Tag: memes

Stealing yet another fun quiz-meme from Maureen…!

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?
Various children’s books – stuff like Tommy dePaola’s books, and The Weaver’s Horse, of which there are apparently NO cover images available online. Agggh! Did anyone else read that book, though?

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?
Currently, I’m supposed to be finishing Konrad Lorenz’s King Solomon’s Ring, but I don’t actually have it with me; I’ve been sneaking rereads of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber instead. Last read was Robert Stone’s Bear and his Daughter. Next read… not sure. Possibly Peter Beagle’s The Innkeeper’s Song.

3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
Usually I love books that everyone else hates.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?
Ummm. Moby-Dick would be one of the major ones.

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”
What does that even mean? All the books I know want to be read NOW. :P

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?
I used to occasionally read the last page halfway through the book (or read half the book out of order, really) when I couldn’t bear the suspense, but NO MORE. Partly because I no longer read as many epics… inevitably there are points at which your attention flags during those, and you just want to see if something better is coming up, so you mine for snippets of telling conversation or hints of pivotal scenes. The impulse to spoiler oneself just ends in tears and rankling sensations, though.

Continue reading Quizzed

Andy passed on a nifty meme to Kakaner and me – pick 10 books off your bookshelves, with your eyes closed, then use them to tell a bit about yourself. Here goes!

1. Night Shadows: Twenthieth-Century Stories of the Uncanny, ed. Joan Kessler

The editor is my mother’s friend, which tells you that a. my mom has some pretty cool friends, and that b. I have a lot in common with this particular friend, because holy crap do I love stories of the uncanny. Aesthetically and literarily, I’m about 30% shameless Goth-in-disguise. Unfortunately, I have yet to read this, and the other volume that I was gifted by this friend – a collection of her translations of French ghost stories.

1. The Lady and the Unicorn, by Tracy Chevalier

Love historical fiction, love the Unicorn Tapestries, like Tracy Chevalier quite a bit, though I only got into her books via the Girl with a Pearl Earring bandwagon. I also own this in French, but have only read about two chapters of that version.

1. The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, W. Y. Evans-Wentz

One of my friends got me this when she spent a semester in Glasgow. Ummm yes, Celtic stuff, another of my longstanding obsessions. And fairies. Haven’t read this yet.

1. Birth of the Firebringer, by Meredith Ann Pierce

Okay… my thing about Meredith Ann Pierce is a little scary, and will probably have to be gone into at greater length at another time. Suffice it to say that I can’t imagine who I would have been had I never read any of her books. I picked the original hardcover, but I also own the paperback reprint. Also, more unicorns. Not gonna lie, I like unicorns. What is wrong with me?

1. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury

In my eyes, Ray Bradbury can do no wrong. The copy that I own of this is a mass-market paperback in terrifyingly bad condition, since it used to belong to my father and thus has been through many reads and moves.

1. The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper

And this would be one of the two books that started my obsession with Celtic mythology, and another core book in my “canon.”

1. 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories, ed. Robert Weinberg

Have I ever mentioned that I really, really like vampire fiction? Reviewed here.

1. Mostly Harmless, by Douglas Adams

…I’m a predictable nerd? Actually, out of all of the Hitchhiker’s books, this is the only one I disliked, though I can’t really blame Adams for the “I’m throwing my hands up and getting rid of the lot of you” approach to ending the series.

1. Selected Poems of Byron, Keats, and Shelley

Again, Romantigoth. I do read modern and contemporary poetry too, though. I actually haven’t touched this ever since I got it, but it’s a very pretty green leatherbound edition from… 1967. Crummy paper, though.

1. The Gormenghast Trilogy, by Mervyn Peake

More Romantigoth, more fantasy. Haven’t read it, beyond 15 pages a number of years back. Aiiieee. I’ve meant to ever since I saw the Masterpiece Theatre edition and began cultivating a crush on Jonathan Rhys Meyers, but… you know. Things happen. Books languish.

– E