grabbed from lathaina

Favourite Type(s) of Books:
In sheer numbers ... general literary fiction, 19th century and Modernist.

Least Favourite Type(s) of Books:
Ones printed on cheap paper pages that tear if you breathe on them too harshly.

The book(s) currently on your bedside table:
Industry and Ethos, a book about Scottish history, Molloy, Malone Dies, ( Read more... )

Day 30 - What book are you reading right now?

The Dyer's Hand, a book of essays by W.H. Auden. I'm only through the preface and "Making, Knowing and Judging". The lack of Oxford commas is putting me off a bit.

In other news, that's the book meme done. Now I suppose I'm going to have to get a life, so's I have something to post about.

( Days 1-30 )

Saddest character death OR best/most satisfying character death (or both!)
( Spoilers (Inspector Morse) )

Day 28 - First favorite book or series obsession

Horatio Hornblower, which my dad introduced me to at eleven or twelve. Sort of the perfect age for Hornblower, because you're just descending into the depths of awkwardness yourself, and the man is a ball of social anxiety wrapped in His Majesty's flying colours. I never learned exactly what a mizzen ( Read more... )

If a book contains ______, you will always read it (and a book or books that contain it)!

Inspector Morse
or
teh gay
or
19th century science fiction

( Days 1-30 )

OMG WTF? OR most irritating/awful/annoying book ending

This is cliche, but The Mill on the Floss. Over the course of the novel George Eliot sets up this difficult tug over Maggie Tulliver's soul: adhering to society's expectations or acting true to herself, as it were. A forced elopement with Stephen Guest has made her an outcast of sorts, so it's ( Read more... )

Any five books from your "to be read" stack:

Reflections on the Revolution in France. Edmund Burke is glowering at me, he suspects I might have Jacobin sympathies.
The City & The City, China Mieville
The Devil in Amber, Mark Gatiss
Molloy, Samuel Beckett
Malone Dies, Samuel Beckett.

Waking up when it's still dark. Blah.

( Days 1-30 )

Best quote from a novel:

"Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of ( Read more... )

Most annoying character ever: Victor Frankenstein, Frankenstein. "I will be with you on your wedding night!" says the Creature. "Oh, whatever can he mean? I think I'll marry anyway," says Victor. "Whinge, whinge, I'm in the Arctic."

( Days 1-30 )

Favorite non-sexual relationship (including asexual romantic relationships):

Charles and James Arrowby, The Sea, The Sea (Iris Murdoch).

They're cousins and always engaged in unvoiced competition (on Charles's side). They've got this cask of shared childhood memories, but they don't really know each other at all. James Arrowby is written with so ( Read more... )