Tagged By Mrs. Q
I'm fighting a bit of a headache today or some other sort of yuck that makes me feel, well, you know, yucky. Maybe it's all the Cheetos (we've GOT to get rid of that party food!) Anyway, I was noodling around, reading all my favorite blogs and I noticed that Mrs. Q had tagged me. I do know this is a cop out, as far as posting goes, but I am such a sucker for these things and this one is about BOOKS, so how can that be bad? (Yeah, yeah, famous last words.)
1. Hardcover or paperback, and why? I like both. But when I really love a book and plan on reading it again every year or more until I die, I buy hardcover. I have THREE hardcover copies of Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck.
2. If I were to own a book shop, I would call it... Gak. I have no idea. It would have coffee and yarn and a gazillion books and maybe some places for people to write. Oh, I know, I would call it, "My Living Room." But then I would need a liquor license.
3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title)... See, I have such a hard time with these definitive lists. My brain doesn't work this way. I like the quote from The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better. It's not."
4. The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be... I mean honestly THE author? I'd like to have lunch with Barbara Kingsolver and Elizabeth Berg. Mark Twain. Ayn Rand. Colette. John Steinbeck. Dorothy Parker. Jean Kerr. Anne Tyler. Somerset Maugham... well, you know. Just about any author, ever. Stephanie Pearl McPhee would be really fun.
5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except for the SAS survival guide, it would be… I can't answer this. Well, maybe a scrapbook or something. Wait, I know! How about MY book, so I could relive my children's childhoods and sob over the fact that they clearly don't love me or they would have rescued me by now. Plus, it would make good kindling.
6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that… gently intervened and removed the book from my grasp right before it hit me in the face as I fall asleep reading.
7. The smell of an old book reminds me of... my childhood haunting Half Price Bookstores looking for some rare old book that might be worth much more than I was going to pay for it.
8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title)... Dang. Again with the one choice. I'm not feeling one-choiceish, can you tell? Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind? But there's the whole lack of indoor plumbing and epidurals in that book. Maybe Professor McGonagall from the Harry Potter series. Judging how cats around here are treated, I should very much like to transfigure myself into a cat.
9. The most overestimated book of all times is… I don't know. I can think of lots of books that I didn't think worth the hype and it still makes me shake my head in wonder that some people get book deals when they, hello, have NO TALENT, but I can't think of the most overestimated book of all time because, by definition, it would be a best seller and that means it spoke to a lot of somebodies out there. And maybe I'm just not one of them. I did really, really, really hate Fear of Flying, though.
10. I hate it when a book… doesn't come back to me after I've loaned it out. Get this, I'm STILL mad that I loaned out my hardbound copy of the The Once and Future King when I was a Junior in High School and never got it back. I know you're thinking I should stop loaning my books out but I just can't. When I love a book, I want to share it. And I'm pretty sure that I've stolen enough books from my mom to make up for the ones I've lost through attrition.
I also got tagged by Tiffany to come up with eight little known facts about myself. I'll do that one later. This one was harder than I thought. I know I should tag people but we all have so much pressure on us already... and it's Friday and all. (But you know who you are.)
1. Hardcover or paperback, and why? I like both. But when I really love a book and plan on reading it again every year or more until I die, I buy hardcover. I have THREE hardcover copies of Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck.
2. If I were to own a book shop, I would call it... Gak. I have no idea. It would have coffee and yarn and a gazillion books and maybe some places for people to write. Oh, I know, I would call it, "My Living Room." But then I would need a liquor license.
3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title)... See, I have such a hard time with these definitive lists. My brain doesn't work this way. I like the quote from The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better. It's not."
4. The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be... I mean honestly THE author? I'd like to have lunch with Barbara Kingsolver and Elizabeth Berg. Mark Twain. Ayn Rand. Colette. John Steinbeck. Dorothy Parker. Jean Kerr. Anne Tyler. Somerset Maugham... well, you know. Just about any author, ever. Stephanie Pearl McPhee would be really fun.
5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except for the SAS survival guide, it would be… I can't answer this. Well, maybe a scrapbook or something. Wait, I know! How about MY book, so I could relive my children's childhoods and sob over the fact that they clearly don't love me or they would have rescued me by now. Plus, it would make good kindling.
6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that… gently intervened and removed the book from my grasp right before it hit me in the face as I fall asleep reading.
7. The smell of an old book reminds me of... my childhood haunting Half Price Bookstores looking for some rare old book that might be worth much more than I was going to pay for it.
8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title)... Dang. Again with the one choice. I'm not feeling one-choiceish, can you tell? Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind? But there's the whole lack of indoor plumbing and epidurals in that book. Maybe Professor McGonagall from the Harry Potter series. Judging how cats around here are treated, I should very much like to transfigure myself into a cat.
9. The most overestimated book of all times is… I don't know. I can think of lots of books that I didn't think worth the hype and it still makes me shake my head in wonder that some people get book deals when they, hello, have NO TALENT, but I can't think of the most overestimated book of all time because, by definition, it would be a best seller and that means it spoke to a lot of somebodies out there. And maybe I'm just not one of them. I did really, really, really hate Fear of Flying, though.
10. I hate it when a book… doesn't come back to me after I've loaned it out. Get this, I'm STILL mad that I loaned out my hardbound copy of the The Once and Future King when I was a Junior in High School and never got it back. I know you're thinking I should stop loaning my books out but I just can't. When I love a book, I want to share it. And I'm pretty sure that I've stolen enough books from my mom to make up for the ones I've lost through attrition.
I also got tagged by Tiffany to come up with eight little known facts about myself. I'll do that one later. This one was harder than I thought. I know I should tag people but we all have so much pressure on us already... and it's Friday and all. (But you know who you are.)
Comments
So, Travels With Charley, huh? Liked it that much? Maybe I should read it, then... (A confession? I freakin' hated The Grapes of Wrath. I was also, what, 15 when I read it, but, still...who knew it would come back to haunt me?)
And thank you for quoting the Lorax instead of trying to show off your erudition by quoting War and Peace or some such weighty tome. Very refreshing.
And now, you know, we have ANA. I think she has more books than I do!
I have the OAFK but it's soft cover. I'm going to buy it again in hard cover--cost be damned!
I loved Travels With Charley for many reasons but the biggest is that there are truths in it that come back to me almost daily. It is an amazing craft to write something so simple and so profound that echoes like that occur. And by the way, TWC is written in so much more of a casual chatty tone than Steinbeck's other work (which I also love but not with the same fervor.) I LOVE IT. If you hate it, just don't tell me because it will make me think less of you. I'm sorry about that.