So my old friend from High School, Jamelah, tagged me with this very interesting book quiz on Facebook. I don’t really do Facebook anymore, especially not since a bunch of people I barely know from when I was in Jr. High have become my “friends” and spam my feed with a bunch of status updates concerning stupid stuff that I don’t care about and care even less about because they’re not really my friends and I hardly know them. (As mentioned previously, Facebook is over. It’s all about Twitter these days.)
In any case, figured I’d do this quiz as an exercise in embarrassment. See, despite having a substantial vocabulary and a love for the written word, I’m very particular about the types of books I like to read—and most of them would be considered fairly non-consequential. I like entertainment reading. I despise high fiction, and am filled with a loathing deep and abundant for the literature of academia. I want a story, characters I care about, and simple, honest language that gets out of the way of the plot. I don’t want to be struck by the beauty of the author’s prose. I want to see what happens next. I have read very little literature that is old, and enjoyed even less of it. So, this list is going to be pretty pathetic. But enlightening.
1) What author do you own the most books by?
Orson Scott Card
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
It’s a tie – I have both the British and American editions of three of the Harry Potter Novels, as well as the British and American Audiobooks, which I am going to count because I can.
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
I didn’t until you pointed it out, then it did. I don’t use prepositions to end sentences with. (It’s a joke, son!)
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
I don’t ever really fall in love with the characters of the books I read. I don’t invest they way I do in visual media.
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)?
I’m going to quote my friend Jamelah because the answer is the same for me. “Well, if I can count reading things during rehearsals, then definitely Under Milk Wood (Dylan Thomas).” I would add, however, that I didn’t read it out of enjoyment, because I was trying very hard to figure out what the hell he was trying to say.
6) What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?
Summer of the Monkeys, The Great Brain, The Boxcar Children
7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
A Confederacy of Dunces
8) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Lost Boy (Orson Scott Card)
9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
The Alliance (Gerald Lund) or Middlesex (Eugenides?)
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Don’t care. A Nobel Prize for literature rewards the kind of literature I dislike
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
The Alliance (Lund)
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Twilight. Oh wait…
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I’m drawing a blank. I dreamt about writing a book once. Does that count?
14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
Almost all of the books I read are lowbrow. I like lowbrow. It’s entertaining.
15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
King Lear
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
I have never seen a live performance of Shakespeare (despite having a degree in theatre). I loathe the bastage. If you can count movies, though, I saw Macbeth once.
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Don’t care.
18) Roth or Updike?
Don’t know.
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Sedaris, but this answer doesn’t really count, because I don’t know who Eggers is.
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Disembowelment
21) Austen or Eliot?
Rectal Thermometry
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Anything before 1900.
23) What is your favourite novel?
The Alliance
24) Play?
The Diviners
25) Poem?
There once was a man from Nantucket
26) Essay?
The old standby – Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal
27) Short story?
I don’t really know. I don’t really read short stories.
28) Work of nonfiction?
The autobiography of Richard Simmons. Just kidding. But I have actually read his autobiography. I was on a cruise ship and had been through half of the library. This shows my ridiculous love of animals, but I adore Alex and Me.
29) Who is your favourite writer?
At the moment, Orson Scott Card. His novels are what I adore-simple, straightforward language aimed specifically at developing characters and telling a story. I also have a soft spot in my heard for J.K.R.
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Dean Koontz
31) What is your desert island book?
The Boy Scout Survival Manual
32) And… what are you reading right now?
Brookland by Emily Barton (Audiobook) and Fablehaven: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary.
I added this one:
33) What is your favorite book you were required to read in High School?
A Brave New World (Huxley)
I would like to broaden my reading horizons, but I don’t want to have to work too hard to do it. So if you can think of books with ripping good stories that you think I would like—particularly ones where the language isn’t too difficult to hack through. And no Jamelah. I am perfectly happy to go to the grave having never cracked the cover of anything written by James Joyce…especially Ulysses. Plus, I read your blog. I enjoy reading. If I wanted to take something I love and ruin it forever, I’ll be a professional actor. (Oh wait, I already did that.)
I Tag: Sam, Megan, Jeff
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