Gracious, it’s been forever since I’ve participated in an old-school meme. Laurie tagged me the other week and because we are friends and, well, I wanted to, I’m going to do it – because yay! books.
Book Q&A Rules
1. Post these rules
2. Post a photo of your favourite book cover
3. Answer the questions below
4. Tag a few people to answer them too
5. Go to their blog/twitter and tell them you’ve tagged them
6. Make sure you tell the person who tagged you that you’ve taken part!
What are you reading right now?
David Foster Wallace’s essay on Roger Federer in Both Flesh and Not. The genius of his writing can be summarised thus: it takes him three-quarters of a page to describe a rally to win a point that would only take seconds in real life, and you don’t get bored reading it.
I’ve also started Peter Goldsworthy’s Wish and Chuck Palahniuk’s Damned.
Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?
I really ought to finish Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
What five books have you always wanted to read but haven’t got round to?
Anything written by Ursula le Guin
Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard
War and Peace (started, never finished) by Leo Tolstoy
Madame Bovary (started, never finished) by Gustave Flaubert
Anna Karenina (started, never finished) by Leo Tolstoy
What magazines do you have in your bathroom/ lounge right now?
Recent editions of The New Yorker. Some women’s and travel magazines for research (I’m getting back into freelancing).
What’s the worst book you’ve ever read?
While I think she’s a good writer, I really disliked The Bride Stripped Bare by Nikki Gemmell.
What book seemed really popular but you didn’t like?
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.
What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone?
It’s a tie between I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.
Where do you usually get your books?
My local library.
When you were little, did you have any particular reading habits?
Yes – these (and many more!)
What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was too good to put down?
I am Legend by Richard Matheson
Have you ever “faked” reading a book?
Of course! I like to say I’ve finished Middlemarch, but that’s a lie.
Have you ever bought a book just because you liked the cover?
Those Phaidon folk do a nice book cover, I must say. And that’s about as much as I’m prepared to admit!
What was your favourite book when you were a child?
In early primary school it was The Quinkins by Percy Trezise and Dick Roughsey and John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat by Jenny Wagner and Ron Brooks. But by the end I was tackling adult texts. I read The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco when I was twelve. That’s supposed to sound impressive, but in reality I was only really able to grasp the detective ‘whodunnit’ side of the plot. The discussions about philosophy and semiotics went over my head.
What book changed your life?
Dracula by Bram Stoker. But Jude the Obscure – and anyone who has read it will know to what I’m alluding – absolutely devastated me. I’m talking levelled to the floor.
What is your favourite passage from a book?
There were days, not too long past, days since Lizzie died, when he’d woken in the morning and had to decide, before he could speak to anybody, who he was and why. There were days when he’d woken from dreams of the dead and searching for them. When his waking self trembled, at the threshold of deliverance from his dreams.
But those days are not these days.
Sometimes, when Chapuys has finished digging up Walter’s bones and making his own life unfamiliar to him, he feels almost impelled to speak in defence of his father, his childhood. But it is no use to justify yourself. It is no good to explain. It is weak to be anecdotal. It is wise to conceal the past even if there is nothing to conceal. A man’s power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expressions of his face. It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
Who are your top five favourite authors?
Jeffrey Eugenides
Helen Garner
Margaret Atwood
Jeanette Winterson
Ernest Hemingway
(But, gee, Lloyd Jones misses by a whisker)
What book has no one heard about but should read?
Bush Studies by Barbara Baynton
What books are you an ‘evangelist’ for?
Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Wild Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
The Gathering by Anne Enright
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
What are your favourite books by a first time author?
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
What is your favourite classic book?
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Five other notable mentions?
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Monk by Matthew Lewis (a lingering loyalty, thanks to my Thesis)
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
I’m supposed to tag five people here and so I choose: Kelly, Lily Mae, James, Anna and Mike (who I know is on a little hiatus, but I hope sees this on his return!)
Extra stuff: You don’t have to be tagged to take part in the meme. PLEASE do it if you want, and let me know so I can come over and read.
