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

[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!