Book Meme

I saw

  and

 did this and dorked out like only an English major can.

1) What author do you own the most books by?
L.M. Montgomery. I own all the Anne and Emily books, plus The Story Girl, and I’d love to collect more.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Gone with the Wind. I have 3: my dog-eared, falling-apart, much-loved paperback; a contemporary hardback that came in a boxed set with the (blarg) sequel; and an original edition that smells all deliciously musty.

3) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Ooh. Seth from Wicked Lovely. Cabel from Fade and Wake. Professor Lupin.

4) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children)?
Gone with the Wind. I was kind of obsessed with it in high school.

5) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Little Women, or maybe Eight Cousins.

6) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Well, it’s the first book in a very popular series that spawned a TV series, and I gave it to my sister as a gift and then borrowed it and had to be all, "Sorry I gave you such a shitty present!" I did not find the love interest at all appealing, or the writing all that good, but obviously a lot of people disagree.

7) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
In 2008: the Hunger Games and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. In 2009, so far: Cracked Up to Be and The Boyfriend List. 

8) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Cracked Up To Be. It’s got amazing characterization and it doesn’t force a HEA ending.

9) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Alice Sebold’s memoir Lucky was heartbreaking and emotionally difficult. But despite several tries, I have never been able to finish The Age of Innocence.

10. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Russians, I guess? I haven’t read much of either but I liked Anna Karenina. But I also liked Germinal….hmmm.

11. Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer?
Shakespeare, definitely. I love Much Ado and Lear and Othello best.

12. Austen or Eliot?
Austen, but I haven’t read any Eliot. Favorite Austen: either P&P or Northanger Abbey.

13. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I haven’t read a lot of non-Brit/American lit or much nonfiction or sci-fi or mystery or…okay, really, there’s just not enough time for all the books I want to read.

14. What is your favorite novel?
It used to be Gone with the Wind. I’m currently undeclared.

15. Play?
Just one? Desdemona: A Handkerchief Play by Paula Vogel

16. Poem?
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
 
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
 
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of allnothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
 
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
-e.e. cummings

17. Essay?
No idea.

19. Non Fiction
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

20. Graphic Novel?
Fables by Bill Willingham. I need to catch up on that. I’d like to read more graphic novels this year too.

21. Science Fiction?
Stranger in a Strange Land holds a special place in my heart, because it’s Steve’s favorite and I read it when we were first dating. (He read GWTW for me.)

22. Who is your favorite writer?
I can’t pick just one. L.M. Montgomery is one of my old favorites. I love Paula Vogel and Sarah Ruhl’s theatrical imaginations. I love the way E. Lockhart captures a voice and makes me want to be BFFs with her protagonist.

23. Who is the most over rated writer alive today?
I don’t know. If people like it, who am I to say it’s overrated? It’s all a matter of appeal.

24. What are you reading right now?
Evermore by Alyson Noel.

25. Best Memoir?
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

26. Best History?
I dunno.

27. Best Mystery or Noir?
I am a big fan of the first couple books in Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series.

Pretty please leave some of your favorites in the comments? I love hearing about favorite books/plays/poems.