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lokifanHere are my answers to the
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kellychambliss asked for One Book You’ve Read Multiple TImes.
This could be so many books - I read the first three Harry Potter books over and over again as a kid, for one thing. I was a bookworm long before I was allowed to go to the library by myself so I reread a lot. One of those books I reread repeatedly as a child was The Queen’s Nose by Dick King Smith. I can still remember phrases and passages from it. I really love the puzzle element of it, I love Harmony’s love of animals and wish to have All The Pets Ever, and the beautiful lovely ending. I liked the BBC TV programme too, and I even had the novelisations of a couple of the series, which weren’t bad. But it’s the book that still reverberates for me.
(Spoilers for the beautiful lovely ending: Harmony is going to use her last wish to get a dog, but her beloved Uncle Ginger gets very ill so she uses it to save him. And she’s terribly sad but of course doesn’t regret it. The book ends with the family Christmas together, Uncle Ginger worn but surviving, and he gives her a puppy for Christmas. ♥ ♥ ♥)
susannah_wilde asked for a Quote From A Book That Inspires You/Gives You Feels.
I am so bad at inspiring quote things, especially on the spur of the moment. I found something I highlighted in Diana Wynne Jones’ Fire and Hemlock, though, which I do actually love and found useful, especially in Vietnam:
I realised in one blinding moment that when they speak of heroes having “iron nerve,” they do not mean they can spring forward and seize the bridle of a wild horse. That is child’s play -- sorry, Polly, I mean quite easy by comparison really. No, what they mean by “iron nerve” is the same as “a thick skin”. You have to learn not to notice how silly you feel.
phoenixfalls asked about an Author You’ve Read The Most Books From.
This is difficult to work out! I’ve read everything Diana Wynne Jones ever wrote and she was prolific. In true English Childhood fashion I’ve read loads of Roald Dahl and Dick King Smith and Jacqueline Wilson. But I think, because of how prolific she was, the author I’ve probably read the most books by is Enid Blyton. I read quite a bit of Secret Seven and I liked the Famous Five even more, and I adored and repeatedly reread the Malory Towers books. It’s one of those things where even though, outside of Malory Towers, Enid Blyton was never a favourite, her piles of short mysteries for children and my speedy reading habits mean I’ve ploughed through a pretty massive pile of her work.
Sally and Darrell and Alicia ♥
phoenixfalls also asked about my Worst Bookish Habit.
Ummm. This is difficult. I’ve been reading shockingly little for the last few months - like a book every fortnight or less - so I feel like it’s that at the moment!! OR. As a child/teenager I would walk along reading, especially when I was walking to/from school - ie a route I could walk in my sleep. I never walked into a telephone pole or anything but it wasn’t a great habit and I must admit it’s kiiiind of making a comeback with me and my Kindle right now. So yeah, that.
Or bringing a book to the kitchen and getting distracted from the pasta boiling over.
sunclouds33 asked about the Longest Book I’ve Read.
Wow, this is a really hard question. It certainly feels like it was one of the Gormenghast books - that trilogy took me three weeks, at a time when I was reading three books a week minimum, which was kind of a shock. It should be Clarissa but I could not make myself finish that book, so, sorry prof. The Poisonwood Bible is pretty long (and utterly fabulous). But totting it up, I’m fairly sure the longest book I’ve read is Middlemarch. And it was totally worth it.
indyonblue asked for my Reading Regret.
How little I’m reading right now would be a contender, haha, or else how few books I read at university/after discovering fanfiction. BUT in terms of something that fairly regularly causes a pang, it’s probably that despite fervently intending to, I still haven’t read the A Song of Ice and Fire books. I was like 100 pages into the first one back in October 2011, and then my mum kicked me out of the house. (Not related.) I immediately stopped reading it because it was far too depressing to read about brutally hurt children and be homeless, and have never gone back. I do still mean to, y’know. I avoid spoilers and have done okay at that, and I do want to read them and watch the TV programme and generally catch up with geek culture. I just… haven’t, for reasons probably not unrelated to the whole getting kicked out of the house thing. Like how when my mum gave me a massive bag of yoghurt-covered cranberries in my stocking a couple of years ago, I ate a bunch on the 30th while curled up with a new boo before spending all of New Year’s Eve vomiting copiously. I could not finish that bag.
inglevine asked for a Major Book Hangover Because Of…
This one really depends on how you’re defining hangover. I had a major hangover from an enormously upsetting fanfic the other week, and I got one from writing a fic once - the day after the night when I wrote Unforgivable I was all ‘wow that was really sad. Ron was so mean!’ But in terms of books… I mentioned The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver earlier, right? That is a fantastic book that I read over and over as a teenager, about this Baptist priest who takes his family on a mission to the Congo in the 60s. The narrative is shared between his wife and the four daughters. It’s just fascinating and incredibly well-written and I love it, and there are lines and passages that have stayed with me. BUT there is also this awful tragedy and I like went around in a daze for three days after I got to that bit the first time I read it. SADDEST.
la_mariane asked for my Hidden Book Gem.
Oh, so many possibilities! So many sadly obscure beauties! But I’m going to talk about Brisingamen by Diana L Paxson. She is really not an obscure author but I didn’t know who she was when I picked the book up in a charity shop in 2010 - I just liked Norse mythology (I mean, check my handle) and was kind of intrigued. It was one of the best books I read that year. It’s about a young American woman in the sixties who gets hold of Freya’s necklace and what comes out of that. It’s well-written and lets its heroine have good sex with more than one bloke and does some very cool stuff with the myths. It also had a take on the Vietnam War protesters which was new to me; the stuff around 60s San Francisco generally was interesting for me, though I don’t know how new or intriguing it would be to Americans and/or people with more of a handle on that time and place. I just really liked the protagonist and the neo-paganism stuff and yay for Norse mythology brought into contemporary settings and random books in charity shops being awesome.
kellychambliss asked for One Book You’ve Read Multiple TImes.This could be so many books - I read the first three Harry Potter books over and over again as a kid, for one thing. I was a bookworm long before I was allowed to go to the library by myself so I reread a lot. One of those books I reread repeatedly as a child was The Queen’s Nose by Dick King Smith. I can still remember phrases and passages from it. I really love the puzzle element of it, I love Harmony’s love of animals and wish to have All The Pets Ever, and the beautiful lovely ending. I liked the BBC TV programme too, and I even had the novelisations of a couple of the series, which weren’t bad. But it’s the book that still reverberates for me.
(Spoilers for the beautiful lovely ending: Harmony is going to use her last wish to get a dog, but her beloved Uncle Ginger gets very ill so she uses it to save him. And she’s terribly sad but of course doesn’t regret it. The book ends with the family Christmas together, Uncle Ginger worn but surviving, and he gives her a puppy for Christmas. ♥ ♥ ♥)
susannah_wilde asked for a Quote From A Book That Inspires You/Gives You Feels.I am so bad at inspiring quote things, especially on the spur of the moment. I found something I highlighted in Diana Wynne Jones’ Fire and Hemlock, though, which I do actually love and found useful, especially in Vietnam:
I realised in one blinding moment that when they speak of heroes having “iron nerve,” they do not mean they can spring forward and seize the bridle of a wild horse. That is child’s play -- sorry, Polly, I mean quite easy by comparison really. No, what they mean by “iron nerve” is the same as “a thick skin”. You have to learn not to notice how silly you feel.
phoenixfalls asked about an Author You’ve Read The Most Books From.This is difficult to work out! I’ve read everything Diana Wynne Jones ever wrote and she was prolific. In true English Childhood fashion I’ve read loads of Roald Dahl and Dick King Smith and Jacqueline Wilson. But I think, because of how prolific she was, the author I’ve probably read the most books by is Enid Blyton. I read quite a bit of Secret Seven and I liked the Famous Five even more, and I adored and repeatedly reread the Malory Towers books. It’s one of those things where even though, outside of Malory Towers, Enid Blyton was never a favourite, her piles of short mysteries for children and my speedy reading habits mean I’ve ploughed through a pretty massive pile of her work.
Sally and Darrell and Alicia ♥
phoenixfalls also asked about my Worst Bookish Habit.Ummm. This is difficult. I’ve been reading shockingly little for the last few months - like a book every fortnight or less - so I feel like it’s that at the moment!! OR. As a child/teenager I would walk along reading, especially when I was walking to/from school - ie a route I could walk in my sleep. I never walked into a telephone pole or anything but it wasn’t a great habit and I must admit it’s kiiiind of making a comeback with me and my Kindle right now. So yeah, that.
Or bringing a book to the kitchen and getting distracted from the pasta boiling over.
sunclouds33 asked about the Longest Book I’ve Read.Wow, this is a really hard question. It certainly feels like it was one of the Gormenghast books - that trilogy took me three weeks, at a time when I was reading three books a week minimum, which was kind of a shock. It should be Clarissa but I could not make myself finish that book, so, sorry prof. The Poisonwood Bible is pretty long (and utterly fabulous). But totting it up, I’m fairly sure the longest book I’ve read is Middlemarch. And it was totally worth it.
indyonblue asked for my Reading Regret.How little I’m reading right now would be a contender, haha, or else how few books I read at university/after discovering fanfiction. BUT in terms of something that fairly regularly causes a pang, it’s probably that despite fervently intending to, I still haven’t read the A Song of Ice and Fire books. I was like 100 pages into the first one back in October 2011, and then my mum kicked me out of the house. (Not related.) I immediately stopped reading it because it was far too depressing to read about brutally hurt children and be homeless, and have never gone back. I do still mean to, y’know. I avoid spoilers and have done okay at that, and I do want to read them and watch the TV programme and generally catch up with geek culture. I just… haven’t, for reasons probably not unrelated to the whole getting kicked out of the house thing. Like how when my mum gave me a massive bag of yoghurt-covered cranberries in my stocking a couple of years ago, I ate a bunch on the 30th while curled up with a new boo before spending all of New Year’s Eve vomiting copiously. I could not finish that bag.
inglevine asked for a Major Book Hangover Because Of…This one really depends on how you’re defining hangover. I had a major hangover from an enormously upsetting fanfic the other week, and I got one from writing a fic once - the day after the night when I wrote Unforgivable I was all ‘wow that was really sad. Ron was so mean!’ But in terms of books… I mentioned The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver earlier, right? That is a fantastic book that I read over and over as a teenager, about this Baptist priest who takes his family on a mission to the Congo in the 60s. The narrative is shared between his wife and the four daughters. It’s just fascinating and incredibly well-written and I love it, and there are lines and passages that have stayed with me. BUT there is also this awful tragedy and I like went around in a daze for three days after I got to that bit the first time I read it. SADDEST.
la_mariane asked for my Hidden Book Gem.Oh, so many possibilities! So many sadly obscure beauties! But I’m going to talk about Brisingamen by Diana L Paxson. She is really not an obscure author but I didn’t know who she was when I picked the book up in a charity shop in 2010 - I just liked Norse mythology (I mean, check my handle) and was kind of intrigued. It was one of the best books I read that year. It’s about a young American woman in the sixties who gets hold of Freya’s necklace and what comes out of that. It’s well-written and lets its heroine have good sex with more than one bloke and does some very cool stuff with the myths. It also had a take on the Vietnam War protesters which was new to me; the stuff around 60s San Francisco generally was interesting for me, though I don’t know how new or intriguing it would be to Americans and/or people with more of a handle on that time and place. I just really liked the protagonist and the neo-paganism stuff and yay for Norse mythology brought into contemporary settings and random books in charity shops being awesome.