{ one tries to fly away. }

[delga]

Snagged from failte_aoife because it's been a while since I meme'd it up.

1/ Which author do you own the most books by?
Kazuo Ishiguro because I recently went on a buying spree in an attempt to get hold of a lot of his work. My taste in books - and the decisions that lead to my buying any - lends towards authors who aren't well-known, or haven't produced a large body of work. So in theory I would probably own more of Donna Tartt and Jeffrey Eugenides' works except for the part where they haven't been written yet. I think I tend to own 1-2 books by authors that I like.

Actually, scratch my initial answer - I probably own more Shakespeare than anything else. a) because I have The Complete Works, and b) because I also own the sonnets and individual copies of a fair few of his plays. So. Yes.

2/ What book do you own the most copies of?
What? See above re: copies of Shakespeare. At one point I owned two copies of Defoe's Moll Flanders because of a fuck up in my Amazon order. I also once owned two copies of Siken's Crush but I sent one to asemic because she was in Great Need. I'm not enough of a book nerd to house texts in more than one place. I do love books and reading but I have a lot of love for libraries, I guess. Also, a big problem with me is that I often decide a book is great and then... give it to someone else. See: Empress Orchid, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, other things.

3/ What fictional character in a book are you secretly in love with?
P D James' Adam Dalgliesh. Detective! Poet! Tragic soul! Fuck yes. I can't think of others, though for sure they do exist.

4/ What book have you read more than any other?
From Caucasia With Love (aka Caucasia) by Danzy Senna. Also, Plath's Ariel.

5/ What was your favorite book when you were 10 years old?
I really don't know. I was in my final year of primary school when I was 10, so it was probably a Nancy Drew book of some sort.

6/ What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
Haven't read that much this year, and nothing that I've hated or even disliked. I'm a fickle reader: if I don't like it, I won't force myself to read it.

7/ What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Donna Tartt's The Secret History. A great, great read that I devoured over a two-day period when I was trying to prevent my laptop from giving up the ghost. I love the way Tartt writes, and I loved how, even though she reveals what will happen in the prologue, she manages to steadily increase the tension throughout the novel. A great, great read.

8/ If you could tell everyone you know to read one book, what would it be?
Plath's The Bell Jar or Nabokov's Lolita, two modern classics. And I think everyone should read Eugenides.

9/ What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
James Joyce's Ulysses, goddamn. Love it, though.

10/ Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
This is such a weird/polarising question. I'm going to say Russians, though, because I haven't read much/anything by the French.

11/ Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer?
Shakespeare. BUT. Paradise Lost is immense, and Chaucer is the best mind of the three, and I will defend that statement to my end.

12/ Austen or Eliot?
Fuck Austen. Eliot all the way.

13/ What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I haven't read any Dickens and I don't think I ever will. This isn't something I'm ashamed of, though. The most shaming gap, for me, is that I haven't read any Dostoevsky and you'd better believe I will be remedying that.

14/ What is your favorite novel?
I have too many favourites. The list includes: Eugenides' Middlesex; Plath's The Bell Jar; Danzy Senna's Caucasia; Woolf's Mrs Dalloway; Jeanette Winterson's Weight; Joanne Harris' Chocolat. Nabokov's Lolita; Saffron-Froer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions; Golding's The Lord of the Flies; Jacqueline Mitchard's A Theory of Relativity. Also: some Ishiguro and P D James. And other stuff. I hate this question. (Lol, note the not-classics trend.)

15/ Play?
Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. I saw it again last year and it was still amazing. Second up is Twelfth Night which I fucking adore, and third is Sophocles' Antigone which I'm still waiting to see performed in a manner deserving of the work.

16/ Poem?
HATE THIS QUESTION TOO. Probably Plath's Lady Lazarus, Ondaatje's The Cinnamon Peeler's Wife or Neruda's Tu Risa. I also really love Wendy Cope's As Sweet. And other stuff, as y'all know.

17/ Essay?
EASY: Hélène Cixous' Le Rire de la Meduse. I loved this the very first time I read it and I have to say that it is a text that has had a profound effect on me. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I do think it's an excellent piece and I do carry a lot of it with me these days when I think about women in the world. I don't know. I was never a 'good' feminist because I used to be quite happy to let a lot of things slide. But I think about the world in a different way now than I did when I was 17 and this text is one of the things that changed me. Ecris! L'écriture est pour toi, tu es pour toi, ton corps est toi, prends-le. "Your body is yours, take it." Yeah, this is probably the closest thing I will ever have to a battle cry.

18/ Short story?
It is probably cheating to say Borges' La Casa de Asterión but fuck it. I also love every single story in Kate Atkinson's collection Not the End of the World. I like short story collections quite a bit, actually, and the next one I'm tackling is Ishiguro's Nocturnes. One of the most moving I've read is Doris Lessing's The Grandmothers.

19/ Non-fiction?
I've only read a handful of non-fiction texts but I enjoyed them all. Most notably Touched With Fire Kay Redfield Jamison and most recently Generation Kill by Evan Wright. The former is about mental health trends in the artistically gifted (especially manic depression in authors); the latter is about Marines during the invasion of Iraq. Both are brilliant. Also brilliant (well, so far - I still haven't read the whole thing) are Plath's journals, my gosh.

20/ Graphic novel?
Art Spiegelman's Maus, though I will say that I haven't read all that many. (Rec me, if you like; I know a lot of you read and enjoy them.)

21/ Memoir?
You know, I don't think I've ever read any memoirs? Plath doesn't count because she didn't write them in retrospect. Huh. Weird.

22/ History?
Does this mean historical fiction? Or non-fiction history text? I haven't read enough of either to have a favourite, though I guess Anchee Min's novels count in the former category and I LOVED Empress Orchid.

23/ Mystery or noir?
Different things, guys! My favourite mystery is PD James' A Certain Justice; my favourite noir (I say that like I've read more than three, which I haven't) is Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely which I found equally frustrating and brilliant.

24/ Science fiction?
I used to read a lot of science fiction texts but fuck if I can remember any of them right now. Therefore I must naturally give the answer Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

25/ Who is your favorite writer?
I don't know. Eugenides, I suppose. Or Woolf. Or Nabokov. Or... etc.

26/ Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
J K Rowling. For fucking serious.

27/ What are you reading right now?
I don't have a novel or book on the go right now, but I do carry Siken's Crush around with me to indulge in whenever I have a moment.

Comments

[failte-aoife.livejournal.com]

I've never read Dickens (except for A Christams Carrol) but it never really troubled me that much...even less since we talked about him in our Victorien Novel-lecture.

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really couldn't care less about Dickens. Also, you're not missing anything with Austen.

[daygloparker.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't think I've ever read any memoirs?

Run, don't walk, to "An Unfinished Woman" by Lillian Hellman. Homegirl dated Dashiell Hammett and hung out with Dorothy Parker. There's an interlude in Russia.

[zeitheist.livejournal.com]

I could rec you some graphic novels, although my own experience is hardly comprehensive. What sort of thing do you like, though? (Perhaps a better question: what sort of thing wouldn't you like?).

Edit. Siken's Crush is my favourite book ever - which, considering my relative apathy towards poetry, is saying something. It's one of those books I used to carry around long after I'd read it, because the poems are timeless to me.

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

...I have no idea. Seriously. I mean, I have no idea what I'd find appealing. In terms of fiction/lit, I lean towards drama/mystery/self-discovery, but I don't know what the genre will or won't prescribe to, so ...? I will take recs, though.

I remember you saying. I keep it with me because it fits in my bag (which is a lame reason) and because the poems fit into the day when I'm waiting around on transport (which is a better reason). I also really like its weight? (=weird reason).

[curly-the-sue.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's an interesting meme!

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

lol, really? In what way? I'm curious.

[curly-the-sue.livejournal.com]

It's really interesting for me to see what someone is reading. :D