Books, Books, Books
I was sent a book meme a few months ago, with questions about my favorite books and authors. It was tough then, it’s tough now. So I’m going to do it (with some additional questions), but only with books I’ve read this year. (I’m not passing it on to anyone. If you want to use this meme, take the questions and use them on your own blog and feel free to post the link in the comments section.)
A book that made you laugh: Naked, by David Sedaris
A book that made you cry: I didn’t cry, but got close with The Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
A book you’ve read more than once: Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott
A book you’d take on a desert island: How to Survive on a Desert Island (the Dummies version).
A book that’s helped you personally: Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom
A book that’s helped you professionally: Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg
A book you wish you’d written: Maximum City, by Suketu Mehta
A book that was your favorite as a kid: The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis. I devoured anything by Enid Blyton, too.
A book you wouldn’t want to admit you love: The Promise, by Danielle Steel (my all-time favorite love story).
A book that disappointed you: The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold (the icky sex-in-a-friend’s-body scene ruined it for me) and Life of Pi, by Yann Martel (painfully sloooooow, though I loved the ending.)
A book you’ve been recommended lately: A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini
A book you’ve recommended recently: Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins (Definitely not for everyone. Flowery language alert.)
A book you couldn’t finish: This is a bit OCD-ish of me, but I have to finish a book I start. I gave up on The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells last month, but it keeps calling out to me. I’ll finish it one of these days.
A book you’ve been meaning to read: Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert
A book you’re currently reading: The Dice Man, by Luke Rhinehart
An author you’d like to hang out with: Amy Tan. I can’t get enough of the stories of her Chinese-American family.
An author you’d want to go on a date with: Alex Garland. He looks yummy.
An author you’d read anything by: Nick Hornby
An author you think is a genius: I very rarely throw around the word “genius” because it’s a word I reserve for extremely special and talented people, but Harlan Coben has to be one, not only because of his absolutely incredible books, but also in how he conducts his personal life and handles his fame. (Gone for Good is my all-time favorite book.)
An author you think shouldn’t be in print: No specific author, but the whole Mills & Boon line could easily be thrown in a river. Then again, they did get me through my pre-teen years, so maybe not.
A genre you love to read: Crime fiction. And I’m a sucker for romance.
A genre you won’t read: I find True Crime a bit hard to get through because it depresses me, but it’s an important genre and I do read it from time to time.
Other authors you find worthy of your collection: Stephen King, Marian Keyes, Anna Quindlen, Pico Iyer.







July 31st, 2007 at 5:46 pm
How many books have you read this year?????????
July 31st, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Hi Frank with the multiple question marks… 61 so far, and counting. Just call me bookworm.
July 31st, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Wow, that’s a lot!!!! One book every second day!!!!!!!!!!
I have read 1/3 book so far this year. Hope to finish it before the end of this year if I speed up a little!!!!!!
July 31st, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Wow, you sound really smart and stuff. Remind me not to use too many big words.
(Cut it out with the exclamation marks, or your guitar gets it!)
August 1st, 2007 at 12:35 am
I’ll have to do this one.
‘Naked’ made me laugh as well. I think I liked that collection much better than his others… but ‘Me Talk Pretty’ was good too. And I just read something about Coben over at the Guardian book page that was good.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:46 am
Heres the link to the Coben post
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/crime/story/0,,2138610,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=10
August 1st, 2007 at 3:27 am
Coben is such a classy man. He doesn’t beat you over the head with it, but he understands true love and how it leads to the ultimate betrayal, and that’s an underlying theme in all his books.
And after all this fame and fortune? He loves his family to death and only just wants you to read his books.
Someone please use your contacts, and help me have dinner with the man! I’ll behave, I promise!
August 12th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Hi, I liked your list, so I copied and answered the questions on my blog. Sorry, don’t know how to link it to here. My reading list is light compared to yours, both in number of books and literary quality, but they’re what I read. I think I’ll read some of yours. Thanks.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Literary quality? Did you miss the part about… ahem… Danielle Steel?
You can just post the link here. Send it to me if you want and I’ll post it. I’d love to know what you’re reading.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Found it. Nita’s link:
http://nita-onewomansview.blogspot.com/2007/08/books.html