Archives for January 31st, 2008

Eva’s Reading Meme

Quick, quick update before posting my January reviews tomorrow. I’m pretty sure the way I ramble about books can’t be qualified as real, NY Times reviews, so a couple of things you might want to know:

1. I don’t rate books because I don’t read books I don’t like. I’ve tried once - Frédéric Beigbeder’s Windows on the World - and let’s just say I never, ever want do that again.
2. I can’t review a book (or really, anything else) to save my life. Sad but true, ask my various Art, Philosophy and Literature teachers (although, Literature might have something to with 1). I’m usually all over the place, you’ve been warned!

Also, I’ve been tagged by Love last week to answer Eva of A Striped Armchair’s meme:

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?
I haven’t read any reviews of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy but I’ve seen it being recommend by everyone. I’m probably wrong but I think that all this talk against C.S. Lewis / Christianity is a little bit too much for me and my huge love of Narnia. Plus, it makes him sound like the most pretentious writer, ever.

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?
Oh, I’d love to spend a night stargazing with Asher Lev (My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok), Esther Greenwood (The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath) and Astrid Magnussen (White Oleander by Janet Fitch).

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?
I really, really tried to love One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. It’s apparently the Best Book Ever and I’ve been trying for years but I just can’t get past page 10. It’s booooring (don’t kill me, don’t kill me!).

Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?
About 80% of the books I had to read for school. That includes most of Molière’s plays, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and half of Voltaire, Rousseau, Descartes and Kant books. I’m living proof that you can pass a class without having read the required books.

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book?
I can’t think of one.

You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead of personalise the VIP)
I’d say Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. It has everything: angst, love triangle, humour, romance and mean, old ladies. I just adore it.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?
I could cheat and say Hebrew (that way I’d pass all my exams and wouldn’t have to study ever, ever again) but I’m greedy and I really want to learn Latin.

A mischievious fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?
Either La nausée (Nausea) by Jean-Paul Sartre or The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?
I’m going to copy Love’s answer and say Reading Challenges.

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.
I’m thinking something a la Shakespeare & Co (walls and every available furnitures filled with books), a good chair and some place to put my tea stuff.

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01/31/2008 | Uncategorized | 3 Comments

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