Book Quiz!

I don’t think I’ve seen this quiz before I ran across it at Sheila’s place, which seems odd, because surely by now I’ve seen (and done) every blog quiz that exists, right?

Anyway, it’s about books:

What are you reading right now?

The Star King by Jack Vance; Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint Exupery; The Discovery of Poetry by Francis Mayes; The Forgetting Room by Nick Bantock.

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?

Yes. And no.

I’ve fallen hard for personal travel narratives, so I have a few of those out of the library right now. I also have three books by Anais Nin out — a collection of essays, a general-purpose reader, and what appears to be a later portion of her unexpurgated diary — but after dipping into these, I think I’d rather start at the beginning and track down Volume One of that diary for myself.

I also need to do some dipping into the various Year’s Best anthologies of SF and fantasy.

What magazines do you have in your bathroom right now?

Our bathroom isn’t big enough to keep many magazines; usually there’s just the most recent issue of Time in there. I do read magazines in there; it’s just that I bring them back out when I’m done. You know how it is. (That said, Cooking Light is a good magazine for in there.)

What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read?

I loathed The Yearling, and I loathed the teacher who assigned it, especially when she gave me a low grade on my report because I dared admit that I thought the book was boring dreck.

A close second would be Ordinary People, the dysfunctional-family novel that had me rooting for the characters to reach for the full bottle of sleeping pills.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone?

I tend to be very gun-shy about recommending books. The ones I’d most tend to recommend are deeply personal to me on some level, to the point that I’d likely have a difficult time reconciling it if I recommended it to a close friend only to receive a “Meh” response.

That being the case, I have a very dear friend to whom I have gifted copies of, among others, GGK’s Lions of Al-Rassan, Bantock’s Griffin and Sabine series, and Joel ben Izzy’s The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness. I have no idea if she’s read any of them. In a way, it doesn’t matter.

Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they?

I don’t know if they do or not, but it wouldn’t surprise me. We visit weekly. I’m always nonplussed when I meet voracious readers who don’t use their libraries; way I see it, why should I limit my reading to only those books I can afford to buy?

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all?

See above, really. I do wish I knew more people who loved the kinds of books I do, though. My reading soulmate is out there, somewhere!

Do you read books while you eat? While you bathe? While you watch movies or TV? While you listen to music? While you’re on the computer? While you’re having sex? While you’re driving?

In order: only if dining alone; no, since I shower, although I did read books while soaking in my parents’ hot tub before I moved out; if others in the clan are watching something I don’t much care about; yes; I used to, in order to pass time while waiting for downloads in my dial-up days; I can’t read with my eyes closed (wow, did I just reveal too much information about myself); Lord, NO! Bad things happen that way, like you can die in a fiery wreck, and then you’re just a burnt crisp who doesn’t even get to find out who did it or if Prince Flatulent manages to save the Realm.

When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits?

Not really. In early grade school, I gave them other material to work with, by virtue of being the fat kid with no fashion sense at all and no athletic ability to speak of (save swimming, which I was apparently no slouch at). Later on, in high school, classmates would voice their befuddlement at the mere idea of reading for pleasure, but this was never teasing or ridiculing, just “Wow, I don’t know how you do that.”

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?

I’m actually pretty good at putting books aside to get some sleep, since eventually I actually do fall asleep, which I always take as a sign that it’s time to reach for the bookmark. I did plow through the second half of Harry Potter Episode VII in a single afternoon. And yes, I distracted The Daughter by having her play computer games for…well, let’s just say it was longer than I should have, OK?

And there you go.

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