Book survey

I might have a little bit stolen this quiz thingy from hayleyghoover's blog (http://hayleyghoover.blogspot.com as if you didn't know). Feel free to fill one in yourself.

1. What author do you own the most books by?
I’d love to say JK Rowling or John Green or someone else that I’m equally as obsessed with, but I’ve just checked my shelves and it goes: Enid Blyton (24), Jacqueline Wilson (23), Meg Cabot (14), Lemony Snicket (13). They have all been my favourite author at some point in the past.

2. What book do you own the most copies of?
Again, I’d like to say that I have multiple copies of all my favourite books, but I’m poor and can’t afford them. With the little money I have, I tend to buy books I don’t already own.

3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Not at all. It’s how people speak…you get used to it.

4. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?Who said anything about a secret?
Oh dear, this list could stretch on and on…both Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, Remus Lupin, Pudge Halter, Loren Blake, Eric Night, Peter Coleridge…and there’s more that I can’t name off the top of my head. Every (good) book I read, I fall a little in love with the characters.

5. What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)?
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume – I used to love that book, but I don’t actually own it. Or Looking For Alaska…not sure which comes out top.

6. What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?
Little Women, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret or something by Jacqueline Wilson. I used to be obsessed with her. I still have like all her old books. I don’t have many of her latest ones, although when I see them in shops, I am tempted to buy them out of habit.

7. What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
I was one of the few who didn’t mind Breaking Dawn, so it’s:
Ugh, Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. Awful, awful book. Or Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux – it wasn’t that bad, it was just really hard-going and I didn’t feel like I got a lot out of it. I’d rather watch the film.

8. What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Either What I Saw And How I Lied by Judy Blundell (which I reviewed in an earlier blog post) or The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffennegger. Ooh and the House of Night series by PC and Kristen Cast

9. If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Looking For Alaska, because not enough people have read it.

10. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Hmm…this is a tough question, because most film adaptations ruin the books they’re based on. So no. Just no. I will not answer this.

11. What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
The Time Traveler’s Wife, for sure. Oh wait, they already wrecked that for me. Bitches…I refuse to go and see that film.

12. Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I once dreamed that I discovered this amazing book and it was pretty much the best book I had ever read. I read it like, six times in a few days and then I passed it around to all my friends to read and they all loved it too. But then I found a warning on the Internet that that particular book was like that tape in the Ring, and you have to pass it on or you die. So I was trying to contact all my friends to make them buy their own copies of the book and pass them on so they wouldn’t die. It was a stressful dream.

13. What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
I’m not actually an adult, so I don’t have to answer that. But I do have a bit of a shameful habit of reading really trashy chick-lit – the kind with the pink and purple covers which contain stories of women in their early thirties worrying about work and everyone around them having babies and then they find the man of their dreams, but not before going through a stream of suitors, all of whom are wrong in one way of another…you know the ones. Please don’t let that lower your opinion of me. I do have a brain, I swear.

14. What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Phantom of the Opera, without a doubt. The book is so different from the musical film and it’s just so difficult to get into.

15. What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
I’ve only seen the obvious ones – Much Ado, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet…the list goes on.

16. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I’m not aware of having read any Russian literature, although I have a couple of books somewhere that I borrowed off a friend who is obsessed with Russia. I’m going to say French, but only because both Les Mis and Phantom are based on French literature. I really need to read more widely.

17. Roth or Updike?
Ohh I fail…I’ve never read either.

18. David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
See above. (How am I ever going to survive doing English Lit at uni? Maybe I should give up on that dream and become a cheese farmer instead. Is a cheese farmer a thing?)

19. Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare! Why even bother asking? It’s obvious!

20. Austen or Eliot?
Austen, all the way.

21. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Don’t questions 16 – 18 answer this already?

22. What is your favourite novel?
I won’t choose. It’s like asking me to choose between my children.

23. Play?
I haven’t really read enough plays to give a real answer to this. I could say A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney but that play caused me so much stress last year, that any merit it might have is no longer comprehensible in my brain.

24. Poem?
Anything from The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy or Shakespeare’s 116th sonnet.

25. Essay?
The only essays I’ve read are the ones in the Red anthology and I thoroughly enjoyed pretty much all of them.

26. Work of nonfiction?
I’ve never been a huge fan of non-fiction. I imagine that it will be Harry: A History when I actually get round to reading it.

27. Who is your favourite writer?
Again I won’t choose. But I can probably get a top 3? No, 5. Top ten? No, I just won’t answer this one.

28. Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Stephenie Meyer. Even though I enjoyed the Twilight series and might have even been a little obsessed when I first started them. But she has been blown way out of proportion.

29. What is your desert island book?
Aargh this is another tough one. Do I say something that I’ve already read and loved? Or something that I know I should read but would never get round to unless I was on a desert island with no choice?

30. And... what are you reading right now?
The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks (I’ve started reading only one book at a time and although it takes a little longer to get through a pile, it makes for a better reading experience).

If you actually read all the way to the end, let me know in the comments and I will award you with a (metaphorical) gold star.

Proper blog soon.

Bye

<3