Book Meme - Couldn't Resist

1.What author do you own the most books by?
Hard to say. Shakespeare comes to mind, but I have a huge F.Scott Fitzgerald section, though not all the books are BY him. I have several about him and his work.

2. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
This is boring, but choose your Austen hero.

3.What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children)?
The Great Gatsby and 1984 are a close tie.

4.What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz. It comes out this month, and do yourselves a favor, read the Princeton website about the admission process before you wade into this mess.

5. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Disquiet by Julia Leigh. Stunning.

6.If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
There are so many! Anna Karenina, The Great Gatsby, 1985, Fahrenheit 451, Pride and Prejudice...

7.Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Margaret Atwood

8.Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I read Atlas Shrugged when I was 15 and dreamed about it for months afterwards. I was actually in the village with the industrial titans. It was exciting.

9.What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. I'm expecting Ulysses to be quite difficult, which is probably why I haven't delved into it yet.

10.What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
I'm lame: The Taming of the Shrew.

11. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
The Russians. There's no contest.

12. Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare.

13. Austen or Eliot?
Very tough. Actually can't make a decision on that. They're both brilliant in such different ways.

14. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
(Gasp.) Haven't read Hamlet. I know this is PROFOUNDLY embarassing. I should rectify this soon, perhaps tonight.

15. What is your favorite novel?
The Great Gatsby. It's perfect.

16.Play?
Not big into plays, actually; too much dialogue, which is the very nature of plays, but I love Shakespeare. The Tempest and King Lear rank at the top.

17.Poem?
"The Lady of Shalott" by Tennyson.

18.Essay?
Hateful Things by Shei Shonagun (always makes me giggle; human nature never changes)

19.Short story?
The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

20.Work of nonfiction?
84 Charing Cross Road

21. Who is your favorite writer?
F.Scott Fitzgerald

22Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Take your pick. Everyone thinks they're a writer in the grand tradition. Plus, the MFAs are sapping orignality. If I have to read one more book about the angst of some over-privileged female.....

23. What is your desert island book?
I HATE this question. Why must there be only one? How about this: I'll take Shakespeare's collected works, Austen's collected works, Wilkie Collins' collected works, and The Great Gatsby. Then! I'll have Amazon ship me books. They ship international. Hey, if I have enough time and presence of mind to collect reading for a desert island, I have enough time to set up ship list on Amazon. (See, I've thought about this.)

24. And… what are you reading right now?
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kate Grenville's Secret River, James Woods' How Fiction Works

Comments

  1. I really like The Necklace, too.

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  2. The High PriestessApril 23, 2009 at 1:46 PM

    I, too, love 1985. A classic. :) My secret literary crush is on Raskolnikov. What do you think that means?

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  3. I'm a huge Fitzgerald fan. As you say his own life with Zelda is so fascinating. She was a pretty talented writer, too.

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  4. I read somewhere (god knows who/where) that Fitzgerald was that unfortunate combination of great talent with nothing to say. I disagreed then (may be source of fog) and still do. I enjoy reading Wharton and Fitgerald in the same time frame: like House of Mirth + Gatsby. Good luck with Ulysses. My favorite line was Bloom in the cemetery, drunk of course, observing that God told Lazzarus to come forth, "But he came fifth and lost the job."

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