Book meme

No one officially tagged me but I'm in my office trying to write an exam (which is NOT writing itself, I tell you), so I'm going to do this thing.

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?

Pretty much any book that hints that lots of bad crap happens to the protagonists, and they basically wallow in the bad crap. Or that it's crap they brought on themselves. (One thing that frustrated me about a particular novel my book club read? The female lead started sleeping with her boyfriend's best friend and was all "Nothing bad can come of this, la la la."

Well, I've never even BEEN in a position where I had a boyfriend with a sleep-with-able best friend, but I know that nothing good can come of that situation. And the nothing good DID come of it, and the next 75 pages or so were the heroine wondering why her life was so mucked up.

I'm sorry, but any book that makes me want to go Dr. Laura on the characters of, I don't want to read.

Oh, and Danielle Steele. It's an irrational prejudice but I will not read Danielle Steele.


If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?

Okay, I'm going to assume I get to interact with them, and I get to set the thing in the time and place I want.

So I'm going to indulge my deep and abiding love of Golden Age Mystery here and say I'd bring to life Hercule Poirot (to talk about stuff with, and perhaps play chess with - did Poirot play chess?) and Albert Campion (even though that's not his real name, and even though he does put on that affable-idiot pose a lot of the time, I still have a bit of a schoolgirl crush on him. He'd be the one who'd get to take my arm when we all went in to dinner.) And Archie Goodwin. Because as much as I love Poirot and Campion, if someone was really going to try to HARM me, Archie'd be the one most likely to be able to kick their ass.

Oh, and the setting? Some kind of upper-middle-class Edwardian British thing. A tea-dance or something, or maybe a weekend in one of those immense country houses where the host and hostess invite all their friends and relatives.

I'd like to be able to swan about in high-society 30s-era clothing.

Yes, I just made that question all about me.

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?

I know there are people who will be horrified at me for saying this, but: it would have to be something by Ayn Rand. Perhaps The Fountainhead. I tried reading it and my brain just started going Do. Not. Want.

Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?

Man, that's hard to think of one like that. I'm more likely to hint at familiarity with movies I've not actually seen.

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book?

No, can't think of any, but in a similar vein, one of the things that annoys me? The fact that publishers, sometimes, when they re-issue books, will give them new titles. The re-issuers of Golden Age mystery novels are particularly bad for this. And I can't always remember from the catalog blurb which ones I've read and which ones I've not, so I have more than one copy of a couple of them.

You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead of personalise the VIP)

This is kind of tough. Since the person's not a "big" reader, it would have to be a book that's fairly arresting and not "boring." (I am well known for selecting books other people find "boring.").

I might consider "The Strange Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" which fascinated me because it was a peep at the way someone who thinks very differently from us (a boy with autism) has an inner monologue, it's fairly short, it's suspenseful in places (well, if you have enough empathy to feel for the main character), and you do feel a bit like you understand human nature better at the end. And it's not a book that "breaks bad" like some of the novels I referred to in the first question.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?

Oh, man, that's tough.

I'd probably choose New Testament Greek so I could read the New Testament in the original.

Or maybe Japanese so I could read some of the poetry. I'm sure it comes through very differently in translation. (Bonus with knowing Japanese would be that I could read manga without having to refer to translations)

A mischievious fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?

I'd probably pick something like C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce." It's not overly long, it's deep enough that multiple re-readings would reveal something new, and it's well enough written that I'd be less likely to get sick of it.

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?

Hmmm...I've learned a bit more about "steampunk" (even the sheer fact that it's a genre) from reading around on blogs.

I've also purchased the occasional book because someone referred to it and wrote a review of it that made me think I'd like to read it.

Oh, and I bought a Philip Yancey book (which I haven't read yet, yipes) because Tracey talked about him.

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.

Oh my goodness. How much time do you have?

It would be a large room, perhaps octagonal. Two or three of the walls would boast leaded-glass, diamond-paned windows that look out over a large lawn that slopes down to a forest (and I would own all the land so no one could ever come and build condos on it). One window would probably face west so I could watch sunsets (I'm usually at work up until sunset). The room would be paneled in sort of a medium cherry or oak - not too dark but not that blonde wood that smacks of 1950s Danish Modern, either. All of the non-window walls would have bookcases on them. (One of the windows would have a small desk below it - not a "work" desk but a place to write letters or sit and read).

There'd be a deciduous tree outside the window so there'd be shade in the summer, but not too much of the view would be blocked.

There'd be a good carpet - either Aubusson or some kind of older Persian rug - in the middle of the wood floor, and arranged on that would be two good comfortable armchairs and a sofa. There'd be a coffee table and a small side table between the chairs, because one needs a place to put one's teacup while reading. The sofa would also have enough loose pillows to make a comfortable backrest for reading while stretched out. There'd also be an ottoman big enough to serve both armchairs if both were occupied.

The sofa would be a good glove leather but the armchairs would be a subtle brocade.

There'd be good light - the ceiling would be vaulted but not too high and would have down-lights in it, and there'd be good lamps near each reading spot (including one on the desk). It would be possible to make the room as bright or as dim as desired, especially to dim down the ceiling lights at night and just rely on the single pool of light from a reading lamp.

The books would be mostly hardbound, lots of vintage books, lots of books with illustrations in them (I tend to think adults are as deserving of illustrated books as children). There might be some paperbacks if that's the best way to compile sets - some of the old orange-bound Penguins, some of the sets of re-issues of detective novels all from the same publisher so they're identical. (I have a big thing about wanting all books that I own by a particular author to be as similar in binding and style as possible.) The shelves would go nearly to the ceiling and there'd be one of those rolling ladders to gain access to the books higher up.

The topics of the books would be anything and everything that interested me. I'd have a wall of mysteries, a wall of history books (focusing heavily on the ancient world, my current historical interest), a wall of classics with full sets of works by people like Dickens and Austen, a wall of books about quantum mechanics and math, etc., etc.

I'd also have a knitting basket next to my armchair - either for times when I didn't feel like reading, or for times when I want to knit on something simple AND read at the same time (I guess I'd also need a bookstand to hold up my book in that case).

And there'd be a good radio in there, with the ability to pick up quiet classical and jazz stations, maybe even more than one of each (this is an issue in my part of the world, where the music choices tend to be Top 40, Top 40 Country, and Top 40 "oldies" which are actually from the 70s and 80s.)

Just outside the door of the library, there'd be a sort of mini-kitchen with a set up for making tea, and perhaps a couple of canisters of good crackers or "biscuits". A filtered-water tap, a single burner for heating the kettle on, some canisters of tea, sugar, a small refrigerator for milk and lemons, a sink for washing-up, and a cabinet with mugs in it.