Because I am a slacker on this blog, I bring you a meme! Tonight I will be back with something good. A review of Watership Down! Stay tuned. And until then, read this.

1. What author do you own the most books by?
This would go to either Neil Gaiman or David Foster Wallace.

2. What books do you own the most copies of?
I've downgraded things a bit so I got rid of any multiple copies. There are a few books I've had two copies of... Alice in Wonderland I had in paperback and in my Collected Works of Lewis Carroll. Romeo and Juliet existed on its own and as part of my Collected Works of Shakespeare. I have two copies of Price and Prejudice - one in e-reader and the other in paperback but only because the e-reader copy was free.

3. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
My girl crush on Elphaba from Wicked is certainly no secret. As for others...I definitely went through a Harry Potter phase. And an Edward Cullen phase. But mostly I fall for the fictional characters that my teenage self would have fallen for. I can't think of any amazing male characters I have had crushes on. I'll have to work my way through my bookshelves and find someone.

4. What book have you read more than any other?
Gone With the Wind. I used to read it once a year. It's a thrift store copy, the cover is held on with Scotch tape, it's old and yellowed and I absolutely love it.

5. What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Either Just as Long as We're Together by Judy Blue or A Ring of Endless Light by Madeline L'Engle.

6. What is the worst book you have read in the past year?
Others have been afraid to say, but I am not afraid. The Road. NOTHING HAPPENED. I've heard people say the end was very moving, etc., but one can only be moved if she can actually make it to the end. I did not make it to the end.

7. What is the best book you've read in the past year?
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The characters are exceptional, the story is exceptional, everything about this book is exceptional. The story is moving and I didn't even have to suffer through to the end (which I did anyway, though I'd hardly call it suffering). It's real and gritty and beautiful.

8. If you could tell everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Why are so many of my favorites centered around a war?

9. What is the most difficult book you have ever read?
Infinite Jest. Oh, the footnotes. I had to keep a separate bookmark in that section so I could keep flipping back. The subjects range from grammar to physics to tennis and filmography. The speaker constantly changes and they are all in separate corners of the narrative. It took a long time to read and the ending was abrupt and did not feel final, but it was great and so worth the effort. I think I would read it again. Many years from now.

10. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I would say the Russians.


11. Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Hm...In college I took a Shakespeare class and a Milton class, but never felt a great love for either. I've only read one story from The Canterbury Tales and I don't even remember which one it was...is there a woman from Bath in there? I guess I'll go with Shakespeare based solely on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with Leo and Claire.


12. Austen or Eliot?
Austen. I have never read Eliot. That should have been on my 100 list...

13. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
The Canterbury Tales. Everyone has read The Canterbury Tales. That or The Pilgrim's Progress.

14. What is your favorite novel?
I hate this question. Next!

15. Play?
The Glass Menagerie or A Streetcar Named Desire

16. Poem?
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T.S. Elliot

17. Essay?
I can't remember the title, but it's in David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Funny Thing I'll Never Do Again and it's about fiction writers/television and Joe Briefcase.

18. Non-Fiction?
Does Stephen Colbert's I am America (And So Can You) count as non-fiction?

19. Graphic Novel?
The only graphic novel I have read is Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw. I liked it and if I could be led to more in that vein I would try reading them.

20. Science Fiction?
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

21. Who is your favorite writer?
Neil Gaiman (currently)

22. Who is the most over-rated writer alive today?
See above "worst book read this year" for the answer. Cormac McCarthy. I just don't get the appeal. I hated The Road, I didn't read the book but I hated the movie No Country for Old Men. Two of the most boring stories I have ever encountered. I must be missing some underlying themes or brilliance...

23. What are you reading right now?
The Order of Odd-Fish by James Kennedy, Children of the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries by Laurel Holliday, and whatever I pick up next for my 100 list.

24. Best memoir?
I don't typically read memoirs...though I totally want to read Tori Spelling's books.

25. Best history?
Uh...I need to broaden my reading horizons.

26. Best mystery or noir?
And, see above.