Book talk

[eleneariel]

Let's talk about books, because let me tell you, the best therapy I know among booklovers is a good bookish discussion. (I wandered around town during lunch trying to get my mind off something and ended up at the bookstore, comparing reader's advisory notes with the men who work there. Bliss!)

 

So here are some bookish questions that I found somewhere quite awhile ago (at kiwiria 's journal? maybe?). Feel free to chime in or answer the questions yourself!

 

1. Do you remember how you developed a love for reading? I don't remember not being able to read, so ... no, I guess not. Our home was full of books, my parents read to me, I observed them reading for pleasure. I'm sure all of those things helped.

2. What are some books you read as a child? The very first thing I can remember is probably Amelia Bedelia, but I soon moved on to Nancy Drew, A. A. Milne, Janette Oke, Laura Ingalls Wilder ... a lot of the classic children's books I didn't discover until I was in my teens, though, like The Hobbit, Anne of Green Gables, Roald Dahl, and E. Nesbit.

3. What is your favorite genre? I don't have one. Seriously. I read just about everything.
 

4. Do you have a favorite novel? Going purely by number of times read, I'm pretty sure Gone with the Wind would win, I've read it at least eight, possibly ten times. Lord of the Rings would come next; I think I've read each volume about six times.

5. Where do you usually read? In bed!

6. When do you usually read? During breakfast, during lunch, during dinner (assuming I'm eating alone), while on the elliptical at the gym, while waiting in line anywhere, and I usually read for about an hour before bed.

7. Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time? Er. Yes. At least four and as many as seven or eight.

8. Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction? How would you read nonfiction in a different way? You mean, like, backwards? or while standing on your head? The only way in which I read books differently is that I usually choose lighter fare to read in public (at the gym or the airport, say) because I like to people watch and it's harder to read a book on a Deep and Weighty Topic when you're looking up every twenty seconds to wonder about a stranger's life story or WHAT THE HECK WAS SHE THINKING WHEN SHE GOT DRESSED THIS MORNING, HEY? 

9. Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library? I work in a library, ergo I read a lot of library books. But I'm a book horder, so I if I really like a book, chances are high that I'll do my best to obtain my own copy.

10. Do you keep most of the books you buy? If not, what do you do with them? I keep most of them, but sometimes I accidentally buy duplicates. I give them away or put them on paperbackswap.com

11. If you have children, what are some of the favorite books you have shared with them? Were they some of the same ones you read as a child? No kids, but I have lots of plans if I ever have any. :D We're going to definitely start off with lots of Mo Williams!

 

12. What are you reading now? Hollywood Irish (interviews with Irish actors), Doing Our Own Thing (I have such a huge academic crush on John McWhorter), The Luxe (all I can say now is that it had potential to be a Wharton-esque teen novel), and Buying In (about brands and consumerism).

13. Do you keep a TBR (to be read) list? That would be at Goodreads.

14. What's next? See the Goodreads list.

15. What books would you like to reread? I wish I had more time to reread. I used to a lot more - I'd read Lord of the Rings and the Anne of Green Gables series at least once a year, and there was that time when I spent almost a year chain-reading Gone with the Wind. *cough* Anything that I've really enjoyed, I'd enjoy reading again.

16. Who are your favorite authors? C.S. Lewis, L.M. Montgomery, Tolkien, Douglas Adams, Diana Gabaldon, Terry Pratchett, David Hackett Fischer, um ... lots more.

 

Comments

[melyndie.livejournal.com]

Good questionnaire! I can't imagine life without reading. That would be like a life without friends. I would be lonely.

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

If it came down to a question between choosing to lose all my books or lose all my friends ... honestly, that would be a tough call. ;) Either way would be terribly lonely!