BOOK MEME
1) What Author Do You Own The Most Books By?
KA Applegate. I own all but a handful of the "Animorphs" series. SHUT UP, YOU DON'T KNOW ME.

2) What Book Do You Own The Most Copies Of?
Probably "Outlander": I think I have 3 copies of that.

3) What Fictional Character Are You Secretly In Love With?
Secretly? Not sure. Not so secretly? Jamie Fraser, fo sho. And Septimus Warren Smith. (How's that for a juxtaposition?)

4) What Book Have You Read More Than Any Other?
"Outlander". I probably read it 2-3 times a year. It's the book I read when I need to thoroughly escape the world.

5) What Was Your Favorite Book When You Were 10-Years-Old?
"The Giver" or "Number the Stars" by Lois Lowry. I was a huuuge Lois Lowry fan. Well, I still am. =P

6) What Is The Worst Book You've Read In The Past Year?
I never finish bad books. Right now, I'd have to say, the Hannah Howell romance "Highland Bride" which was literally so awful that even the fact that it was about a Highlander couldn't force me to read it. I got to the part where the heroine was talking about how ashamed she was of her "huge milky breasts and tiny waist" and put it down. Which is really too bad, because Howell is super prolific and I am always on the prowl for series. Right now I'm also reading "Fallen Skies" by Phillipa Gregory, which is about the love between an innocent flapper and a shell-shocked soldier, which should be right up my alley, but honestly all of the characters are so unsympathetic I can't even tolerate it. I read that the protagonist, the shell-shocked soldier that the back cover leads me to believe I'm supposed to pity, is actually an abusive, manipulative fuckwit. Not exactly the tale of redemption I was hoping for, and I don't know if I really want to read something miserable just for misery's sake.

7) What Is The Best Book You've Read In The Past Year?
"Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro, although I actually first read it a couple of years ago. It's seriously fucking fantastic. I bawled forever at the end.

8) If You Could Tell Everyone You Know To Read One Book, What Would It Be?
I couldn't even say that, because I know very different people and thus would make very different suggestions. "Never Let Me Go" is magnificent, but I'd probably hawk "Outlander" because it's pretty multi-faceted.

9) What Is The Most Difficult Book You've Ever Read?
Challenging intellectually, or emotionally, or just damn hard to get through? Intellectually, probably anything by Virginia Woolf. Emotionally, "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood: I read it in a marathon read over two days, and then couldn't sleep afterwards. Damn hard to get through, "Lord of the Rings". BOOOOOO-RING.

10) Do You Prefer The French Or The Russians?
Can't say I'd be able to distinguish (hangs head)

11) Shakespeare, Milton Or Chaucer?
Shakespeare's a great go-to guy for plays (especially his tragedies because I am secretly forever a teenage girl), but Chaucer has a GREAT sense of humour.

12) Austen Or Eliot?
Eliot, I guess. I'm not going to try and pretend to be a big fan or anything.

13) What Is The Biggest Or Most Embarrassing Gap In Your Reading?
Like shibaiko, definitely the 19th century, which is made even more embarrassing by the fact that Victorian England was kind of my focus for History.

14) What Is Your Favorite Novel?
I can't even answer that, man. Different novels for different reasons.

15) Play?
AGH. "The Ecstasy of Rita Joe". Not exactly a tough pick, seeing as I'm not really all that much of a theatre buff. But that shit was great on paper: not sure how I'd like it performed, if it's followed literally.

16) Poem?
Still "Sunflower Sutra" by Ginsberg.

17) Essay?
Not my area.

18) Short Story?
OOOOH shit: Eden Robinson. "Queen of the North". Blood and guts in that one, man.

19) Non-Fiction?
I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on "A Pint of Plain" by Bill Barich, all about the evolution and commodification of Irish pub culture. (drooling sounds)

20) Graphic Novel?
I'd love to use "V for Vendetta" as a teaching tool, but I honestly prefer the movie esthetically. I think novel and movie interact in a really interesting way though.

21) Science Fiction?
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". . . but NOT BLADERUNNER. Oh, and "Oryx and Crake"

22) Who Is Your Favorite Writer?
I dunno, I like books, not really authors. I like Diana Gabaldon alot, but at this point in the "Outlander" series I think she's starting to suffer from Anne Rice syndrome, but without the ego. But the "Lord John" books have gotten progressively stronger. (The latest one was fucking fantastic, okay).

23) Who Is The Most Overrated Writer Alive Today?
All of the authors I really hate aren't really "overrated", they just have disproportionate popularity to their talent: Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer, to beat a dead horse.

24) What Are You Reading Right Now?
"Fallen Skies" by Gregory, and "The Serpent's Tale" by Ariana Franklin.

25) Best Memoir?
Can't say I have ever (or will ever) read one.

26) Best History?
Like, in general? Shit, IDK, I read alot of that shit. "The Jacobite Song" was pretty rockin', but that's not really popular history. I'm really trying to get a hold of Niall Ferguson's book on WWI, which Rob praised endlessly and it seems to have a delicious anti-British thesis which you KNOW I am all over haha.

27) Best Mystery Or Noir?
I don't know if they count, but I like Ariana Franklin's medieval mysteries, and Diana Gabaldon's pseudo-fantasy mysteries with Lord John, although I like those more for the human element of the character than for the actual mystery component (which I can take or leave).