inthelouvre.org

Authors Meme

I was tagged quite a while ago but I’m just now getting around to this… Actually, when I first realized I was tagged I looked over the questions and saw that I was going to have to put a lot of thought into them. Whenever anyone asks what my “favorite” is - whether it be authors, foods, books, songs, musicians, whatever - I have small anxiety attacks. Well, kind of. It’s impossible to choose, and I especially hate that phrase “of all time,” because that implies that for the rest of my life I will never find another author that even compares with this one. I find that pretty depressing.

So here I’ll give my best shot to this meme!

1. Who’s your all-time favorite author, and why?

Again I stress that “all-time favorite” is not a phrase that I ever have cause to use, but I will tell you my favorite author of the past couple of years. Actually, that’s pretty hard to choose. I generally don’t allow myself to define an author as a “favorite” until I have read and loved at least three of his/her books. It’s easy to have a “favorite book” - you only have to read it once to find out if that’s the case. But once you find yourself reading multiple books by the same author and really enjoying every one of them… Well, it’s safe to put that author in a “favorite” category.

In the past few years I’ve read a lot of books by a few single authors - Haruki Murakami, Bret Easton Ellis, Patrick Süskind. In fact, I’ve read every book by Patrick Süskind, even the ones that are hard to find; every book by Bret Easton Ellis… I’m finding pleasure in leisurely getting through Haruki Murakami’s books. So what’s my answer to this question, now that I’ve dawdled on about what I’ve been reading lately?

I would have to say Haruki Murakami. While Patrick Süskind’s books have a greater hold on me than most others, Marukami’s still shake to life something inside me every time I read one. When I first read Kafka on the Shore I immediately began collecting the author’s other books (I still don’t have all of them, though!). I felt like I knew I would enjoy them, and I was right… They require a lot of thought to get through them, but I have a better sense of myself when I’m done. (In any case, I’ve already addressed this topic.) And for that matter, given that I have at least seven more to read before I can say I’ve read them all… I am going to go ahead and foresee the possibility that Murakami will keep his position as my favorite author for quite a while…

Well, you see how hard this question was for me to answer now.

2. Who was your first favorite author, and why? Do you still consider him or her among your favorites?

My first favorite author was probably Dick Bruna, because I grew up with his board books and I still can’t get over how awesome they are. A bit later, though… Probably Roald Dahl, though I didn’t quite have the same strict rules then as I do now. I don’t think I ever read anything by him except Matilda, but I was greatly enamored with that book for most of my childhood. I haven’t read it in a few years (I believe the last time was high school, and even that was just to recount memories associated with the book), but I’m still in love with the story.

3. Who’s the most recent addition to your list of favorite authors, and why?

Most recent… Hm. Despite the fact that I define a favorite author as one who has written three or more books that I’ve enjoyed, that doesn’t always apply. I’ve been into JR Ward’s Blackdagger Brotherhood books, for example, and John Dunning’s Bookman mysteries. I’d count those more as favorite series rather than favorite authors; the authors do have other books available in other series (or genres, even) but I’m not jumping to read them the way I ecstatically read every Süskind book or went broke buying all of Murakami’s books.

Ray Bradbury is nearing the mark. I’ve only read two of his but I want to have babies with every one of his characters (no, not really). I suppose if I’m sticking to my rules, George MacDonald is my most recent favorite, but I already knew I would fall in love with him.

It’s strange to think of it in this way, but it seems that none of my favorite authors “became” my favorite authors… They already always were, but I didn’t know it until I read one line or got to know one certain character.

4. If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Are there any you’d add on a moment of further reflection?

I think I’ve already answered this in the first question… But upon further reflection, I’d probably add Kurt Vonnegut to the ranking. It’s hard to leave out JRR Tolkien since I spent much of my life obsessing over his books, but I can’t say that I see anything but memories when I look at those books.

5. Tagged:

Tagging the last five referrers, because it’s more fun that way! (Except, of course, those which have already done this meme, assuming of course it was posted recently.)

- Hev
- Christine
- Devourer of Books
- Dewey (also I love your new layout!)
- Fatima

WG Reviews and Memes

Weekly Geeks Challenge #2 adopts a particularly attractive idea from Books and Other Thoughts. Basically, I read and review a book, you read and review that same book (whether by my influence, out of your own interest, or otherwise), you email me with the link to your review, and I add that link to my review post. It’s a wonderful way to bring together different perspectives on single titles, and I’d specifically love to see some negative reviews counter my positive ones (or otherwise). I don’t normally read based on recommendations or reviews (as, I believe, I said in my last WG post), but that doesn’t mean you don’t. This is an excellent way to give my readers a well-rounded view on the books I’ve read, so I’ve decided to participate. In fact, if things go well, I’d like to adopt this as a feature on my blog indefinitely.

So! You can access the books which I’ve reviewed by visiting my library page or by browsing the Bookmobile category, though that also includes all other book-related posts in this blog. The opportunity is open to the reviews which have comments enabled. (Some of my earlier ones do not allow commenting, as they were imported from an earlier blog which had no reason to allow commenting as it had no visitors, and I lack the motivation to go through and enable commenting. )

If you would like to submit a review to be linked, you can either use the contact form, comment on this blog post, or comment on the blog post for that particular review. (If I decide to implement this as a feature on my website, I’ll probably think of a much better way to do this. For now, however, this post is here for the purpose of the Weekly Geeks challenge and thus I feel no need to go about coding a new form and all that jazz.) Remember to send me the permalink to the blog post containing the book review and not just a link to your blog!

Now on to other less interesting things… a six things about me meme! I’ve been tagged by this redhead to tell you more about myself than you’ve already gathered from my “about” page. I must also tag six people, apparently, so I’ll be doing that first.

I believe that Hev once tagged me for a meme similar to this (perhaps it was this same one), but she’s going to be my first tagged blogger anyway, because I feel I can never learn too much about her! I’d also like to tag Amanda so she can prove she reads this blog (just kidding ), Christine who makes cute comics and who is crazy enough to like my writing, Renay who I’m sure will say very interesting things, and for kicks and giggles, I’ll invite two of the book bloggers I’ve been reading since I discovered WeeklyGeeks to see if they’ll find me in their referrers and participate in a silly meme which lets us get to know each other better: Bookworm and When Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops. Good luck and godspeed.

Without further adieu, here are six very unimportant things about me.

• I have tried several million times to stop biting my nails, a habit I formed sometime in elementary school and never got over. It annoys me that I still do it and sometimes I bite them down to intense pain, but none of those “remedies” (gross tasting polish, gum, etc) seem to ever work.
• I sometimes browse the “rants and raves” section on Craigslist for my nearest city just to reassure myself that my life is fulfilling enough not to lead me to trivial arguments on the Internet with complete strangers.
• I can’t stomach horror movies. Sometimes I won’t even be watching them and I’ll feel queasy; instead, my face will be buried in my boyfriend’s shoulder, or I’ll be in an entirely different room - but the sounds coming from the television are enough to frighten me to bits.
• All of the leather-bound antique books that I own are titles which are actually interesting to me and which I may read one day once I learn how to properly handle them. In other words, I don’t collect books just because they “look cool,” though I do appreciate a finely made tome.
• I stay awake much too late and wake up much too early most of the time.
• I have a large and impressive collection of cow-related things, from printed fabric to stuffed animals, porcelain figurines to kitchenware. It is almost entirely in storage at my parents’ house but some day, when I have room, it will come out and people will think I am crazy.

I’m also going to cheat and tag the same six people (even though I only have to tag five) for this sentence meme; I was tagged by Angela. What’s with you people tagging me lately? My ‘memes’ category was happy with just the one post. I’ve done one of these sentence ones before, but this one’s a bit different - you are instructed to post a comment on the blog of the person who tagged the person who tagged you with your answer. An interesting way to network websites. In any case.

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment on Angela’s blog (she’s the one who tagged me) once you’ve posted your three sentences.

“She’s a feeder,” said Linny. “Gets it from her mother. Both of them devotees of the philosophy that the world’s ills can be cured if you through enough food at them, although Cornelia would probably not admit that.”

This from Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos, which I haven’t read but have heard delightful things about.

Meme: Books

I don’t usually do this here, but it’s been a while since I’ve updated. I’m reading a book that I probably won’t write about and I haven’t finished my TBR book yet so… (And, on the other hand, I probably won’t finish my Non-Fiction Five, which is disappointing since I got so far in it so quickly.)

What book are you currently reading? Actively, The FabJob guide to Becoming A Bookstore Owner by Grace Jasmine. For a while there I was able to trek through about 1/4 of How to Read A Book by Mortimer J. Adler. I’m not exactly reading The Road by Jack Kerouac, but I’m more than halfway through and will be finishing it before the end of the month. I’ve put down Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel for lack of interest, the same with As the Romans Do by Alan Epstein.

How do you decide what book to read next? This year, it’s been based on challenges. I’m pretty happy with it because it’s more or less forced me to read (otherwise I slack off and hate myself for it), but I think next year I will just make personal challenges that require a lot less reading of books I don’t like.

Do you always finish books, or do you give up on them? If you give up on them, how many pages does it usually take? I try not to give up on books. I may put it down for a few months, but I will always try to make it a priority to pick it back up and finish it. There is only one book I ever didn’t finish - Mapping the Edge by Sarah Dunant. It was really bad.

Do you ever re-read books you love? If so, how often? Give examples, if possible. Well, I’ve read the Lord of the Rings books a few times, and as per my 101 Things in 1,001 Days goals, I’ve plans to read them again soon… However, the only other books I can think that I’ll take the time out to reread are various kids storybooks, Matilda by Roald Dahl, and of course any of the epic poetry that may have struck my soul (Iliad by Homer, Aeneid by Virgil), as well as Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I just don’t think there’s enough time in a life to spend time re-reading every book. Most of the time, I want to visit new worlds.

Can you read books in noisy places (e.g. trains, buses, crowded rooms)? Yes, but only if it’s a constant noise. For example, I could read at a concert, but not at a play. If it’s just a general mumbo jumbo of noise and talking, it’s just like having any other kind of background noise (the air conditioner, for example). But as soon as one voice carries above the others, I can get so distracted.

Where do you acquire most of your books? If you are a library user or borrower, how many books do you borrow at once? If a buyer, how many books do you usually buy at once? I work in a used bookstore and my boyfriend works in a corporate bookstore. We are constantly surrounded by books and we want them all, even the ones we know we’ll never read. We’re constantly spending money on books that come in… We probably get at least one book a day, or equivalent to that (I bought Twilight by Stephanie Meyer yesterday; he got _If I Did It by the Goldman Family).

Do you use bookmarks, or dog-ear the pages of your books? Do you make marginal notes? If so, do you use pencil or pen? I use bookmarks, but not real ones. They’re usually little scraps of paper and receipts. The only time I make marginal notes is when I’m really, really into a book, and I always use pencil - but I also highlight sometimes. My first copy of The Iliad is completely marked up, but I still have a second that’s very clean and fresh (though used). I never dog-ear, but Richard does so some of our books are bent in places.

Do you have any unusual tendencies while you read? I can’t really think of any at the moment…

Do you read through pages at top speed, or do you stop to savor the sentences along the way? I don’t necessarily read at “top speed,” but I don’t usually stop to savor anything unless it’s really bad grammar that has distracted me and I can’t go on. Usually in that case, it’s less “savoring,” more that my attention has been diverted to the upper part of the page even while I’m still trying to read the bottom.

We know most of us can read just about anywhere, but specifically where and when do you do your best reading? I have a green chair that reclines. I do my best reading there, but probably not my most reading.

Meme: Book Survey

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1. Who are your favorite authors? Hard to choose… Haruki Murakami, Shakespeare, Robert Graves, Patrick Suskind, and more, very certainly more.

2. What are your favorite books? Aeneid by Virgil, Iliad by Homer, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl, Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis, The Pigeon by Patrick Suskind, too many more to reasonably list.

3. What are you reading right now? Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

4. Is there a book that you have you started but haven’t finished? Why? On the Road by Jack Kerouac, because I can’t get into the writing style or content.

5. What is on your to-be-read list? As I Lay Dying by Faulkner, Galelio’s Daughter by Dava Sobel, The Stranger by Albert Camus, Long Way Round by Ewan McGregor, Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling, Cicero by Anthony Everett, The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, and the list goes on…

6. What do you plan on reading next? Probably something light, like a mystery.

7. How often (hours) do you read in a day? I guess about 2 hours a day on average, but sometimes much more and sometimes not at all.

8. What’s the fastest you’ve ever finished a book? In a page to time ratio, Harry Potter 5 (870 pages in two days, plus working, sleeping, and eating). Otherwise, I’ve finished smaller books in the amount of hours I can count on one hand.

9. Where do you usually buy your books? Books-A-Million or C&W primarily.

10. How many books do you have? Over 1,000. Not very many.

11. What is your favorite type of book (hardback, etc)? I prefer trade paperbacks/oversized softbacks, but lately I have found a greater appreciation for mass markets because they fit anywhere you put them.

12. Are there unread books stacked next to your bed? Yes….

13. Do you write down or save quotes from books that you liked? Not usually, unless it’s particularly brilliant. I can’t be bothered to stop reading for long enough to write things down.

ADDRESSING YOUR ADDICTION

14. When you are in the bookstore, do you sometimes answer questions for the employees? That is, when a customer asks “Who wrote Kiss the Girls?” do you answer “James Patterson” before the employee has a chance to look it up? Well, not really, since I work in a bookstore and therefore am probably being the one interrupted, but sometimes I do think the answers in other bookstores, if that counts….

15. When you go to a bookstore “just to browse,” how many books do you have with you when you leave? At least one…

16. When you go for one certain book, how many books do you have with you when you leave? At least three…

17. In other words, do you feel uncomfortable leaving a bookstore without having purchased, or at least put on hold, at least one book? This is sort of a funny question because it’s EXACTLY how I feel.

18. Do you smell books? *sheepish grin* yes…..

19. Have you ever bought the same book twice without knowing it? Yes, but that problem isn’t so much a problem anymore since I started cataloguing my library and am more familiar with the books I already own…

20. Do you buy your loved ones primarily books for Christmas and birthdays? Yes.

21. Have you ever bought a book simply because you liked the cover design? Oh, plenty of times.

22. Have you ever been reprimanded at a job for reading? Yes

23. Does panic set in when you find yourself “waiting” for something (haircut, in line, whatever), with nothing to read? YES. But usually I keep a book in my purse to prevent this.

24. When a friend or someone walks into your home, is their first comment about how many books you have? Usually, yes.

25. Is joy of reading an absolute must-have quality in a potential mate? Yes. I’ve dated guys who didn’t read and found myself boring them when I talked about books (which I do a lot).

YOUR READING HISTORY

26. What was your favorite book as a child? Matilda by Roald Dahl, hands down.

27. When was the last time you read it? Probably high school some time.

28. Do you still enjoy it? Yes, or at least I did when I last read it….

29. What was your favorite children’s series? Hm, the Babysitters Club books, but none of that “Little Sister” shit.

30. Did you ever want to be an author when you grew up? Yeah, still do sometimes.

31. Where do you keep your books from being a kid? Some are here at the apartment, some still at my parents house.

32. What was your favorite book as a teenager? I seemed to really like Great Expectations by Charles Dickens for a very long time (7th grade through most of high school), but I don’t think I really understood what was going on when I first read it.

33. When was the last time you read it? 7th grade.

34. Do you still enjoy it? Not necessarily. I don’t remember it very well, but I’d like to read it again soon.

35. You are stuck on an island. You can only have one book with you (to read or do activities from). What would it be?
a. Your answer as a child - I’d probably pick Mad Libs, so I could have endless entertainment!
b. Your answer as a teen - For purely nostalgic purposes, I probably would have picked Lord of the Rings (in one volume, hopefully).
c. Your answer now - Pretty Little Things, because I will have to read it several times anyway.

GENERAL AGAIN

36. Do you have a favorite character out of a certain book? Not really. Each character, I think, is contained in his/her own world (the world being that book) and it would be silly to try to extract the character and say he/she could stand on his/her own as a “favorite” without the surroundings that created him/her.

37. Do you identify with any certain character? Not particularily; though every time I read a book I try to find a character to identify with, there isn’t ONE character I can think of who I really “get” and who really “gets me.”

38. What is your favorite genre of fiction? Historical.

39. What is your favorite genre of nonfiction? World History.

40. Are you feeling the urge to add questions to the end of this survey, just so you can talk more about books? Shh… You’ve figured me out!

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