Book meme

[john_amend_all]

Memed from lost_spook

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?

In a strictly literal sense, nearly all of my books have been on my shelves exactly the same amount of time, since I put them all back at the same time last year after redecorating. As for the book that's been in my collection for longest, I've still got a number of Ladybird books from when I was little and so it's probably How It Works: The Motor Car.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you'll read next?

Currently I'm a couple of chapters into Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm, and I've also got a facsimile edition of W. D. Parish's 1875 Dictionary of Sussex Dialect (Fun fact: "Rabbits" was apparently a genuine ejaculation of Sussex yokels). Previous to that (apart from a reread of Mill by David Macaulay, for gen on watermills for my current fanfic) was Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré. Next in the queue is At Bertram's Hotel by Agatha Christie, which I bought today second-hand for the princely sum of £1. I think I've read it before, but so long ago that I've forgotten just about all of it. I did watch the BBC adaptation recently, though.

3. What book did everyone like and you hated?

I don't know about 'everyone', but I wasn't at all impressed with Susan Hill's The Various Haunts of Men, which according to the publisher has 'popular' and 'bestseller' written all over it. I thought that it read like an attempt to imitate P. D. James, with no great success.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you'll read, but you probably won't?

No idea. The closest is probably Armadale by Wilkie Collins, of which I read a chunk and stopped, but I'm self-deluding enough to think that I will eventually finish it.

5. Which book are you saving for "retirement?"

I'm not.

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?

Wait till the end. Usually. I've got better at that since I was ten or so, when I was inclined to skip about cherrypicking scenes.

7. Acknowledgments: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?

They are completely vital. Though I only say that because I'm listed in the acknowledgements of Tanenbaum's Modern Operating Systems, Second Edition...

8. Which book character would you switch places with?

Possibly with a citizen of Clarke's Diaspar or Banks's Culture. But not the protagonists of their respective stories, oh dear me no. Just one of the extras.

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?

Not in that sense. I mean, I can remember rereading Pride and Prejudice after my first day at work, but it's a memory I had to dig for; it doesn't pop up unbidden on later readings.

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.

I won Martin Gardner's Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions at preparatory school, but since the ceremony was somewhat chaotically organised and prizewinners weren't notified in advance, I wasn't actually there at the point it was presented. I turned up shortly afterwards and got pushed up on stage with no idea why. Such is my life.

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?

When my brother rang me up asking how to wire a ceiling rose, I was shocked — I'd read Ron Grace's Home Repairs at the age of six or so, and thought everyone knew how to wire a ceiling rose. So I found another copy on Amazon and bought it for him.

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?

Probably my copy of The Moonstone, which I've taken to read on journeys now and again.

13. Any "required reading" you hated in secondary school that wasn't so bad ten years later?

No idea. If I hated it in secondary school I wouldn't go back to it voluntarily. I don't think there was much I hated, though, except for the poetry. I'm old-fashioned enough to like rhyme and meter.

14. What is the strangest item you've ever found in a book?

Nothing springs to mind in the case of foreign objects. As for content, when my brother and I were tidying up my mother's recipe book many years ago we found a handwritten one containing the non-word 'seasip'. Eventually we worked out that the writer meant 'seasoning' but 'seasip' is too good a word to waste, so it's been my Internet hostname since 1996. Typographically, there's the way the diaresis is used in the Dictionary of Sussex Dialect: rather than over the first letter (däis) or the second (daïs), it sits halfway between them with one dot over each.

15. Used or brand new?

Either.

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?

<vorlon>No.</vorlon>

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?

Not sure if it counts as a movie, but the adaptation of the Inspector Morse novel Last Seen Wearing improves on the rather chaotic book. And adds a happy ending.

18. Conversely, which book should never have been introduced to celluloid?

In general, even if there is a shoddy adaptation *cough*ITV!Marple*cough* there's usually a better one. I shall have to second lost_spook's comment on The Woman in White, though. The radio dramatisation was miles better. (TV Tropes is very down on what happened to The Dark is Rising, but I haven't watched that and don't intend to start now).

19. Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?

Can't remember.

20. Who is the person whose book advice you'll always take?

There is, currently, no such person.

Comments

[john_amend_all]

If I hadn't been watching the Hickson Miss Marples, I'd never have discovered Doctor Who at all. 'nuff said.