This is an adaptation of a meme that’s found on a number of
sites on the web. I don’t know where it originated, but I love reading answers
to questions like these. Answer as many or as few as you care to share. I’ll
send one randomly selected commenter five books to add to his/her TBR stack.
The Questions
1.
What was your favorite childhood book?
2.
What are you reading right now?
3.
Have your reading habits been affected by the Internet?
4.
What is your reading comfort zone?
5.
What is your favorite place to read?
6.
Do you ever dog-ear books or write in the margins of your books?
7.
What makes a book a keeper for you?
8.
What will inspire you to recommend a book?
9.
How often do you agree with critics about a book?
10. How do you feel about giving
bad/negative reviews?
11. What is the most intimidating book
you’ve ever read?
12. How often do you not finish a book you
begin?
13. What’s the longest you’ve gone without
reading?
14. What’s
the greatest number of books that you’ve read in a day?
15. What’s
your favorite film
adaptation of a novel?
16. Can
you think of a book you
didn’t expect to like but did?
17. What book have you read most often?
18. What book do you have the most copies
of?
19. What book have you tried but failed to
finish most often?
20. You’re going to spend a year on a
desert island with no mod cons. You are allowed to take only five books. What
books will you take?
1.
What was your favorite childhood book? A toss-up between the Betsy-Tacy
books by Maud Hart Lovelace and the Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud
Montgomery.
2.
What are you reading right now? Just Down the Road by Jodi Thomas, Modernism and Women's Popular Romance in Britain, 1885-1925 by
Martin Hipsky, and American Rendering: New and Selected Poems by Andrew Hudgins.
3.
Have your reading habits been affected by the Internet? Oh, yes. My TBR
has increased dramatically.
4.
What is your reading comfort zone? Happy endings, but I do read outside
my comfort zone.
5.
What is your favorite place to read? I have an ancient wing chair in my
bedroom that is comfortable and familiar, with a footstool nearby.
6.
Do you ever dog-ear books or write in the margins of your books? I try
not to dog-ear, but I sometimes do. I often underline and write comments—but only
in books that belong to me.
7.
What makes a book a keeper for you? Knowing that it’s a book that I will
reread or sometimes because the book is part of a series I love.
8.
What will inspire you to recommend a book? If it made me laugh and cry,
if the characters haunt me after I’ve put away the book, if the prose is so
lyrical and textured that I read aloud for the pleasure of the words in my
mouth and in my ears.
9.
How often do you agree with critics about a book? About as often as they
agree with me.
10. How do you feel about giving
bad/negative reviews? I only review books I like. Some of the books I review I
love.
11. What is the most intimidating book
you’ve ever read? Well, I tried to read Finnegans Wake.
12. How often do you not finish a book you
begin? It varies. I sometimes go months and finish every book I begin, but I’ve
also had weeks when I started a dozen books and didn’t finish any of them.
13. What’s the longest you’ve gone without
reading? Maybe 2-3 days when I was ill. For most of my life, I’ve read every
day.
14. What’s
the greatest number of books that you’ve read in a day? I’ve read as many as
eight in a day.
15. What’s
your favorite film
adaptation of a novel? To Kill a Mockingbird
16.
What book beloved by many friends
just doesn’t work for you? The Outlander by Diana Gabaldon; the In Death series by J. D. Robb.
17. What book have you read most often?
Among novels, probably Pride and Prejudice. I’ve chosen to reread it often, and
I’ve taught it a dozen times or more.
18. What book do you have the most copies
of? I have twelve Bibles, probably half a dozen editions of the poems of Emily
Dickinson, and four copies of Pleasure for Pleasure by Eloisa James (one in
French).
19. What book have you tried but failed to
finish most often? War and Peace
20. You’re going to spend a year on a
desert island with no mod cons. You are allowed to take only five books. What
books will you take? The Bible (KJV); The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson,
Johnson edition; Jane Austen: The Complete Novels; Gaudy Night by Dorothy L.
Sayers; Frederica by Georgette Heyer. I could reread these for a year, knowing
my overflowing bookcases, library cards, and ereaders filled as per my
instructions by my family would be waiting for me when I returned.
Your turn.
