The Crazy Book Lady
24/10/2020 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaBack to the books
Book meme stolen from Catness
11. Do you prefer to read at a certain time of day?
Any time of day is always a good time to read but now that I am getting on in years, I find it much easier to read in natural daylight
12. Do you need to finish a book before you can move on to the next one, or will you have multiple books going at once?
I usually have 2 or 3 books going at the same time. One is usually a novel that I read when out and about or waiting in queues or at bus stops and others books I read at home because they are too big or awkward to carry around
13. How do you chose which book to read next?
There is only one rule that is almost non negotiable - if there is a movie of a book I would like to read, I will read the book before going to see the movie
Otherwise there are no real rules. But sometimes I make them up as I go along
Three weeks ago I had decided that the next book on my list was going to be “The Librarian of Auschwitz” I had it in my bag and everything. But the very same day I was distracted by the contents of a Little Library including a David Baldacci potboiler from 1996 called Absolute Power about a definitely dodgy USA president and an honest crook
Apart from thinking that in the light of the last four years, the appalling acts of Mr Baldacci’s presidential creation now seem so adorably quaint, I figured it would be fun to read in the run up to a certain election. The librarian can wait until 9th November which is of course a rather infamous anniversary
14. What is your favourite children’s book?
Before the invitation letters to Hogwarts, there were the 5 golden tickets from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
I read that book countless times and always dreamed of winning that ticket
I loved the drawings, the snark, the sense of fun and all the awful things that happened to the horrid kids
I also loved The Lorax and the Grinch who stole Christmas
Amazing artwork, more snark and wonderful language
15. Do you agree that Jane Eyre should be considered a feminist novel?
I’m pleading the fifth on this one because I have never read it
16. What’s your favourite of Shakespeare’s plays?
Definitely MacBeth. It has the best lines, wicked witches and my favourite theme ever - the nature of power and how it corrupts those who pursue it
I also loved the Ian McKellan version of Richard 3rd both as a movie and play
17. Do you know any poetry by heart?
There was lots of poetry that I used to know. In school we had to learn a lot of Shakespeare sonnets and assorted selections from Hamlet
Then there was W B Yeats and Emily Dickinson who was my favourite
The W B Yeats poem "The Second Coming" is the source of so many brilliant but creepy one liners and I have thought more often of this one poem than any other in the last 4 years as summing up the times so perfectly
I also learned Paul Celan’s “Todesfuge” which seriously creeped me out the first time I heard it and that was BEFORE paying much attention to the words. It got even creepier when I listened closely
18. Did you enjoy the Hunger Games?
‘Enjoy’ seems a rather inappropriate word. But it was the first time since the Potters that I became obsessed with a fictional world and actually bought the books at the time at almost full price because I didn’t want to wait like I usually do
I had originally assumed that it was a television reality TV show where the contestants go on diets and get drastic plastic surgery so had not paid too much attention to it
That was until the first movie came along with the attendant juggernaut of publicity
When I finally heard the basic premise of the story, I could not help but of the Satanic Panic about how the Potter books were leading kids into witchcraft.
Now some 30 years later there was a series of books with the premise that a government does not just sanction but decrees the deaths of children in a televised game show and no one bats an eyelid. How times have changed
At the time the movie came out, I was confronting the issue of wondering if it is possible to survive in a dog eat dog culture and still somehow manage to maintain some semblance of decency and integrity without being a doormat or becoming dinner
Unlike Katniss Everdeen, at least I had the option of escaping
PS Panem has the best national anthem ever.
19. E-reader or traditional book?
I can see the advantages of e-readers - lots and lots of bulky books stored on one device with the ability to change the font size at will and much cheaper and quicker to buy content than with traditional tree based tomes
But I am such a luddite. Even when I did have a book such as Alice in Wonderland on a device, I would invariably prefer to read the paper version
Unless using a Kindle or some device specifically for the purpose of reading, I find a tablet is too tedious. By the time you turn it on, go to the app, pick a book and find your page, the bus has already turned up. And of course there are always the distractions of Twitter, Youtube and all sorts of online stuff
My tablet died last year and since I now have Petunia’s old iPad, I really cannot justify getting another tablet just for reading books.
20. Do you read in the bathroom?
British bathroom? Hell no. The books might get wet
American bathroom - also known as loo - usually only newspapers or magazines or really crappy books
Book meme stolen from Catness
11. Do you prefer to read at a certain time of day?
Any time of day is always a good time to read but now that I am getting on in years, I find it much easier to read in natural daylight
12. Do you need to finish a book before you can move on to the next one, or will you have multiple books going at once?
I usually have 2 or 3 books going at the same time. One is usually a novel that I read when out and about or waiting in queues or at bus stops and others books I read at home because they are too big or awkward to carry around
13. How do you chose which book to read next?
There is only one rule that is almost non negotiable - if there is a movie of a book I would like to read, I will read the book before going to see the movie
Otherwise there are no real rules. But sometimes I make them up as I go along
Three weeks ago I had decided that the next book on my list was going to be “The Librarian of Auschwitz” I had it in my bag and everything. But the very same day I was distracted by the contents of a Little Library including a David Baldacci potboiler from 1996 called Absolute Power about a definitely dodgy USA president and an honest crook
Apart from thinking that in the light of the last four years, the appalling acts of Mr Baldacci’s presidential creation now seem so adorably quaint, I figured it would be fun to read in the run up to a certain election. The librarian can wait until 9th November which is of course a rather infamous anniversary
14. What is your favourite children’s book?
Before the invitation letters to Hogwarts, there were the 5 golden tickets from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
I read that book countless times and always dreamed of winning that ticket
I loved the drawings, the snark, the sense of fun and all the awful things that happened to the horrid kids
I also loved The Lorax and the Grinch who stole Christmas
Amazing artwork, more snark and wonderful language
15. Do you agree that Jane Eyre should be considered a feminist novel?
I’m pleading the fifth on this one because I have never read it
16. What’s your favourite of Shakespeare’s plays?
Definitely MacBeth. It has the best lines, wicked witches and my favourite theme ever - the nature of power and how it corrupts those who pursue it
I also loved the Ian McKellan version of Richard 3rd both as a movie and play
17. Do you know any poetry by heart?
There was lots of poetry that I used to know. In school we had to learn a lot of Shakespeare sonnets and assorted selections from Hamlet
Then there was W B Yeats and Emily Dickinson who was my favourite
The W B Yeats poem "The Second Coming" is the source of so many brilliant but creepy one liners and I have thought more often of this one poem than any other in the last 4 years as summing up the times so perfectly
I also learned Paul Celan’s “Todesfuge” which seriously creeped me out the first time I heard it and that was BEFORE paying much attention to the words. It got even creepier when I listened closely
18. Did you enjoy the Hunger Games?
‘Enjoy’ seems a rather inappropriate word. But it was the first time since the Potters that I became obsessed with a fictional world and actually bought the books at the time at almost full price because I didn’t want to wait like I usually do
I had originally assumed that it was a television reality TV show where the contestants go on diets and get drastic plastic surgery so had not paid too much attention to it
That was until the first movie came along with the attendant juggernaut of publicity
When I finally heard the basic premise of the story, I could not help but of the Satanic Panic about how the Potter books were leading kids into witchcraft.
Now some 30 years later there was a series of books with the premise that a government does not just sanction but decrees the deaths of children in a televised game show and no one bats an eyelid. How times have changed
At the time the movie came out, I was confronting the issue of wondering if it is possible to survive in a dog eat dog culture and still somehow manage to maintain some semblance of decency and integrity without being a doormat or becoming dinner
Unlike Katniss Everdeen, at least I had the option of escaping
PS Panem has the best national anthem ever.
19. E-reader or traditional book?
I can see the advantages of e-readers - lots and lots of bulky books stored on one device with the ability to change the font size at will and much cheaper and quicker to buy content than with traditional tree based tomes
But I am such a luddite. Even when I did have a book such as Alice in Wonderland on a device, I would invariably prefer to read the paper version
Unless using a Kindle or some device specifically for the purpose of reading, I find a tablet is too tedious. By the time you turn it on, go to the app, pick a book and find your page, the bus has already turned up. And of course there are always the distractions of Twitter, Youtube and all sorts of online stuff
My tablet died last year and since I now have Petunia’s old iPad, I really cannot justify getting another tablet just for reading books.
20. Do you read in the bathroom?
British bathroom? Hell no. The books might get wet
American bathroom - also known as loo - usually only newspapers or magazines or really crappy books
