While iced in, Matt and I created a book meme. Feel free to copy if you like.
1. What is your favorite passage/line from a book?
My favorite passage is from Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Darcy has just proposed to Elizabeth, and insulted her family in the process:
Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to the utmost to speak with composure when she said.
‘You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.’
She saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued,
‘You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it.’
2. What do you consider the best film adaptation from a book? What do you think is the worst film adaptation?
Best: The Notebook. This may be the only time I’ve ever thought that the movie was better than the book.
Worst: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I wanted so badly to like this movie.
3. What is the first book you remember reading?
Charlotte’s Web. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Morgan, read it to us in class. I loved it so much that I begged my mom to buy it for me. I then read it 5 consecutive times, crying each and every time at the end.
4. Did you have a favorite kids’ book as a child?
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Oh, how I wanted to be pushing my way through coats and stepping into the snow world.
5. What book did you hate reading for a school assignment?
Island of the Blue Dolphins. Yuck, yuck and triple yuck.
6. What is the most recent book you read (or are currently reading)?
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I’m a little over halfway finished, and I’m enjoying it so far.
7. What book would you most like to see turned into a movie?
From Potter’s Field by Patricia Cornwell. I think there were plans to turn it into a movie, but I’ve pretty much given up hope that it will ever happen at this point.
8. What book did you cheat and read the “Cliff Notes” version?
Mythology by Edith Hamilton. Sorry, Mr. Stilwell.
9. What book would you never read again, no matter how much someone was going to pay you?
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I read this when I was a senior in high school and wrote an essay about it in an attempt to win a scholarship. I loathed it, and did not win the scholarship contest.
10. Are you more of a library or book store person?
Though I like both, I have to say the library because I’m all about bargains.
11. Have you tried audio books? Do you like them?
I prefer reading books, but I enjoyed listening to The Greatest Generation while driving to Hilton Head last summer.
12. Has any movie ever inspired you to then read the book on which it was based?
Lord of the Rings. I saw the first movie and rushed to the library to read all three books. I enjoyed the books and the movies immensely.
13. Describe a passage from a book that made you cry.
I cried for days after reading the part in Where the Red Fern Grows when Little Ann (a dog) died from a broken heart after Old Dan (another dog) saved the boy’s life. I fed my dog a chocolate cupcake to cope with the anguish. Yes, I said chocolate. I now know that chocolate is bad for dogs.
14. What is your favorite book series?
Hmmmm….I enjoy the Big Stone Gap books by Adrianna Trigianni and the early Kay Scarpetta books by Patricia Cornwell.
15. Describe your favorite place to read.
In my everyday life, I like to read while walking on the stepmill. In my rare vacation life, I like to read beachside.
14 Comments
February 21, 2008 at 10:04 pm
There’s nothing like an icy day for memecreation. I’ve always had a crush on Mr. Darcy and the Colin version made it worse! I agree with the YaYa book. I built it up SO much in my head and was disappointed. I love used book sales AT the library. That is heaven.
Agree about Colin Firth. Especially the scene where he dove (fully clothed) into the lake. I also liked him in Bridget Jones’s Diary! Regarding YaYa, it had good talent…not sure where it went wrong.
February 22, 2008 at 12:05 am
I wouldn’t have an entry for most.
Two I think I would add are:
16. What book could you not force yourself to finish. For me this would be Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves.
17. What book could you not put down till you were finished. Definitely Mists of Avalon. I took it with me everywhere for three days. I fell asleep reading it and woke up reading it.
I don’t have a good answer for 15. I guess I would have to say the only place I don’t read, but wish I could, is the shower. Where are all the plastic books at? Maybe they will offer a water proof Kindle.
I’ve never heard of Mists of Avalon…will have to check out. Plastic books. I think my daughter had some of those when she was teething
February 22, 2008 at 1:22 pm
You remember the “Dorks Unite” stuff? Well, I borrowed my uncle’s copy of Hamilton’s Mythology when I was seven or eight and read it over and over again, voraciously. When I got to it in high school (and again in college) it was all old hat.
Now that’s dorky
February 22, 2008 at 6:35 pm
AUGH! You cheated on Mythology by Edith Hamilton? I loved that book so much in 10th grade that I made my parents buy me a copy for Christmas one year. Dorky? Well, “The Glory and the Dream” by William Manchester was banned in my high school that same year because it MENTIONED the Kinsey report (NO details). I got a copy of that book for Christmas, too, and have read almost everything else by William Manchester.
Now I’m starting to feel a little guilty about the Mythology thing. My high school was a little backwards, but I can’t ever recall a book being banned. Did you go to a Catholic school?
February 22, 2008 at 7:34 pm
I was so worried you were going to say your dog died after eating the chocolate cupcake… I can’t begin to imagine the ironic trauma you would have associated with literature after that.
Buffy lived through raiding Easter baskets, Halloween baskets, misplaced lollipops. She was incredible. She lived to be 16 years old.
February 22, 2008 at 8:33 pm
I entered a scholarship context regarding The Fountainhead also! I don’t think I even read the whole book. Surprisingly (or not so much) I didn’t get the award.
This is fun. I’ll do this at work tomorrow!
I think some kind of Ayn Rand Institute still runs the essay contest! I look forward to your answers.
February 22, 2008 at 10:54 pm
[...] 02 2008 From Shakespeare to James Patterson: It’s time for a book survey. You guys know my charming wife and I like to come up with memes. She thought we should do a book one, and I thought that was a [...]
February 23, 2008 at 1:01 am
No, no Catholic school. Sadly, I went to high school in Arkansas. The students whose parents got the book banned weren’t even in the AP History class that used the book. Nor was the Kinsey study addressed in the class. Some people are just closed-minded and far too right wing for me. They also took a Sharpie and edited “Huckleberry Finn”. I brought in my own copy which failed to impress my English teacher. I hated high school.
Do you think they would sensor your blog? Shoot, they’d probably block the whole wordpress site from school computers.
February 23, 2008 at 11:59 am
[...] Book Meme Stole from Allison [...]
February 24, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I could pick around a score of favourite lines, but will settle for this one from Anne Bronte as we have two boys:
“If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them – not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.”
Charlotte’s Web and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe were favourites of mine, too, but the earliest book I can remember was The Cat in the Hat. Our boys love it, too.
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World in Four Parts was a major favourite. (It’s better known as Gulliver’s Travels.) We had a very old copy so it was quite strange in later years to read much edited versions and find them lacking compared to the original.
Other favourites as a child were The Swiss Family Robinson, The Gorilla Hunters, Kidnapped, Treasure Island, The Black Arrow, The Jungle Book, any of the Biggles books by W.E.Johns, and Victorian/Edwardian adventure novels.
There are many, many books I never want to read again — almost all of them were ones that I read when I was book reviewer. You read and review the books you’re sent, not the ones you want to read.
As for my favourite place to read, it’s wherever I happen to be when I’m reading.
I never read Dr. Seuss when I was a child, but I’m trying to make up for it now with my little one!
February 25, 2008 at 2:41 am
I read “Where The Red Fern Grows” out loud to my son when he was around 9 or 10, and I didn’t know the book beforehand. When the dog died I was sobbing so hard it was almost impossible to get the words out.
My mom let me skip a day of school in the 8th grade when my English teacher played the Red Fern movie for our class. I will do the same thing for Abby someday if necessary.
February 26, 2008 at 10:50 am
i must agree with kelly in comment #2…i actually wrote a blog entry about ‘House of Leaves’ a few weeks ago because it was one of the only times in my life that i can recall throwing a book down in aggravation only to pick it back up at various points down the line, trying to get through it. i never succeeded.
I hereby vow to never touch or lay eyes on that book.
February 26, 2008 at 12:53 pm
[...] Taoist Biker under Blogroll, Fun Stuff, Life and other states of existence I enjoyed this literary meme by Allison and Matt so much that I wanted to do it myself, it just took me a [...]
February 26, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I just popped over here from Taoist Biker’s page. I think I might borrow this for my own blog.
My mom just read Pillars of the Earth not too long ago. I didn’t know she liked that kind of stuff, but she thought it was really good too.
And Mists of Avalon is a good if you like fantasy novels. It’s by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and it’s a reworking of the Arthur legend.
Please do borrow. That’s good to know about Pillars…though even if she didn’t like it, I’m way too far into it to quit now