Book Tag

Global Librarian tagged me for this one on Facebook.

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?
Joan Walsh Anglund’s Love Is A Special Way of Feeling.  My grandmother gave it to me the day we left for England and it’s been on my bookshelves everywhere ever since.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?
Current Read: The Gulf Between Us – Geraldine Bedell
Last Read: Love You, Mean It – Patricia Carrington, Julia Collins, Claudia Gerbasi, Ann Haynes
Next Book: Garden Spells – Sarah Addison Allen

3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert.  I love a good memoir, so I was really disappointed when I read this.  It just never grabbed me.  By the time she got to Indonesia I couldn’t have cared less.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?

Tortilla Flat – John Steinbeck.  I keep meaning to, I even pick it up in bookshops, but then when it comes down to it I never end up following through.

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen.  I like knowing that there is still one Austen left for me to read.

6. Last page: read it first or wait til the end?
The end!  Not only do I hate to read things out of context, but I love to follow the way a story unfolds to the bitter end.  It seems unnatural to do it all out of order.  

7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
Hmm.  As a writer I think they are an interesting aside.  As a reader, I only like them if they are funny or informative.  If it’s just a bunch of names then I skip it.

8. Which book character would you switch places with?
I think I’d like to see Weetzie Bat’s Los Angeles for a day.  From Weetzie Bat – Francesca Lia Block.

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
The Gymnasts series – Elizabeth Levy reminds me of just starting elementary school because my mother always agreed that I could order them from the Scholastic Book Club.  Then we moved and I never found out what happened to The Pinecones.

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
I have a copy of The Second Sex – Simone de Beavouir that one of my college professors found while she was strolling the streets of New York City.  It’s tattered and has markings from different second hand shops all over the title page.  I had to tape the cover back on twice.  I still love that she was wandering the city, thought of me, and then just handed it to me in a hallway one day a year after I’d had my last class with her.   Another point scored for small, liberal arts colleges.

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?

Not a particular physical book, no.  But I give people books that I think suit them all the time, books are my go-to gift.  Actually, I only bring books to baby showers because I think that’s a great, gender neutral way to get a baby’s library started.

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
See number 1.

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?
Not really.  I’ve returned to a few things that I read in high school to see if I’d like them any better but I didn’t.  

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?
A condom.  Someone had a sense of humour too because it was in a seriously trashy romance I’d borrowed from the public library.  

15. Used or brand new?
Brand new.  I like for the authors to get their royalties, not to mention I find that breaking the spine of a crisp new book is almost as good as punching bubble wrap.  Yes, I am that much of a dork.

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
Literary genius.  So genius that he’s become an opiate of the masses.  

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
I don’t think so, but Richard Peck’s film version of To Kill A Mockingbird was right up there.

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
Most recently Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates, but Demi Moore’s version of The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne was a true massacre.

19. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?
Amy.  If she says read something I read it.