« lying for fun and profit (originally posted 11/1/03) | Main | yet another book meme »
I'll play.
Today is the third day of a workshop I'm enjoying a lot (nothing to do with writing, though) and thus no posts. Except I'm going to jump on this meme-ish bandwagon quickly, before I have to leave.
You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
So, I've got to pick a novel that (1) I'd want to memorize and (2) recite outloud constantly and (3) eventually pass on to another book-talker, (4) without losing my mind out of boredom. Oh and, it's got to be something that I feel strongly enough about that I want to save it from extinction. That means it has to be fairly long, episodic, with funny bits as well as good prose and excellent characters. Maybe Mark Helprin's A Soldier of the Great War. Maybe Dorothy Dunnett's Niccolo Rising. Maybe in a couple years, after rereading it a few times, I'll feel the same way about Mary Doria Russell's A Thread of Grace.
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Crickey. All the time. Isn't that a big part of the reason to read fiction? So you can fall in love again and again without cheating on the person who takes out the trash and leaves marmelade covered knives on the counter and brings you chocolate when you're feeling down? I wouldn't trade him in for anything, but on the other hand, I'd be very sad if I couldn't open a new book ready to fall in love with the next Lucas Davenport or Niccolo van der Poele. Remember this movie quote? I just met a wonderful new man. He's fictional but you can't have everything.
The last book you bought is?
Frances Sherwood, The Book of Splendor
What are you currently reading?
Frances Sherwood, The Book of Splendor; Francine Prose, A Changed Man; Beverly Swerling, Shadowbrook, Robert Remini, The Life of Andrew Jackson; Thomas Ingersoll, Mammon and Manon in Early New Orleans: The First Slave Society in the Deep South, 1718-1819.
Five books you would take to a deserted island:
Does this island have septic and a working well and a shower and kitchen facilities? How about a telephone? You've got to give me some more information before I go picking out books. Really, if there's nothing there, what choice do I have but take the five best books I can find on survival techniques? Okay, the four best and then as the fifth: Dorothy Dunnett's Niccolo series. Yes, I counting it as one book. So sue me.
Three people you're going to pass this meme onto, and why.
I'll leave jumping on the bandwagon to the discretion of the jumper.
April 3, 2005 07:43 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.tiedtothetracks.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/395
Comments
I bit, here are my answers: http://lannaleemaheux.com/musings.html (conveniently placed on an outside link, so you can ignore it if you want to)
Posted by: Lanna Lee Maheux-Quinn at April 3, 2005 09:03 AM
Here's a weird literary crush. Every time I read Jane Eyre, which is yearly, I get really lucid dreams not about Fairfax Rochester (mild-to-serious literary crush) but about my high-school music teacher (once the subject of a crush as torrid as a fifteen-year-old girl can have, which is, um, pretty torrid), whom I see from time to time but about whom I NEVER think that way, except in those dreams. I have to wonder what this says about me.
Posted by: Rachel at April 3, 2005 04:39 PM
Does this island have septic and a working well and a shower and kitchen facilities?
If there was no propper WC I think I'd definitely like to have the unedited paperback edition of Stephen King's The Stand.
Posted by: Joshua at April 4, 2005 01:32 PM
Oops. There's an extra "p" up there. Which is, I suppose, very nearly appropriate.
Posted by: Joshua at April 4, 2005 01:34 PM
Needed something to occupy a little time, so I jumped. Posted on my blog: http://mymomdatedspike.blogspot.com
Posted by: Cate at April 4, 2005 03:01 PM
Joshua, you cheat. Answer all the questions. See if you can top this single answer, which I doubt.
To Cate and Lanna Lee: good on you.
To Rachel: come on in, the water's fine.
Posted by: sara at April 4, 2005 03:12 PM
Oh, Joshua, we haven't been properly introduced, but won't you come over here and sit next to me?
God, what would I take? Survival manual first, a fat blank notebook second -- to maintain minimal sanity -- my commonplacebook/quote book third, because, all my favorite stuff is in there, so, gotta mull what to do with the remaining space. Are books of pictures allowed??)
robyn
Posted by: robyn at April 4, 2005 04:46 PM
You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
Obviously I'd want to be Fahrenheit 451.
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Well yes, but only movie characters. Generally speaking, women with guns: Princess Leia, Sarah Connor and of course, Trinity (execrable sequels notwithstanding).
The last book you bought is?
Glass Castle, on account of I needed something to crib off of.
What are you currently reading?
The Oxford History of Britain.
Five books you would take to a deserted island:
Combined works of Shakespeare, the King James Bible, The Lord of the Rings, The Lord of the Rings in French so I'd have something to do, and… well, I think I'll stick with my comment about The Stand.
Posted by: Joshua at April 5, 2005 02:09 PM
1. Which book would I want to be...um...gee. "Pride and Prejudice" perhaps. Or, possibly, "The Bronze Horseman".
2. Crush on a fictional character...too many to count. First known crush = Julian from the Famous Five. Latest crush = Apollo from BSG (do movies/tv count here?)
3. Last book..."Vanishing Acts", Jodi Picoult.
4. Current reading...actually, would you believe I'm not reading anything right now? I've been sick.
5. Five books I'd take to a deserted island...Wilbur Smith's "A Time to Kill" (see Q2, Sean Courtney is a biiiig crush of mine), "Lord of the Rings" (sheer boredom may induce me to finish it), the unedited edition of "The Stand" (man, I love that book), "My Brother Jack" (cos I've always wanted to read it and somehow never got around to it)and "The Bronze Horseman" (hey, I'd need to live out someone else's love story!).
Posted by: Meredith at April 6, 2005 04:15 AM