Sunday, June 07, 2009

Book Meme

1. What author do you own the most books by? Over a 25 year period I collected all but one of her sixty book Chalet School, so it would have to be Elinor M. Brent Dyer

2. What book do you own the most copies of? The Bible. Thanks to a great-uncle who was a Methodist minister, an elderly friend who taught theology and a lay-preacher mother, I have a truly impressive selection of Bibles in assorted languages and translations.

3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions? Absolutely not.

4. What fictional character are you secretly in love with? None that I can think of.

5. What book have you read the most times in your life? Has to be The Tiger That Came To Tea, over and over and over again to three small girls.

6. Favorite book as a ten year old? The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

7. What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year? The Autobiography of the Queen by Emma Tennant. Truly abysmal. I only finished it because it was short and I was stuck on a train with nothing else to read.

8. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year? I think The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by a squeak.

9. If you could force everyone you know to read one book, what would it be? A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

10. What book would you most like to see made into a movie? Mmm, difficult one ... I would loved to see an updated version of Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner. Does that count?

11. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read? A book on medieval parliaments translated pedantically from French. It was memorably soporific; the title was rather less memorable. I wonder if anyone other than the author has ever finished it?

12. What is your favorite book? If I have to pick just one, then The Lord of the Rings

13. Play? Shadowlands by William Nicholson, the story of C.S.Lewis and Joy Gresham. I saw it with Nigel Hawthorne (aka Sir Humphrey in Yes, Minister, and a superb stage actor) playing Lewis and wept buckets.

14. Poem?I think I'll go for God's Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Ask me another day and I would probably give a different answer.

15. Essay? Anything by G.K.Chesterton

16. Who is the most overrated writer alive today? Dan Brown. Let's just say not my cup of tea.

17. What is your desert island book? A book to read on a desert island, or a book about a desert island? I think I'll go with the latter and say Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo

18. And . . . what are you reading right now?
The Catholic Revival in English Literature 1845-1961 by Ian Ker

HT: Theresa at LaPaz Home Learning (I have seen this meme all over the place, but I read it at Theresa's blog first, so she gets the credit).

4 comments:

Melanie Bettinelli said...

God's Grandeur is definitely right up there. I had to go reread. A wonderful way to begin a Monday morning.

Jennifer said...

Fun to read! I haven't read any Dan Brown, but seeing as he keeps popping up as overrated, I probably won't bother! My husband is forcing me to read Lord of the Rings this summer.

Theresa said...

Oh, I forgot about Dan Brown (lucky me). I have to admit I have never even heard of Elinor M. Brent Dyer except here. I suppose I should check her out.

The Bookworm said...

Elinor M. Brent Dyer wrote boarding school stories, which I think is a peculiarly British genre. I loved her books as a child, so carried on collecting them as they were reprinted through the 80s and 90s. I think there have always been at least a few of the series in print since the first Chalet School story was published in the 1920s. Probably and acquired taste ;).