A Literary Meme

Susanna Fraser, author of the intriguing upcoming Carina Press title, The Sergeant's Lady, inspired me to do a meme!

1) What author do you own the most books by?
John Steinbeck, I think. Either him or Charles Dickens or Mark Twain.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
The Bible. We seem to have been collecting them over the years, and we have multiple translations.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Didn't notice.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
It's no secret--Fitzwilliam Darcy. Henry Crawford had a lot of potential too. And of course, Henry Tilney. Sigh!

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)? The Once and Future King

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old? Sadly, I didn't become a reader until the next year. It was all still too new to me for me to have a favorite. But I loved Nancy Drew's The Hidden Staircase by the time I was twelve.

7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
I stop reading if I'm not enjoying it.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
I'll skip this question.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature? Dunno.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
??

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I have a dreadful time recalling my dreams beyond ten minutes after I wake up.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
The X-Men. But, I do have comic-book versions of Pride and Prejudice and Der Ring Des Nibelungen. Seriously!

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Crime and Punishment.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
Um. Next question.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
The French. That being said, of the two nationalities, I've only read Dostoevsky, Hugo and Dumas.

18) Roth or Updike? Um . . .

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers? Um . . .

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer? Chaucer.

21) Austen or Eliot? Austen. But I loved George Eliot's Silas Marner!

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I really have not read enough Shakespeare.

23) What is your favorite novel?
Not an answerable question.

24) Play?
Pygmalion. I can only name a favorite because I've seen so few.

25) Poem?
Um . . .

26) Essay?
Why?

27) Short story?
See question on novels.

28) Work of nonfiction?
Ditto.

29) Who is your favorite writer?
Mark Twain and Jane Austen.

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
No opinion.

31) What is your desert island book?
I'd probably try to finish reading the Bible. Yes, we have a lot of them, but I still have not read it from cover to cover. Bad, I know . . .

32) And … what are you reading right now?
Bewitched and Betrayed by Lisa Shearin, Scene Stealer by Elise Warner, Meeks by Julia Holmes, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

If you decide to take part, be sure to let me know!