(no subject)
1) What author do you own the most books by?
Sadly, I think JK Rowling. I own like 4 of the HP series, and somewhere along the way I collected multiple copies of one of them.
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
See above. I have 3 copies of HP and the Chamber of Secrets (2 paperbacks, 1 hardcover) which is ironically my least favorite book so far!
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Not really of/with/beneath.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Women: Ophelia from Hamlet, and Medea (the Euripides version)
Men: Horatio from Hamlet, and I kinda have a man-crush on Dorian Gray (even though he has AIDS!)
5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)?
Even though it says "excluding picture books read to children", I'm still saying The Little House and I Can Fly which my sister read to me nightly...
Ooo... And I love The Giving Tree as well!
6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
I could read soeme "Boxcar Children" mystery series when I was ten.
7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
I read a book on Hinduism last year that was a difficult stretch to get through...
(And I hate The Awakening by Chopin)
8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
I really liked the collection of Ibsen plays I read over the summer and the collection of Woody Allen short stories I read over Christmas break.
9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
The Bible. Just kidding...
I kind of love Sense and Sensibility. It's so much better and realistic than Pride and Prejudice... And the movie's amazing as well...
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Of the current (alive) writers I've read, I really like Jonathon Safran Foer who wrote Everything Is Illuminated (and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Probably Angels and Demons. I'm reading it right now in preparation for the movie, and although I think the story is fascinating, the book itself is kinda slow, and I'm not a big fan of his writing style. I'm thinking it's maybe a great story told in the wrong medium...
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Crime and Punishment. It would be like 6 hours long. 30 minutes of "Crime" and 5.5 hours of "Punishment."
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Not really a dream. True story:
10th grade year: I've fallen in love with Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. We didn't have sufficient time to finish it in class, so we tested on it and moved on. A few weeks later, I do end up finishing it, at which point I tell Jordan that I had finished it and how much I loved it, stating: "If A Tale of Two Cities were a woman, I'd make sweet, sweet love to it..." And apparently the entire class heard me say it and sat dumbfounded...
14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
Closer. There a scene in the play that involves a sex scene via chatroom where one of the guys is pretending to be a woman. Very awkward, and I hate to imagine it on stage...
15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Crime and Punishment or Heart of Darkness
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
Seen? Parts of Titus Andronicus (via Julie Taymor's "Titus").
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I never read a French novel, but I must say that I am proud to have finished Crime and Punishment!
18) Roth or Updike?
Neither, but I've at least heard of Updike.
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Neither, but I've at least heard of Sedaris.
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Chaucer, I love The Canterbury Tales and could read it again and again, but I also had good teachers teaching it to me...
21) Austen or Eliot?
Austen (never read Eliot), but only because of Sense and Sensibility
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I feel like should have more Shakespeare read (and that is one of my goals).
23) What is your favorite novel?
A Tale of Two Cities will always have a special place in my heart!
24) Play?
Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
25) Poem?
"Ode to a Grecian Urn" by Keats
26) Essay?
A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. <--- this is the definitive answer!
27) Short story?
I was impressed with the short stories of Woody Allen that I read.
28) Work of nonfiction?
I can handle a good biography.
29) Who is your favorite writer?
Dickens, Tom Stoppard, I'm including Stephen Sondheim
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Stephanie Meyer
31) What is your desert island book?
I guess the complete works of Shakespeare
32) Who is your favorite critic or scholar?
Should I have one?
33) Who is your favorite philosopher?
The mathematician in me tells me I should say someone like Pascal or Descartes.
34) Who is your favorite public intellectual?
Out of sheer hilarity, anyone on FOX News?!?!
35) And... what are you reading right now?
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
on deck:
HP and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer
Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
Shakespeare
"Books are for those without real lives, he thought." - Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer