Book meme

Nicked from Sheenagh Pugh (but it's okay, she nicked it first)

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?

The Hobbit

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you'll read next?

Current read: Troll Fell by Katharine Langrish, because I needed something easy after...
Last read: David Zindell's Neverness books.
Next Up: The Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred by Carl-Johan Vallgren, because I've been promising Nina I'll finish it for ages

3. What book did everyone like and you hated?

The Time Traveller's Wife, put it down after about 20 pages

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

Ooh, I dunno... Crime and Punishment, War and Peace

5. Which book are you saving for "retirement?"

See above

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?

Never! If a book is any good I'll wait, if it's not I'll get rid of it. I'm not one of those people who have to know what happens, if I don't like the book or the characters then I don't care what happens to them

7. Acknowledgments: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?

I like them

8. Which book character would you switch places with?

Lol, great question! When I was about 8 I'd have said Frodo or Tolly (from the Green Knowe books by Lucy M. Boston), when I was 15 I'd have said Nothing (from Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite), but who now? I'll have to come back to this question

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?

My tatty copy of Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea reminds me of a lovely holiday in Cornwall when I was 7 or 8.

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.

I once bought a black, leather briefcase in a jumble sale for 5p when I was 6, and when I got it home I discovered a book hidden in a pocket inside - Eva Ibbotson's Which Witch? A book I love and still read.

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

Yes of course

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

Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite

13. Any "required reading" you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?

Nope, it's all still awful. Step forward Jane Austen. I also disliked William Golding's Lord of the Flies when I was in school and, if anything, it's become even more disturbing.

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?

I once found a beautiful and very old bookmark in a book about table-rapping from the 1800s

15. Used or brand new?

Used if they are old, new if they are new

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?

He's alright, I've read a few of his books but found myself skimming quite a lot

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?

Yes, but only once. Interview with the Vampire the film is way better than the yawnfest that Anne Rice wrote

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?

I won't get started on Lord of the Rings! One that made me quite angry was Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. They got rid of really good bits, and replaced them with special effects-laden bits that totally underwhelmed. A pity, as the book is rather special

19. Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?

In the Hounds of the Morrigan, there is a description of a meal that sounds delicious. Mushrooms cooked on a hearthstone, hot soup with butter floating in it "like a thousand golden suns", and fish cooked in their skins on the fire.

20. Who is the person whose book advice you'll always take?

Michael has introduced me to some fantastic books that I would never have found otherwise, and Nina has been spot on every time so far; my book taste is most like my newphew Bryn's though, we like similar stuff!