Literary Geekery

NOTE- This has been moved from my old blog, in an effort to consolidate the hammer space that is the internets. Therefore bear in mind that it was written back in the first week of August. Thanks.
I've been meaning to do this for a while, and since my insomnia is still on hyperdrive from a combination of Karen and Stew's wedding (amazing, beautiful), talking with Brendan into late into the night (don't even know where to begin, that may be a whole journal for all i know -_~) and stress from paper/work/LSAT/depression/whatever the hell... regardless, it's 4am and i'm still awake for the fourth time this week.

So. On that cheery note, my irrepressable English Major is rearing its cultured, geeky, and sadly neglected head (don't you just hate when the head is neglected?)... *ahem* Anyway. Ramblings indeed. Away we go into Facebook-meme literary goodness!

These were inspired by my good, but too often neglected friend Kate GC [another point for D.C.] whose facebook writings are always a nudge in the much longed-for direction of helping keep me in mind of all the good things there are to read!

15 Books I want [need] to read:

1) The Rise of Theodor Roosevelt (need to finish it)
2) Moby Dick -Melville
3) Slaughter House Five -Vonnegut
4) Vanity Fair -Thackery
6) Divisadero -Ondaatje
7) Neverwhere -Gaiman
8) The Handmaid's Tale -Atwood
9) Kushiel's Mercy -Carey
10) Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy -Worden
11) The Guide to Getting It On, 6th Ed. (need to read revised edition)
12) East of Eden -Steinbeck
13) The Stranger -Camus
14) A Light in August -Faulkner
15) The Divine Comedy -Dante (again, need to finish it)

15 Literary characters I cannot help but love:

1) Almanzo, Farmer Boy -Wilder
2) Phedre, The Kushiel cycle -Carey
3) Viola, 12th Night -Shakespeare
4) Iago, Othello -Shakespeare
5) Mercutio, Romeo and Juliet -Shakespeare
6) Jane, Jane Eyre -Bronte, C.
7) Cal/Callie, Middlesex -Eugenidies
8) Gawain, Aurtherian tales/ Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
9) The Wife of Bathe, The Canturbury Tales -Chaucer
10) Jubal Harshaw, Stranger in a Strange Land -Heinlein
11) Maria, 11 Minutes -Coelho
12) Anita Blake, Bloody Bones -Hamilton
13) The Monster, Frankenstein -Shelley
14) O-Lan, The Good Earth -Buck
15) Peter -Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

And finally (likely not last, but at least for now), more proof of my literary geekery.

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Counting bound editions (though granted they're not, strictly speaking, books): Shakespeare; strictly speaking books: maybe Margaret Atwood, maybe Laurel K. Hamilton :p.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Lord of the Rings and Paradise Lost.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Yes, actually, it does.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Well it wouldn't be much of a secret if I wrote it here, now would it? For [the blog's] sake, however, we'll go with Phedra, from the Kushiel series by Jacqueline Carey.

5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon)?
Probably 12th Night, Jane Eyre, or The Odyssey.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Anne of Green Gables.

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
*grimace* Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, by Kay Jamison. It's not actually a "bad" book whatsoever, just incredibly difficult to read for emotional reasons.
[For more information as two why I have such a hard time with this book, see the PaperRave essay I wrote on it.]

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Middlesex.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Twilight! *muahahaha*.... Um, no. Actually, Paradise Lost, if they haven't already.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
I have no idea, as most of my favorite novelists are already dead...perhaps Rebecca Wells, author of Little Altars Everywhere and Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Maybe Kushiel's Dart, though it would likely get sadly watered down and mutilated.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
The Book of Genesis- what a terrible idea (I can just picture the CG effects now >_<).

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Well, I once had this dream that Harry Potter got naked then went nuts with a bunch of horses... oh wait, that was Equus. [rimshot].

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
Low brow...hm, probably some trashy romance novel, preferably one including vampires or the 17th century ^_^.

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Just books, Night Falls Fast; in terms of literature, The Sound and The Fury, by William Faulkner, or maybe Night, by Elie Wiesel.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
Toss up between Henry VI, part II, and A Winter's Tale.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I honestly haven't read enough of either to say definitively, but perhaps the French. [That being said, if you're interested in a non-headliner title for Russian novels, I recommend Ivan Turgenev's Father's and Son's. Hah- literature pretension re-established.]

18) Roth or Updike?
Haven't done either.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Again, haven't read either- not quite my style of author, I suspect, although I could be persuaded to try.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Oooh. Tough call- Shakespeare for height of verse, Milton for depth of verse, Chaucer for humanity of verse.

21) Austen or Eliot?
I suppose Austen, though I honestly prefer the Brontes over either.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Maybe modern literature (1940s to 1980s), although I'm surprisingly unversed in late 18th/19th century women writers.

23) What is your favorite novel?
Paradise Lost, Kushiel's Dart, 11 Minutes, Stranger in a Strange Land.

24) Play?
Long Day's Journey into Night, 12th Night, The Crucible, The Laramie Project.

25) Poem?
Sonnet 29 by Shakespeare, Every Day You Play by Neruda, To Autumn by Keats.

26) Essay?
How Not to Succeed in Law School, by James D. Gordon III, A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift.

27) Short story?
Barn Burning, by William Faulkner.

28) Work of nonfiction?
SM 101, a Realistic Introduction, by Jay Wiseman.

29) Who is your favorite writer?
Likely Shakespeare, if I have to pick just one. Novelist- maybe Louise Erdich?

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Dan Brown? Nora Roberts? You decide!

31) What is your desert island book?
Norton Shakespeare Anthology or the Oxford Annotated New Revised Standard version of the Bible.

32) And... what are you reading right now?
Finishing The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (eventually.. i swear i will!) and Eros, the Bittersweet.