Meme: Book Survey
Jul
'07
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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