill. It was like roadkill - horrible, yet strangely fascinating.
15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Ulysses, by James Joyce.
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
Love's Labours Lost.
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
The English, the English, the English are best, I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.
18) Roth or Updike?
Meh. Boring.
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Who?
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Not Milton, whatever else befall.
21) Austen or Eliot?
Do I look like a girl? Charlotte Bronte, obviously.
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Jane Austen, probably.
23) What is your favorite novel?
Eh, who knows. Too many. I dunno, the Sword of Honour trilogy (second ed.) by Evelyn Waugh.
24) Play?
The Tempest. Or A Midsummer Night's Dream. One of those two.
25) Poem?
The Whitsun Weddings, Philip Larkin.
26) Essay?
On Fiction, by David Lodge.
27) Short story?
Nightfall, Isaac Asimov.
28) Work of nonfiction?
English History 1914 - 1945, A J P Taylor.
29) Who is your favourite writer?
As a human bean, Jasper Fforde. As a writer, Evelyn Waugh.
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Martin Amis.
31) What is your desert island book?
Lord of the Rings, on a never mind the quality feel the width basis. Not that's it's a bad book, but not really Great Licherachewer, don't y'know.
32) And … what are you reading right now?
Olympiad by Tom Holt (re-read).

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I like these answers!
I didn't know anyone still read A J P Taylor.

[sloopjonb.livejournal.com]

He was opinioniated, biased, sarcastic, and waspish. What's not to love?

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I *do* love.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm very fond of Middlemarch, too, but The Mill on the Floss just pips it for me.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

TheMill on the Floss is just too sad to be a favourite for me!