![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Crazy weekend--D's uncle, a retired professor of Old Testament theology, who can best be described as Faulknerian, passed away, so we spent multiple days dealing with that.
Also, I am about to kick off a doc sprint with a team located primarily in India, so we're looking at meetings all week at 10 pm my time. Good thoughts appreciated!
I saw this float by & thought it looked like fun--because books are always fun, right?
1. Favourite childhood book?
The Wizard of Oz -- I can still remember the morning when I realized I'd read hundreds of pages (I think I was in 2nd grade) and then being overjoyed that there were more books about Oz. (L. Frank Baum wrote 14 books and a wonderful, wonderful children's librarian got me almost all of them that year. Last year, someone put them all together in one omnibus Kindle edition with TOC that goes across them all--I almost sprained my wrist getting it, I was moving so fast.)
The books that I have hunted down for my kids (and re-read along with them) include The Twenty-One Balloons (William Pene duBois) and The Mad Scientists Club (Brinley/Greer). (They sort of explain the engineering and steampunk, don't they?) Looking back now, Gone-Away Lake and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler were both giant influences. And I can't not mention Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden, because a geek's got to have her intrepid girl-detective role models, right?
2. What are you reading right now?
To Say Nothing of the Dog (Connie Willis), Invincible Iron Man (Fraction/Larocca)
3. What books do you have on request at the library?
I'm still clearing up the overly-optimistic stack I took along on vacation, so all I have now is All Clear, by Connie Willis
4. Bad book habit?
I leave them everywhere and then can't find them and have to refrain from buying them again.
5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
These are the leftovers from the Beach Week stack:
To Say Nothing of the Dog (Willis)
Blackout (Willis)
Invincible Iron Man, Vol 1 (Fraction/Larocca)
The Barefoot Contessa Foolproof (Garten)
6. Do you have an e-reader?
Yes, an iPad.
7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?
I generally have something fiction and something non-fiction going at the same time, plus a cookbook or two.
8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
Blogging has had less impact on my reading habits than having kids did, so I'm gonna go with a No on this one.
9. Least favourite book you read this year (so far?)
That I finished? A Royal Pain -- I kept expecting it to get better and it never did and then I kept reading just to see how bad it could get. I went off on it here on goodreads. Also, #2Son was reading the Modernists this year for his lit class and I'd actually manage to forget how little I enjoy 1984.
10. Favourite book you've read this year?
Favorite that I haven't read before? I think I'm going with A Spear of Summer Grass (Raybourn). I've re-read Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion this year, too, so there's that.
11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
I'll try things, but seriously, I have enough stuff pushing me out of my comfort zone in my life, I don't need reading to be one of them. I read *to* comfort myself from things I can't control but have to deal with regardless, things like my mother's cancer and my father's depression and my kids' health issues.
12. What is your reading comfort zone?
Romance novels, graphic novels, fantasy, non-fiction science and history, cookbooks, sci fi, historical fiction, YA, biography
13. Can you read on the bus?
I can (in that I don't get carsick) and I used to when I lived in DC, but now my commute is by car, so no joy there.
14. Favourite place to read?
In bed. But I will hold a book with one hand while stirring risotto with the other, so take that under advisement.
15. What is your policy on book lending?
I send books out into the wild all the time. If they come back, great; if not, and I'm suddenly struck by a need to read them, I'll find them again somehow.
16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
All the time.
17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
Rarely. Not out of any opposition to marking books, but more because I'm not just reading, I'm there, *in* the book, and to start taking notes would bring me *out* of the book. I'll make notes in cookbooks, but rarely in anything else.
18. Not even with text books?
Textbooks count like cookbooks.
19. What is your favourite language to read in?
English.
20. What makes you love a book?
A terrific story and no editing issues. Also, a tight third-person-limited POV done well enough that I know and understand all the characters not only as the POV character sees them, but how they are themselves, makes me swoon. But mostly I just want a good story. I don't care how beautiful the writing is, I will bail if nothing's happening.
21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
I try not to recommend books -- I will freely talk about how much I did or didn't like something, but what pings me might not do anything for anyone else. (Except for my mom--I know what she likes, so I can judge whether or not she'd go for something.)
22. Favourite genre?
Romance, though I am currently in some kind of a historical cozy mystery phase.
23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)
If I don't read it, it's because I don't care.
24. Favourite biography?
Richard the Third (Kendall) -- Between Game of Thrones parallels to the War of the Roses and the archeological discovery last fall, I went back and re-read this one and it's still very satisfying to me. And I have to give a shout-out to Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout (Redniss), purely for the graphic novel format (and the general overall attention to detail.)
25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
More than one, even.
26. Favourite cookbook?
How about favorites? Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours; Julia Child's The Way to Cook; Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything; Cook's Illustrated The Best Recipe. I still have a fond spot for The Silver Palate cookbooks, because they were the first ones I bought back in the 80s when I was just figuring out how much I loved to experiment and cook and how I didn't have to be stuck in horrible, bland suburbia.
27. Most inspirational book you've read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?
?? I'll go with The Art of Possibility (Zander/Zander)
28. Favourite reading snack?
This implies that there is a process/production to my reading, when it is usually just whenever I get a couple of minutes.
29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
By the time I get around to reading things, any hype they might have had swirling about them is loooooong gone.
30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
Hah, most critics don't touch anything I read, so I don't have to worry about that.
31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
I'm mostly talking about how something did or didn't work for me, so I don't know if that counts as a review.
32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you choose?
Spanish seems to be the most practical. I can still read well enough in German, but oy, they're so depressing.
33. Most intimidating book you've ever read?
Intimidating? Really? I save being intimidated for having to tell an executive VP that he's wrong. That being said, I'm guessing something Russian. Or possibly something Faulkner. I probably enjoyed the Faulkner more than I did the Russian.
34. Most intimidating book you're too nervous to begin?
I think these slide right under my radar; I don't particularly want to read them. Also, nervous? I'm nervous about whether or not I'm going to have a job next month, not whether or not I'm "smart" enough to read Dostoevsky.
35. Favourite poet?
I'm not even sure I could name a poet.
36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
4-6
37. How often have you returned a book to the library unread?
All the time. Either the hold timing gets wonky and I end up with 10 books all at once, or I'll not be in the mood for the genre when the hold comes in, or I start it and realize 3 weeks later that I've only read 15 pages, which is a clear sign that it's not meant to be.
38. Favourite fictional character?
Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables), Scout Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird), Jean Grey (X-Men, original comicsverse, yes, I'm old), Vicky Bliss (from Elizabeth Peters' novels--she hit right in my formative years, when it was awesome to have a female character with her doctorate running around Europe and Italy, solving crimes and bantering with British art forgers), Sophy Stanton-Lacy (The Grand Sophy).
39. Favourite fictional villain?
I guess the Joker doesn't count, right? Um, Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca (she creeped me out to the point of nightmares when I first read it as a teenager); Tom Ripley (The Talented Mr. Ripley) made my blood run cold. On a lighter note, Amelia Peabody's nemesis, The Master Criminal, was fun (at least at first.)
40. Books I'm most likely to bring on vacation?
That used to be such a dilemma--I'd spend weeks debating what to bring, how much they weighed, how much space they took up. Now, it's whatever I feel like and if I change my mind in the middle, I can download something new. And I read what I read, so it’s not like I save up my light reads for vacation or anything.
41. The longest I've gone without reading.
I read constantly for work, and I always have magazines and journals in the car for sports practice sessions/doctor office waits/etc, so a day? Maybe?
42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.
I don't finish books all the time.
43. What distracts you easily when you're reading?
If I was distracted easily, I'd never get anything read. So, people coming to talk to me or needing something from me, or otherwise interrupting me are the only things that distract me.
44. Favourite film adaptation of a novel?
To Kill A Mockingbird, though I have much love and admiration for The Lord of the Rings.
45. Most disappointing film adaptation?
In a world of disappointing film adaptations, nothing can hold a candle to the disaster of Dune.
46. The most money I've ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
I won't count buying textbooks--math and engineering textbooks are hideously expensive--so, probably about $150 to snag Gaiman's Sandman series in trade paperbacks.
47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?
Not at all. I don't even really download the Kindle first chapters. I try to get books from the library so I can read and stop if it's not working for me without the monetary risk.
48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
It's not working for me. Either I actively dislike the characters or I can't care less about them or nothing's happening. (or, in the case of Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, because I knew what was happening 10 pages into the novel, no matter that my non-sci-fi friends kept telling me it was so perfect for me because it was so "astonishing". Yes, it was beautifully written but any sci-fi fan knew what was up the second the protagonist said she was about to become a "donor.")
49. Do you like to keep your books organized?
Hah, I'm lucky if they get *near* a bookshelf, ,much less organized.
50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you've read them?
If I've bought the book, it's generally because I've already read and enjoyed it, so I keep them. On the other hand, I do go through and weed out my shelves/piles once a year for the Friends of the Library sale. And if someone sees something they'd like to borrow, they're welcome to do so.
51. Are there any books you've been avoiding?
Not avoiding, no, but there are soooo many I don't even care about.
52. Name a book that made you angry.
The Bell Jar (Plath), mostly because this was the only female author we read in high school and seriously? It had to Plath and how depressed and hopeless she (and therefore, women) are? If I wanted that, I'd go talk to my cousins.
53. A book you didn't expect to like but did?
Harry Potter -- I started reading them out loud because Oldest wasn't quite capable of reading them on his own at the time but desperately wanted to keep up with his older friends and both of us were sucked in.
54. A book that you expected to like but didn't?
The Historian (Kostova) - The hardback (!) sits on a shelf and mocks me to this day.
55. Favourite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
The same as my favorites. No guilt in reading!
Also, I am about to kick off a doc sprint with a team located primarily in India, so we're looking at meetings all week at 10 pm my time. Good thoughts appreciated!
I saw this float by & thought it looked like fun--because books are always fun, right?
1. Favourite childhood book?
The Wizard of Oz -- I can still remember the morning when I realized I'd read hundreds of pages (I think I was in 2nd grade) and then being overjoyed that there were more books about Oz. (L. Frank Baum wrote 14 books and a wonderful, wonderful children's librarian got me almost all of them that year. Last year, someone put them all together in one omnibus Kindle edition with TOC that goes across them all--I almost sprained my wrist getting it, I was moving so fast.)
The books that I have hunted down for my kids (and re-read along with them) include The Twenty-One Balloons (William Pene duBois) and The Mad Scientists Club (Brinley/Greer). (They sort of explain the engineering and steampunk, don't they?) Looking back now, Gone-Away Lake and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler were both giant influences. And I can't not mention Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden, because a geek's got to have her intrepid girl-detective role models, right?
2. What are you reading right now?
To Say Nothing of the Dog (Connie Willis), Invincible Iron Man (Fraction/Larocca)
3. What books do you have on request at the library?
I'm still clearing up the overly-optimistic stack I took along on vacation, so all I have now is All Clear, by Connie Willis
4. Bad book habit?
I leave them everywhere and then can't find them and have to refrain from buying them again.
5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
These are the leftovers from the Beach Week stack:
To Say Nothing of the Dog (Willis)
Blackout (Willis)
Invincible Iron Man, Vol 1 (Fraction/Larocca)
The Barefoot Contessa Foolproof (Garten)
6. Do you have an e-reader?
Yes, an iPad.
7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?
I generally have something fiction and something non-fiction going at the same time, plus a cookbook or two.
8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
Blogging has had less impact on my reading habits than having kids did, so I'm gonna go with a No on this one.
9. Least favourite book you read this year (so far?)
That I finished? A Royal Pain -- I kept expecting it to get better and it never did and then I kept reading just to see how bad it could get. I went off on it here on goodreads. Also, #2Son was reading the Modernists this year for his lit class and I'd actually manage to forget how little I enjoy 1984.
10. Favourite book you've read this year?
Favorite that I haven't read before? I think I'm going with A Spear of Summer Grass (Raybourn). I've re-read Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion this year, too, so there's that.
11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
I'll try things, but seriously, I have enough stuff pushing me out of my comfort zone in my life, I don't need reading to be one of them. I read *to* comfort myself from things I can't control but have to deal with regardless, things like my mother's cancer and my father's depression and my kids' health issues.
12. What is your reading comfort zone?
Romance novels, graphic novels, fantasy, non-fiction science and history, cookbooks, sci fi, historical fiction, YA, biography
13. Can you read on the bus?
I can (in that I don't get carsick) and I used to when I lived in DC, but now my commute is by car, so no joy there.
14. Favourite place to read?
In bed. But I will hold a book with one hand while stirring risotto with the other, so take that under advisement.
15. What is your policy on book lending?
I send books out into the wild all the time. If they come back, great; if not, and I'm suddenly struck by a need to read them, I'll find them again somehow.
16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
All the time.
17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
Rarely. Not out of any opposition to marking books, but more because I'm not just reading, I'm there, *in* the book, and to start taking notes would bring me *out* of the book. I'll make notes in cookbooks, but rarely in anything else.
18. Not even with text books?
Textbooks count like cookbooks.
19. What is your favourite language to read in?
English.
20. What makes you love a book?
A terrific story and no editing issues. Also, a tight third-person-limited POV done well enough that I know and understand all the characters not only as the POV character sees them, but how they are themselves, makes me swoon. But mostly I just want a good story. I don't care how beautiful the writing is, I will bail if nothing's happening.
21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
I try not to recommend books -- I will freely talk about how much I did or didn't like something, but what pings me might not do anything for anyone else. (Except for my mom--I know what she likes, so I can judge whether or not she'd go for something.)
22. Favourite genre?
Romance, though I am currently in some kind of a historical cozy mystery phase.
23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)
If I don't read it, it's because I don't care.
24. Favourite biography?
Richard the Third (Kendall) -- Between Game of Thrones parallels to the War of the Roses and the archeological discovery last fall, I went back and re-read this one and it's still very satisfying to me. And I have to give a shout-out to Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout (Redniss), purely for the graphic novel format (and the general overall attention to detail.)
25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
More than one, even.
26. Favourite cookbook?
How about favorites? Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours; Julia Child's The Way to Cook; Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything; Cook's Illustrated The Best Recipe. I still have a fond spot for The Silver Palate cookbooks, because they were the first ones I bought back in the 80s when I was just figuring out how much I loved to experiment and cook and how I didn't have to be stuck in horrible, bland suburbia.
27. Most inspirational book you've read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?
?? I'll go with The Art of Possibility (Zander/Zander)
28. Favourite reading snack?
This implies that there is a process/production to my reading, when it is usually just whenever I get a couple of minutes.
29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
By the time I get around to reading things, any hype they might have had swirling about them is loooooong gone.
30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
Hah, most critics don't touch anything I read, so I don't have to worry about that.
31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
I'm mostly talking about how something did or didn't work for me, so I don't know if that counts as a review.
32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you choose?
Spanish seems to be the most practical. I can still read well enough in German, but oy, they're so depressing.
33. Most intimidating book you've ever read?
Intimidating? Really? I save being intimidated for having to tell an executive VP that he's wrong. That being said, I'm guessing something Russian. Or possibly something Faulkner. I probably enjoyed the Faulkner more than I did the Russian.
34. Most intimidating book you're too nervous to begin?
I think these slide right under my radar; I don't particularly want to read them. Also, nervous? I'm nervous about whether or not I'm going to have a job next month, not whether or not I'm "smart" enough to read Dostoevsky.
35. Favourite poet?
I'm not even sure I could name a poet.
36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
4-6
37. How often have you returned a book to the library unread?
All the time. Either the hold timing gets wonky and I end up with 10 books all at once, or I'll not be in the mood for the genre when the hold comes in, or I start it and realize 3 weeks later that I've only read 15 pages, which is a clear sign that it's not meant to be.
38. Favourite fictional character?
Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables), Scout Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird), Jean Grey (X-Men, original comicsverse, yes, I'm old), Vicky Bliss (from Elizabeth Peters' novels--she hit right in my formative years, when it was awesome to have a female character with her doctorate running around Europe and Italy, solving crimes and bantering with British art forgers), Sophy Stanton-Lacy (The Grand Sophy).
39. Favourite fictional villain?
I guess the Joker doesn't count, right? Um, Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca (she creeped me out to the point of nightmares when I first read it as a teenager); Tom Ripley (The Talented Mr. Ripley) made my blood run cold. On a lighter note, Amelia Peabody's nemesis, The Master Criminal, was fun (at least at first.)
40. Books I'm most likely to bring on vacation?
That used to be such a dilemma--I'd spend weeks debating what to bring, how much they weighed, how much space they took up. Now, it's whatever I feel like and if I change my mind in the middle, I can download something new. And I read what I read, so it’s not like I save up my light reads for vacation or anything.
41. The longest I've gone without reading.
I read constantly for work, and I always have magazines and journals in the car for sports practice sessions/doctor office waits/etc, so a day? Maybe?
42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.
I don't finish books all the time.
43. What distracts you easily when you're reading?
If I was distracted easily, I'd never get anything read. So, people coming to talk to me or needing something from me, or otherwise interrupting me are the only things that distract me.
44. Favourite film adaptation of a novel?
To Kill A Mockingbird, though I have much love and admiration for The Lord of the Rings.
45. Most disappointing film adaptation?
In a world of disappointing film adaptations, nothing can hold a candle to the disaster of Dune.
46. The most money I've ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
I won't count buying textbooks--math and engineering textbooks are hideously expensive--so, probably about $150 to snag Gaiman's Sandman series in trade paperbacks.
47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?
Not at all. I don't even really download the Kindle first chapters. I try to get books from the library so I can read and stop if it's not working for me without the monetary risk.
48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
It's not working for me. Either I actively dislike the characters or I can't care less about them or nothing's happening. (or, in the case of Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, because I knew what was happening 10 pages into the novel, no matter that my non-sci-fi friends kept telling me it was so perfect for me because it was so "astonishing". Yes, it was beautifully written but any sci-fi fan knew what was up the second the protagonist said she was about to become a "donor.")
49. Do you like to keep your books organized?
Hah, I'm lucky if they get *near* a bookshelf, ,much less organized.
50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you've read them?
If I've bought the book, it's generally because I've already read and enjoyed it, so I keep them. On the other hand, I do go through and weed out my shelves/piles once a year for the Friends of the Library sale. And if someone sees something they'd like to borrow, they're welcome to do so.
51. Are there any books you've been avoiding?
Not avoiding, no, but there are soooo many I don't even care about.
52. Name a book that made you angry.
The Bell Jar (Plath), mostly because this was the only female author we read in high school and seriously? It had to Plath and how depressed and hopeless she (and therefore, women) are? If I wanted that, I'd go talk to my cousins.
53. A book you didn't expect to like but did?
Harry Potter -- I started reading them out loud because Oldest wasn't quite capable of reading them on his own at the time but desperately wanted to keep up with his older friends and both of us were sucked in.
54. A book that you expected to like but didn't?
The Historian (Kostova) - The hardback (!) sits on a shelf and mocks me to this day.
55. Favourite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
The same as my favorites. No guilt in reading!
no subject
no subject
no subject
You read Georgette Heyer!!!! :-) I read all of them by the time I was 16, and still take one to a beach on occasion.
no subject
I love the style enough that I actually wrote a Regency slash RPF Big Bang a couple of years ago. I had spreadsheets to keep track of people's horses/carriages/regiments/favorite card games and plotted out where everyone lived (I found a map of London circa 1800 that went down to the street numbers--there were mad IMs about where the Dowager Countess grandmother would live as opposed to the young and fashionable Marchionness BFF, etc, etc, etc.) I don't know how good the whole thing ended up being objectively, but I had a screamingly good time writing it.