book meme
1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?
L: I'm going to go with All Creatures Great and Small, since I think those books are from before my mom married my dad. It's hard to say without actually having the shelf at hand....
M: The Story About Ping
2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?
L:
Current: Le Feu des origines by Emmanuel Dongala
Last: La Bête humaine by Zola
Next: That probably depends on when I finish Le Feu des origines. If it's in the middle of term, I'll probably just start another French book, probably Le Barbier de Séville, since apparently at some point, I thought I should read it and bought it. If I'm on break, I might go for something weightier, like the Muqaddama of Ibn Khaldoun. Perhaps that's a bit too weighty.
M:
Current: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevski
Last: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
Next: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (or something else by the same author. I liked the movie The Remains of the Day, but I'm so familiar with the movie now that I feel like I should choose a different introduction to Ishiguro.)
3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
L: People seem to like Tuck Everlasting, which is beyond me.
M: The Da Vinci Code. Though maybe everyone else hates it now too? In any case, it's absolutely terribly written.
4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?
L: I am pretty confident in my ability to read books, but maybe the Bible.
M: The Grapes of Wrath. But I will read it some day, I swear. Really. I just never remember that I want to read it when I'm choosing my next book. (He adds, on hearing my answer: that's a pretty good one.)
5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”
L: Not really anything, but there are a couple books that I am supposed to reread when I'm older and wiser, e.g. The Brothers Karamazov.
M: I don't really "save" books. I might not get around to reading something I want to read, but by and large I read books soon after I decide they're worth reading.
6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?
L: Wait.
M: Who would read the last page? I studiously avoid even reading the back cover, in fear it'll give away too much. (Speaking of which, the back cover of my copy of "the Name of the Rose" describes the book up until immediately before the climax. What a disaster.)
7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
L: Like, the dedication? Interesting aside, and it's not exactly a lot of ink. Waste of paper might be more reasonable.
M: I glance at them to see if they're funny.
8. Which book character would you switch places with?
L: I don't know. I went to my bookshelf for ideas, but it turns out I only have about two books here that are not about math. I would say Wart (or maybe Merlin) from The Once and Future King, but they sort of have less happy ends (or beginnings). But before Wart becomes King.
M: Hmm. Probably a character in something I read as a child, since those books tend to be less depressing than what my tastes have evolved into. Maybe Tintin. Or if that doesn't count as a book, maybe Sherlock Holmes, if I get to keep his intelligence. I haven't read the book, but judging from the movie, a good choice would be Eleanor Arroway of Contact.
9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
L: Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry reminds me of Kristen. It's easy to think of books that remind me of things in my life, but it's usually not because of the content, just what was happening when I was reading it.
M: 1984 reminds me of high school, which is when I read it. For some reason, it reminds me of the high school library (where I got it), even though I don't think I read it in there at all.
10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
L: The sixth Harry Potter book. I was in Egypt that summer, when the book came out, and part-way through my time there, my cousins' cousins (and parents) arrived from New York, bringing with them a copy. I read it so intensely that they decided to give me the book, and just bought another copy for themselves.
M: I don't remember the name of the book, but my senior English teacher gave me a book at this award ceremony. I don't remember what the ceremony was about, but I was very honored that he gave me a book.
11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?
L: I gave Kara The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen by Lloyd Alexander, because it was the origin in some sense of the Calendar of Stuff.
M: We gave Ben a cookbook that was secretly for his birthday, by just casually handing him the book. (Ben makes a great secret of his birthday. We still found it out, though. ~L)
12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
L: I'm starting to think it's An Introduction to Knot Theory by Lickorish (my mathematical grandfather) as that's definitely been in Reno, Berkeley, here, and Egypt, but Watership Down seems like another good candidate.
M: Labyrinths by Borges, because I have it here; I had it in Seattle; and I am pretty sure I had it in India.
13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?
I didn't like, and was told to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when I got older, but I haven't reread it.
M: Most of high school wasn't ten years ago, and I don't reread books. So I'll just answer with books I didn't like: Walden by Thoreau. (And I imagine I still wouldn't.)
14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?
L: I think I've found a flower that someone (possibly me) was pressing in a book....
M: can't really think of anything.
15. Used or brand new?
L: Being an environmentalist, I would of course push for used. (Or better yet, library, as Meru says.)
M: My answer is "library."
16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
L: Pretty sure it's opiate of the masses, but I've never actually read any. (But even reading a crappy book is better than watching tv or something.)
M: I honestly don't know, but maybe his books are more intelligent than it would seem on first glance, given the movies I've seen based on his books.
17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
L: Maybe Pride and Prejudice, assuming we can count the BBC series as a movie. That was a pretty boring book, but I guess I was only 11.
M: Jurassic Park is both very poorly written and anti-science, whereas the movie is well-made and less anti-science.
18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
We have a consensus that the Harry Potter books shouldn't have been made into movies, because the movies are just so bad.
19. Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?
L: The Redwall books that I read. Good Lord. So much delicious-sounding food in those books.
M: Who can remember something like that?
20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?
L: At this point, I just read classics, so I can't really think of anyone at all whose book advice I take.
M: Jacob has only once failed me.
"Pretty successful date, I would say, if it got you to finally post on your blog."