BOOKS!

[lettered]

Everybody's doing that book meme thing. I did it in my head but am lazy. Anyway instead I decided to do some reading lists. Oooh! And you can too! Since I already know the answers to all mine. You could try to make every answer to each question different. That'd be fun.

1. A favorite book!
2. A book that affected you in your YA years.
3. A favorite fantasy novel.
4. A favorite sci fi novel.
5. An awesome book (possibly a favorite) you think not many people around you have heard of/read.
6. A book you own more than one copy of.
7. An author whose every single book you own/will buy.
8. The worst book you've ever read.
9. A book you dislike that lots of other people you know like.
10. The most difficult book you've ever read.
11. Tell me what kind of books your mom reads/read.

12. What have you read so far this year?

13. What are you reading now?

14. What are you reading next? (list! list! You know you want to)



MY ANSWERS
1. A favorite book! Beauty, by Robin McKinley
2. A book that affected you in your YA years. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
3. A favorite fantasy novel. Lions of Al-Rassan, by Guy Gaveril Kay
4. A favorite sci fi novel. Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K LeGuin
5. An awesome book you think not many people around you have heard of/read. They Loved To Laugh, by Kathyrn Worth
6. A book you own more than one copy of. Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
7. An author whose every single book you own/will buy. mistful. Trufax, guys. When I fall I fall hard.
8. The worst book you've ever read. Dunno, but Twilight by Stephenie Meyer is amazing, people.
9. A book you dislike that lots of other people you know like. The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown
10. The most difficult book you've ever read. Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon
11. Tell me what kind of books your mom reads/read. Bodice rippers! She likes those ones called things like, Devil's Bride and The Count's Daughter. There should be a book with a woman scantily clad and fainting into the arms of the Count on front, and inside he should say things like "ONE heaving bosom, AH AH AH", "THREE confines of his pants, AH AH AH", "TWO crystal gazes AHAHAH".

12. What have you read so far this year? OOOH.
italicized means unfinished!

Against The Day, Thomas Pynchon (1)
The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman (2)
The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman (3)
The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman (4)
Dog's Body, Diana Wynne Jones (5)
Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones (6)
White As Snow, Tanith Lee (7)
Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell (8)
Twilight, Stephenie Meyer (9)
North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell (10)
Writer's Journey, Christopher Vogler (11)
Physics of the Impossible, Michio Kaku (12)
Warrior's Apprentice, Lois McMaster Bujold (13)
New Moon, Stephenie Meyer (14)
The Drowned Maiden's Hair, Laura Amy Schiltz (15)
Spin, Robert Charles Wilson (16)
Of Human Bondage, Somerset Maugham (17)
American Gods, Neil Gaiman (18)
Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer (19)
Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer (20)

13. What are you reading now? Shadow Of the Torturer, Gene Wolf (21)

14. What are you reading next?

Claw of the Conciliator, Gene Wolfe (22)
The Vor Game, Lois McMaster Bujold (23)
The Summing Up, Somerset Maugham (24)
Ceteganda, Lois McMaster Bujold (25)
Days of Disco (26)
Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones (27)
Ysabel, Guy Gaveril Kay (28)
Moby Dick, Hermann Melville (29)
Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog, Ysabeau S. Wilce (30)
A Monstrous Regiment of Women, Laurie R. King (31)
Georgette Heyer
Dorothy L. Sayers
Hexwood, Diana Wynne Jones (pending my_daroga's opinion) (27)
The Corrections, Johnathan Franzen (28)
Locksley, Nicholas Chase (29)
Mystery At The Opera House (30)
The Worthing Chronicle, Orson Scott Card (31)
Night Magic, Charlotte Vale Allen (32)
Empire of the Stars, Arthur I Miller (34)
The Great War for Civilization, Robert Fisk (35)
Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas R Hofstader (36)
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrill, Susanna Clark (37)
Anna Karenina, Tolstoy (40)
Horation Hornblower, C.S. Forester (41, 42, 43)
The Hours, Michael Cunningham (44)
Dune: House Atreides, Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson (45)
She, H. Rider Haggard (46)
Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens (47)
Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess (48)
Brave New World, Huxley (49)
Like Water For Chocolate (in Spanish!), Laura Esquivel (50)

Comments

[chrisleeoctaves.livejournal.com]

Oh. Oh. I want to do this...but it will have to wait until I get back from Fredericton...where I am going to be doing more training in a bookstore! ::hee::

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

LOL, my husband went to high school with Jonathan Franzen.

[tkp.livejournal.com]

I saw him speak downtown somewhere because my CW prof was introducing him. I've heard he's kind of a dick...

[chrisleeoctaves.livejournal.com]

1. A favorite book!
- The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenberger; Velocity by Kristin McCloy

2. A book that affected you in your YA years.
- That Was Then This is Now by S.E. Hinton. Loved that book. LOVED.

3. A favorite fantasy novel.
-don't read fantasy

4. A favorite sci fi novel.
-don't read sci fi

5. An awesome book (possibly a favorite) you think not many people around you have heard of/read.
-I am currently reccing Promise Not To Tell by Jennifer McMahon. It's terrific.

6. A book you own more than one copy of.
- I own more than one copy of Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

7. An author whose every single book you own/will buy.
- Carolyn Slaughter. I have most of them now, but much of her work is out of print, so it's hard to find. I would imagine I'll own everything by Ian McEwan, too because I admire the hell out of him.

8. The worst book you've ever read.
- New Moon by Stephenie Meyer. I just finished it and it was complete and utter shite. (This might not be the worst book I've ever read, but it's the most recent.)

9. A book you dislike that lots of other people you know like.
- see above.

10. The most difficult book you've ever read.
- I found A.S. Byatt's Possession really difficult but I loved it. And when I say difficult I mean...over my head, but not impossible. I really struggled with Rushdie's novel Fury. And hated it in the end.

11. Tell me what kind of books your mom reads/read.
- My mom always read really racy historical fiction by people like Rosemary Rogers and Jennifer Blake. Later in life she read mysteries.

12. What have you read so far this year?
- Here are the books I've read this year and my thoughts about them!

13. What are you reading now?
- Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay

14. What are you reading next? (list! list! You know you want to)
I am going to read Eclipse, but only because of a work-related event. As for the other books on my list...there are 150 titles on my to-read shelf...i.e. books I physically own, waiting to be read...you don't really want me to list them all do you? You can see them on my Chapters Indigo bookshelf

[tkp.livejournal.com]

You were in Fredricton; I was camping! It was fun. I still want to go to school where you are.

I know you've heard it before, but some sci fi and fantasy is really different than what you might've been led to expect. E.g. Buffy. It's not really about the supernatural or whatever, it's about the people.

I think I have more than one copy of AoGG, too.

I'm reading New Moon right now. It's morbid fascination at work. I hated Twilight--like you said, maybe not the worst, but close to it, but I feel compelled to read New Moon because it's like watching a train wreck. A train wreck other people watching don't realize is a TRAIN CRASHING, and people are screaming on board.

I found Possession difficult too, but I loved it. I love a lot of things that are hard to read. Gravity's Rainbow is one of my favorite books, but I wondered almost all the way through it what the hell was going on.

I need to catch up on your comm. I'm trying to branch out. I've realized lately that for a long time I've been trying to read the "classics" and getting really bogged down with them.

[stultiloquentia.livejournal.com]

Wow, are we ever on the same reading wavelength right now. I love Bronte and Kay and Le Guin, and I'm currently in the middle of my first Bujold book (took me freakin' long enough). I've been meaning to pick up Laurie King and Diana Wynne Jones, and Tolstoy, because I've been doggedly avoiding the Russians for 27 years and I suppose that's enough of that. OTOH, I'd fall over in shock if I caught my mother with a bodice ripper, and nobody I'm acquainted with will admit to liking Dan Brown. *g*

[tkp.livejournal.com]

Jane Eyre will always be the book that means the most to me, even if I've since found books that are "better".

I'm reading Warrior's Apprentice because mistful made it sound so cool. Reading it actually feels sort of like reading Maya's!Draco as a dwarf in space; they are amazingly similar characters. I also picked up Diana Wynne Jones partly because Maya said she was cool and my housemate says she's awesome. I highly recommend you start with Dog's Body. And then don't read the last H/D fic I wrote for hd_inspired and didn't post about here because I was too unhappy with it (it's a take off of Dog's Body). Though for you, you're going to fall head over heels in love with Fire and Hemlock.

Laurie King was a rec from the same housemate. The first one in the series is fun, and I think you'll quite like the main character and King's rendition of Holmes. I don't dote on the plot, but then I don't like mysteries.

I'd never heard of Bujold before, which I think goes to show I hang around...er, different people, with the exception of my housemates. My whole family quite liked the Da Vinci Code.

I'm trying to make my way through the Russians because I love Dostoevsky. If you've never touched the Russians, you should go read Dostoevsky's The Idiot. (You should also watch the movie Onegin if you haven't, because Ralph Fiennes wears a corset, but I haven't gotten around to Pushkin yet.) Crime and Punishment is good, but no one is lovable and the plot isn't to be spoken of. I'm sure The Brothers Karamazov is all very fine because it's Dostoevsky's ideas which are so interesting, but it really plods. The Underground Man is nice for a short read, and maybe you should try it because if you hate it you'll hate everything else, but The Idiot has one of my favorite characters in literature ever.

[stultiloquentia.livejournal.com]

That is the most useful rundown of the Russians anyone's ever provided. My heartfelt thanks. I'll go grab _The Idiot_ from the library. (One of the major disadvantages of having grown up and left the nest is having to walk more than 30 feet to find any given classic of Western literature (and a lot of other unbelievably weird crap besides).)

I will add your other recs to my list. My Bujold is a hoot. (I started with _A Civil Campaign_, mostly because it was there.)

[tkp.livejournal.com]

Well, Dostoevsky anyway. I took a class on him, but of course they don't tell you this stuff. It's all "ooh C&P" this and "ahh TBK" that.

Now you do your recs list. Hop to it, woman. This isn't just a house of fun for all!

[imnotacommittee.livejournal.com]

So is the Twilight series good? I had to buy the first one because it hasn't been in the library for months now.

I thought of you when I learned what it was about.

And if you want to add more books to your list, I highly recommend Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder.

[tkp.livejournal.com]

HEE. Oh, A. I'd planned on replying to your Poison Study post re: Twilight, and it just slipped my mind.

"amazing" the way I used it above means "horribly awfully terrible!" Twilight has got to be one of the worst books I've ever read, though perhaps it wouldn't be quite so abhorrent if it wasn't so popular (sort of like Dan Brown that way). That said, I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it. As I said to someone else above, it has the morbid fascination of a train wreck. It encapsulates so thoroughly what I hate about many romance novels, many fantasy novels, and possibly myself. It's wrong. It's so wrong it's tremendously fascinating. Since you did buy it I'm so interested in what you'll think about it.

I totally added Poison Study to my list when you posted about it! You made it sound really interesting--and didn't you say it was young adult fantasy? That's what I'm interested in writing right now, so I'm interested in reading what else is out there--part of why I started reading Twilight.

I actually don't like vampires. I didn't watch Buffy forever, at first because I thought it was stupid, but then when people started telling me "no no! It's very clever!" I thought it might not be stupid, but it would be all Anne Rice and angsty. I really don't, on general principle, care about beautiful immortal people eternally conflicted over eating people. But Buffy started out as not like that at all--it was about a tiny little blond chick kicking icky vampire ass! And the vampires were all ugly and mindless and it was really not about them, but the struggle of someone forced into a life she didn't choose. It was only later some of the vampires turned all beautiful and angsty, and by then I felt the show had earned the right.

Twilight is even worse than Anne Rice in being everything I despise about vampire stories in general.

[imnotacommittee.livejournal.com]

Wow. And here I thought you were going to be the biggest fan of these books! It shows what I know!!! But thank you for your thoughts on Twilight. I have heard nothing but raves and praise for them, but now I’ll go into the first one with more realistic expectations. And since it was “Da Vinci-code” bad, I suspect we’ll have lots to talk about when I finish it. It’s so maddening to dislike a book everyone else thinks is the greatest thing ever.

I’m humbled at your taking my book advice. But I believe you’ll enjoy Poison Study. I finished the second book, Magic Study the other night, and while I didn’t find it as well done as the first one, it still held my interest to the point putting off anything else until I read more. I have to get started on the last one, Fire Study, this weekend. And I thought it was Young Adult. The friend who recommended it said it was YA, but it was in the main fiction section of the library (calling it the “adult section” just isn’t right!!!), and the stuff described in the books is really too intense for young adults. At least I think so. It doesn’t pull any punches, which I like a lot, but it’s not for younger readers.

Oh, TKP writing young adult stuff!? I think that would be a great fit for you. Any ideas bubbling?

And another wow! I thought for sure you were a fan of vampires because of some gothic-tendencies you’ve instilled into Capt. von Trapp. But I like your summary of vampires: beautiful immortals eternally conflicted over eating people. When it’s put that way, it does sound rather one-dimensional! I take it you’re not an Ann Rice fan either (hee).

[late-heart.livejournal.com]

1. A favorite book!
- Bliss by Peter Carey

2. A book that affected you in your YA years.
- Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell, Cannery Row by John Steinbeck.

3. A favorite fantasy novel.
- I dislike fantasy but I did read Mists of Avalon, if that counts.

4. A favorite sci fi novel.
- See #3

5. An awesome book (possibly a favorite) you think not many people around you have heard of/read.
- Havana, by Thomas McGuane. The night wrote a check the morning couldn't cash. An acquired taste, but delicious to me. Also: Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Amazing.

6. A book you own more than one copy of.
- Drawing Down the Moon: The History of Pagans and Witches in America, by Margot Adler

7. An author whose every single book you own/will buy.
- Kurt Vonnegut. I own everything he's written.

8. The worst book you've ever read.
- Senseless by Stona Fitch. It's shit, bound. And anything ever written by James Patterson, especially that asshatery with the five balls.

9. A book you dislike that lots of other people you know like.
- Oh. I'm a brutal cynic, and I'm (not) sorry. DaVinci Code is unreadable pap.

10. The most difficult book you've ever read.
- The Great Gatsby, and I still fail to see its relevance in American Literature. It's shit wrapped in linen.

11. Tell me what kind of books your mom reads/read.
- Hutchie loves medical mysteries, but has lately picked up on reading Dennis Lehane and Michael Connolly, which confuses and upsets me.

12. Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos. It's his pre-right wing period and completely captivating.

13. I'm not reading anything, but I want to revisit some Eudora Welty and Katherine Ann Porter before summer's over.

[tkp.livejournal.com]

What'd you think of Mist of Avalon? I read it when I was in seventh grade and it affected me tremendously, but I fear that if I go back and read it now I'd hate it.

As an aside (and, I apologize, a sally to get on my soapbox and claim, "SCI FI AND FANTASY IS NOT WHAT HAS BEEN ADVERTIZED TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC") why "if that counts" in regards to MoA?

I've never read any Vonnegut, though I've been meaning to forever. Oh! I did read the short story "Long Walk To Forever"--have you read that one? It's awesome. Funny story--I actually read it because someone posted something when I was first getting into BtVS and thus B/A...They basically took the Vonnegut story and replaced the names with "Buffy" and "Angel". It was good, but of course because it was a total rip off (and didn't make sense for B/A). At the bottom in very small-seeming letters it said something like "credits to Vonnegut's Long Walk To Forever".

I don't like the Great Gatsby much, but I don't think it's shit wrapped in linen, either. Where's the linen??

I'm interested in reading some of these!

[my_daroga]

I love you so much! But my answers will probably not surprise you. Though lots of them are womens.

1. A favorite book! Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones
2. A book that affected you in your YA years. Phantom by Susan Kay
3. A favorite fantasy novel. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
4. A favorite sci fi novel. The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee
5. An awesome book (possibly a favorite) you think not many people around you have heard of/read. Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
6. A book you own more than one copy of. The Mists of Avalon. Also POTO and Les Mis for translation issues
7. An author whose every single book you own/will buy. Diana Wynne Jones
8. The worst book you've ever read. I know there's something worse than Twilight, it's just not coming to me. Oh, yeah, New Moon.
9. A book you dislike that lots of other people you know like.
10. The most difficult book you've ever read. Probably Pale Fire by Nabokov
11. Tell me what kind of books your mom reads/read.
Non-fiction (politics, maybe?), and sometimes woo-woo new age shit.

12. What have you read so far this year?
I... really need to keep a list. I don't even know.
13. What are you reading now?
Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones
Freak Show by [someone] Brogan
Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia
14. What are you reading next? (list! list! You know you want to)
I have a list. Somewhere. Several, in fact. And lots of unread stuff on my shelves. I'm no fun.

[diachrony.livejournal.com]

This was more fun than that other book meme!

My answers are here.

[kaydee23.livejournal.com]

I was checking your journal to see if you'd reviewed Breaking Dawn yet. :grins: I can't wait to hear the breathless reviews from my 6th and 7th grade students. They love those books. That's how I came to read them. So silly.

I found a really cool, I mean really really cool book called Dream Hunter by Elizabeth Knox. It's a YA, but it's fairly sophisticated, in my opinion. It's about a world, quite similar to ours, where some people have the ability to go into this area of land and *capture* dreams. Then, they come back and people go to dream houses and sleep, and the dreamhunter shares the dream with the sleeping audience as he or she sleeps on the stage. It's very weird. Freaky weird.

Also, did you know that Cassandra Clare has a young adult series? The first one is City of Bones, followed by City of Ashes. I've read them both and really enjoyed them, of course with an eye to what my middle schoolers would think about them. I'm really looking forward to City of Glass. I never read her, but she wrote Harry Potter fanfiction, I think, and she's much reviled by the fandom, as far as I've been able to determine. I don't know why, but there's a lot of hate out there for her. Anyway, they're much better books than the Twilight series, but that's not saying a whole whole lot. She does have an incest angle to them, so I can't overtly recommend them to my students, but when I give them the list of the books I read this summer, and I always do, hers will be on there. I'm sure I read those *classic* books Flowers in the Attic and If There be Thorns in seventh or eighth grade. Ha ha. And I survived.

Lovely, lovely books!

[zibbycomix.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I love lists! Okay, here I go:
1) A favorite book- "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" by C. S. Lewis
2) A book that affected me in my YA years- "Alanna: the First Adventure" by Tamora Pierce.
3) A favorite fantasy novel- "Harry Potter" by J. K. Rowling (the 5th book is my favorite one in the series)
4) A favorite sci fi novel- "The Color of Magic" by Terry Pratchett
5) A great book that people may not know about- "The Enchanted Castle" by E. Nesbit
6) A book that you own more than one copy of- "Harry Potter" by J. K. Rowling
7) An author whose every single book that I will buy- Gail Carson Levine and Robin McKinley
8) The worst book that I have ever read- "The Mill on the Floss" by George Eliot (I had to read it for a class in college)
9) A book that I dislike that other people like- Well, I don't like romance novels in general
10) The most difficult book I've ever read- "Ulysses" by James Joyce (again, had to read it for a class in college- and I actually got through the whole thing!)
11) What kind of books my mom reads- Actually, my mom doesn't read very often, but recently she liked reading "Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life" by Steve Martin
12) What I have read so far this year- "Howl's Moving Castle" by Diane Wynne Jones, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick, and way too many picture books to mention here
13) What I am reading now- "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
14) What I am reading next- I have no idea; my list is so long! I hope to read "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer at some point, though.

Re: Lovely, lovely books!

[tkp.livejournal.com]

I used to be a huge fan of Robin McKinley. I guess I still am of her old school stuff (witness icon!), but everything since Rose Daughter (which I thought was awful) has been seriously blah to me. I haven't even bought her baby dragon book yet! As much as I don't like her recent stuff, I'm impressed by my restraint.

I recently heard Gail Carson Levine likened to mistful, which made me think I should be reading Levine.

Aw, I've always wanted to read Mill on the Floss.

Howl's Moving Castle is on my shelf waiting to be read. How'd you like it?

Steve Martin is actually a good writer, as I understand it. He wrote the novella and screenplay for that movie Shopgirl, which I thought was excellent.

Twilight is so terrible it's funny.

I love picture books! Which are your favorites?

Re: Lovely, lovely books!

[zibbycomix.livejournal.com]

Whoops, I forgot to post about my favorite picture books! I really like: "The Sweet Touch" by Lorna Balian and Lecia Balian, "Wild About Books" by Judy Sierra and Marc Brown, "Edward and the Pirates" by David McPhail, "The Paper Bag Princess" by Robert N. Munsch and Michael Martchenko, and the authors Chris Van Allsburg, Eric Carle, Susan Lowell, and Jon Scieszka. There are so many great picture books, though, it's hard to choose favorites (as you can see by my numerous picks)!

Re: Lovely, lovely books!

[tkp.livejournal.com]

Awesome! The only one I know is Paper Bag Princess. I'm visiting my new nephew for the first time--he's three months old and I don't know what to get him. I think a book is a good idea. I love picture books myself.

[zibbycomix.livejournal.com]

I haven't bought Robin McKinley's "Dragonhaven" yet, either, but I'd like to.
About your icon- I meant to tell you that I LOVE it! Is it from Robin McKiney's book "Deerskin"?
I was probably the one that made the comment that mistful is like Gail Carson Levine. I think that you should read "The Princess Tales," and if those don't remind you of mistful (especially her newest short story), I'll pay you $5! Also, I highly recommend Gail Carson Levine's "Ella Enchanted," which is one of my all-time favorite books.
About Mill on the Floss- sorry to discourage you from reading it. I usually like that kind of flowery language and description (hence my love of L. M. Montgomery), but I just couldn't get into Mill on the Floss. There are a bunch of books that I read in class (both high school and college) that I didn't care for, like "The Golden Notebook" by Doris Lessing. But almost every book that I've chose to read for myself, I've liked or at least thought was decent. So that's a good thing, at least.
Howl's Moving Castle is AMAZING. If you like Draco from Drop Dead Gorgeous, you'll love Howl. Trust me. My BFF got me to read both of these stories, and I love both of them. I think mistful was definitely influenced by Diane Wynne Jones.
I've never read any of Steve Martin's writing, but I like his movies. That's got to count for something, right? =)
You know, it's funny- I've heard such different things about Twilight. I've heard both that it has "excellent writing" and that it's "written like fanfiction." So yeah. I still want to read it though- to see if I like it, and to see why everyone else liked it. I suspect that Edward Cullen is the new Draco Malfoy, and that's why everyone likes it so much. =)