contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill
All I ever do anymore on lj is post memes and poetry, and while the poetry is good and I love posting it (I am always sad when it's May and I don't have an excuse anymore), I feel that constant meme posting is not as good as original content, except that my original content lately would consist mostly of complaining (also, I seem to have gotten addicted to those stupid games where you have X minutes to name all of Y, and I spent more of my evening than is decent trying to set the best time for finishing this one at an absurdly low point before saying to myself "Self, this is pathetic even for you, so stop now"). So here is...another meme, actually. But it's a good one because it's about books. I got from -- a lot of people, I think most recently unkoogabriel.
1. Which book(s) do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?
Oh man. I'm bad about this, because most things that make people say "OMG YOU HAVE TO READ THIS YOU'LL LOVE IT" I get all reluctant about. More so if it's phrased as "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS," because then it's stressful and makes me feel pressured and inadequate.
2. 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 a while, eventually you realize it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?
How would I know what the most boring novel on the planet is if I haven't read it? And if I have read it would the curse work? Also, does it have to be a novel? And why am I envisioning this as the premise for a crackfic involving a suicidal Jack Harkness?
All that said, were I so cursed, I have to say my first impulse would be to pick up Clarissa or Pamela or something of that ilk, and probably all of the eighteenth-century people on my flist are mad at me now. ;)
(What if the most boring novel on the planet is in a language I don't read? I suppose if I were immortal I'd have time to learn that language. What if it's in a language that's died out by the time I get around to being tired of immortality? And if I'm reading it and not understanding it, wouldn't that make it the most boring novel on the planet for me? Also, what if I read the most boring novel on the planet by accident? And whose standards of boredom does it have to meet? Probably this is all explained by Jasper Fforde and you're all laughing at me. ;) )
3. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?
Well, I have had two dissertation directors in the habit of saying "of course you've read X" and invariably when that happens one tends to smile and nod and make a mental note to look up X asap. Also, I have been in a surprising number of conversations at conferences in which I have pretended by omission to have read Poly-Olbion. That sentence right there tells you a lot about my life, now that I think of it.
On a less professional note, the previous question also reminds me that I don't really let on very often that I haven't read many of the Thursday Next books (I think I've read, like, half of the first one, and I don't know why I didn't finish since I was enjoying it well enough), and this time I sort of expect that half the flist will go "YOU WHAT" -- which is why I don't usually let on that I haven't read them -- and the other half will go "don't bother, he sucks" because I have a lot of contrarians reading this. The rationale for it is explained under question 1. Anyway, I can generally fake my way through conversations about Fforde because I know that there are evangelizing Baconians, interactive Richard III, Falstaff being a detective partnered with Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, and Hamlet not liking his portrayal.
4. You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Adviser to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why?
The Canterbury Tales -- I suppose it would have to be in translation for someone who isn't a big reader and doesn't have to read it, even though I tend to dislike translations of Chaucer, so we'll assume whatever translation doesn't suck too much. I'd recommend it because, first of all, it's absolutely wonderful, and secondly, because it has pretty much everything in it, stories of all genres and people who are recognizable to us six hundred years later. And it was the book that made me get serious about studying literature.
5. 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?
This is a good question. I am going to be practical and pick Latin: I do, in fact, already read Latin, but it's a lot of work, and perfect reading comprehension would make my life a lot easier (she says, thinking ruefully of the fact that Polydore Vergil is going to get into the damn dissertation after all).
6. A mischievous 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?.
Honestly, if I haven't ruined Richard II for myself by now, I will probably be stuck with it forever anyway, so I think that's what I would pick.
7. 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)?
That while the assumption is that SF is an old boys' club (and it traditionally has been), there are a lot of women who write really good and meaty speculative fiction. Which is totally awesome. (I am a little disappointed that while I managed to teach a course on SF where the syllabus included 50% female authors, I didn't quite fit anyone on the flist into it, though I did get to friend-of-a-friend at one point, though she didn't make it through the syllabus cuts.)
8. That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leather-bound? Is it full of first edition hard covers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead - let your imagination run free.
Why are all the options about uniformity and pristine...ness (what the hell is the noun form of pristine anyway)? My dream library would be a lot like my current library, full of all different genres and styles, lots of well-used and scribbled-in books, only there would be a lot more stuff in it, academic books I can't afford, out-of-print editions of Renaissance literature, and so forth. Not too many first editions -- most of the stuff that would be in my dream library content-wise is rare enough that it ought not to be in a private collection.
Also it would look like this place and I would have preternatural knowledge of where everything was. (Actually, I don't think it'd be that hard in a private library: I know what my books look like.)
1. Which book(s) do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?
Oh man. I'm bad about this, because most things that make people say "OMG YOU HAVE TO READ THIS YOU'LL LOVE IT" I get all reluctant about. More so if it's phrased as "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS," because then it's stressful and makes me feel pressured and inadequate.
2. 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 a while, eventually you realize it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?
How would I know what the most boring novel on the planet is if I haven't read it? And if I have read it would the curse work? Also, does it have to be a novel? And why am I envisioning this as the premise for a crackfic involving a suicidal Jack Harkness?
All that said, were I so cursed, I have to say my first impulse would be to pick up Clarissa or Pamela or something of that ilk, and probably all of the eighteenth-century people on my flist are mad at me now. ;)
(What if the most boring novel on the planet is in a language I don't read? I suppose if I were immortal I'd have time to learn that language. What if it's in a language that's died out by the time I get around to being tired of immortality? And if I'm reading it and not understanding it, wouldn't that make it the most boring novel on the planet for me? Also, what if I read the most boring novel on the planet by accident? And whose standards of boredom does it have to meet? Probably this is all explained by Jasper Fforde and you're all laughing at me. ;) )
3. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?
Well, I have had two dissertation directors in the habit of saying "of course you've read X" and invariably when that happens one tends to smile and nod and make a mental note to look up X asap. Also, I have been in a surprising number of conversations at conferences in which I have pretended by omission to have read Poly-Olbion. That sentence right there tells you a lot about my life, now that I think of it.
On a less professional note, the previous question also reminds me that I don't really let on very often that I haven't read many of the Thursday Next books (I think I've read, like, half of the first one, and I don't know why I didn't finish since I was enjoying it well enough), and this time I sort of expect that half the flist will go "YOU WHAT" -- which is why I don't usually let on that I haven't read them -- and the other half will go "don't bother, he sucks" because I have a lot of contrarians reading this. The rationale for it is explained under question 1. Anyway, I can generally fake my way through conversations about Fforde because I know that there are evangelizing Baconians, interactive Richard III, Falstaff being a detective partnered with Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, and Hamlet not liking his portrayal.
4. You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Adviser to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why?
The Canterbury Tales -- I suppose it would have to be in translation for someone who isn't a big reader and doesn't have to read it, even though I tend to dislike translations of Chaucer, so we'll assume whatever translation doesn't suck too much. I'd recommend it because, first of all, it's absolutely wonderful, and secondly, because it has pretty much everything in it, stories of all genres and people who are recognizable to us six hundred years later. And it was the book that made me get serious about studying literature.
5. 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?
This is a good question. I am going to be practical and pick Latin: I do, in fact, already read Latin, but it's a lot of work, and perfect reading comprehension would make my life a lot easier (she says, thinking ruefully of the fact that Polydore Vergil is going to get into the damn dissertation after all).
6. A mischievous 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?.
Honestly, if I haven't ruined Richard II for myself by now, I will probably be stuck with it forever anyway, so I think that's what I would pick.
7. 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)?
That while the assumption is that SF is an old boys' club (and it traditionally has been), there are a lot of women who write really good and meaty speculative fiction. Which is totally awesome. (I am a little disappointed that while I managed to teach a course on SF where the syllabus included 50% female authors, I didn't quite fit anyone on the flist into it, though I did get to friend-of-a-friend at one point, though she didn't make it through the syllabus cuts.)
8. That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leather-bound? Is it full of first edition hard covers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead - let your imagination run free.
Why are all the options about uniformity and pristine...ness (what the hell is the noun form of pristine anyway)? My dream library would be a lot like my current library, full of all different genres and styles, lots of well-used and scribbled-in books, only there would be a lot more stuff in it, academic books I can't afford, out-of-print editions of Renaissance literature, and so forth. Not too many first editions -- most of the stuff that would be in my dream library content-wise is rare enough that it ought not to be in a private collection.
Also it would look like this place and I would have preternatural knowledge of where everything was. (Actually, I don't think it'd be that hard in a private library: I know what my books look like.)