Pretty thing and reading habits meme

[beer_good_foamy]

And yet again I win at life. If life is fic. And only 3rd place. But still, pretty.



still_grrr and xlivvielockex rock in equal amounts.

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Also, here's a meme i stole from zandra_x because if I could figure out a way to inject books directly into my bloodstream, I would. Feel free to pick up on it, anyone who wants.

Paperback, hardback or trade paperback?
Paperback, all the way.

Amazon or brick and mortar?
Usually prefer to go into an actual book store. Internet stores are great and all, but I'll gladly pay a buck extra to have an actual store to browse in.

Barnes & Noble or Borders
Don't have either here.

Bookmark or dog-ear?
Dog-ear, of course. Upper corner to remember where I am, lower corner for pages I want to go back to. Not dog-earing is like buying a brand new pair of shoes and only wearing them indoors for fear of them getting dirty.

Favorite place to read?
Armchair.

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random?
Author. Officially. In practice, they usually pile all over the place awaiting the semi-annual Feast Of Sorting.

Keep, throw away, or sell?
Keep or give away. The only book I can remember actually throwing out is Alan Warner's Morvern Callar, which really sucked.

Keep dust jacket or toss it?
Keep, of course.

Read with dust jacket or remove it?
With.

Short story or novel?
Nothing against short stories, but 9 times out of 10 I prefer novels.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?
Neither. I don't read children's books. ;-) I read the first HP and saw no reason to continue.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?
Usually at chapter breaks. Or when I'm so tired I really can't understand a single sentence.

"It was a dark and stormy night" or "Once upon a time"?
"Once upon a time", if those are the options.

Buy or borrow?
Used to live at the library. Now I have a paycheck and am building my own. Buy.

New or used?
Absolutely nothing against used books, but since I mostly read paperback, I usually buy new books – don't want them falling apart before I'm done.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendations, or browse?
All three, really. I'm a member of a couple of literature forums and get a lot of tips from them.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger?
Neither. An open ending – which is usually what I prefer – is not a cliffhanger. (Hear that, NFA detractors?)

Morning reading, afternoon reading, or nighttime reading?
Morning reading, afternoon reading, AND nighttime reading.

Stand-alone or series?
Stand-alone. Most series are in genre fiction, which I don't really read all that much of.

Favorite series?
King's Dark Tower or Pratchett's Discworld, I suppose.

Favorite children's book?
Hmmm... probably the Winnie the Pooh books.

Favorite YA book?
Astrid Lindgren's Brothers Lionheart.

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?
Beware of God by Shalom Auslander.

Favorite books read last year?
The Disappointment Artist/Jonathan Lethem, Lolita/Vladimir Nabokov, Foucault's Pendulum/Umberto Eco, Lighthousekeeping/Jeanette Winterson.

Least favorite book you finished last year?
Cell/Stephen King. Love the guy, but this was awful.

What are you reading right now?
The Road, Cormac McCarthy. Pretty good so far, Oprah endorsement notwithstanding.

What are you reading next?
Something without cannibalism and apocalypse in it. Between McCarthy, Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, Palahniuk's Haunted and Meek's The People's Act of Love, my quota on human flesh and megadeath has been filled for a few months.

Favorite book to recommend to an eleven-year-old?
Same answer as to the question "What book would you recommend a 43-year-old?": Depends on what they like to read.

Favorite book to reread?
Today, probably Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. But if we go by which book I have reread the most times... Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Do you ever smell books?
I've been known to sniff out the last copy of a particular book in a whole town, does that count?

Do you ever read primary source documents?
I read interviews and the like before writing articles, does that count?

Comments

[shinodabear.livejournal.com]

Congrats on winning at life (of course fic is life!)

Do you ever smell books?

*g* Only a booklover could ever seriously answer that question. I love it.

if I could figure out a way to inject books directly into my bloodstream, I would

Books. The next wonder-drug. :)

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Books. The next wonder-drug. :)

Hmmm... I suppose theoretically one could smoke books, but that would mean setting fire to them. And that's just something I refuse to do. But maybe if I find the text online and print out and shred and... OK, I definitely need coffe now.

[xlivvielockex.livejournal.com]

Well, you did win first place last week. LOL You can't win every single week, even if I did think your story was the most awesome. I told Sarah that if you didn't win something for that, I was going to have to really examine the votes more closely.

And don't you win something every week? You whiner. LOL Anyway, I am stealing your book meme. You won back some of the Pynchon points you lost with saying you have reread Hitch-hiker's the most. I have Cell on my to-read list but I might not now since you said it was no good. That is a shame.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I have Cell on my to-read list but I might not now since you said it was no good. That is a shame.

Just for you, here's a small RP fic to describe the origin of Cell:

It is a dark and stormy night. In his big house in Maine, Stephen King is bored. He hasn't written a novel in three days. Restless, he walks into his living room and picks a random DVD out of his shelf: Dawn of the Dead, the original George Romero version. He pops it in the player, watches it, strokes his bearded chin.

"Hmmmm."

Still restless, he walks into his extensive library searching for something not-too-heavy but still deep. He picks Richard Matheson's I Am Legend from the shelf and leafs through it. He strokes his bearded chin.

"Hmmmm."

He has an idea. He brings both DVD and book with him into the kitchen, stick both of them in the food processor and shreds them for a few minutes. He dips a spoon in and tastes.

"Hmmmm. Lacks that special King touch."

He goes into his study, grabs The Stand and The Tommyknockers, rips a few pages from each and adds to his mix. He dips a spoon in and tastes.

"Hmmmm. Needs a little something... Oh!"

Working quickly now, he sits down at his computer and types out a few pages on cell phones and computer viruses loosely based on something he saw on CNN a few years ago. Adds them to the mix. He dips a spoon in and tastes.

"Aaaaaah! Perfect!"

The result is a paper-dry morality tale, with a few sharp splinters of DVD in it to make the reader go "OW! What the hell, Steve?" and recycled characters who have had all but one dimension cut off. A cover version of greater works, with almost nothing to recommend it.

[xlivvielockex.livejournal.com]

LMGDAO. That was the funniest thing ever. Do you mind if I show this to diseased_inside She is a huge King fan but I know she will get a kick out of this. If it cracked me up, she will be falling over laughing.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Absolutely don't mind at all!

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I prefer brick and mortar too -- but I never dogear -- I've got a thing about not bending the pages, even on magazines. On the other hand, I can never seem to find my official bookmarks, and I end up throwing in whatever happens to be at hand at the moment. Half the time it's junk mail of Kleenex!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I think what convinced me to stick with dog ears was when I used an unpaid phone bill as a bookmark... then I finished the book, put the book on the shelf, and found the bill 2 months later. After paying the late fee, I decided dog ears are at least free. :-)

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Eek -- yeah, that sounds exactly like something I'd do.