I’m currently swamped with work and making ambitious writing goals, so my recreational reading has gone by the boards. So this is a bit of nostalgia from one of those notes that gets passed around on Facebook. Someone sends the quiz, and you erase their answers and type in your own.
1. What author do you own the most books by?
Tricky question, since I’m given books for work. That I happen to own: Langston Hughes. That I bought: Edward Eager and Jennifer Crusie
2. What book do you own the most copies of?
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
No. I’m a copyeditor, not a comma Nazi. 😉
4. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Well, then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it!
5. What book have you read the most times in your life?
Some kid picture book—The Great Pie Robbery or Yoko.
6. What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Probably a biography of Amelia Earhart or Abraham Lincoln
7. What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
I could not finish a couple of historical romances. No, Milady, you couldn’t have done that, no matter how secret the spy society.
8. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Crafty TV Writing by Alex Epstein
9. If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge if you want nonfiction; Right Ho, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse if you want a novel
[Unless you are a comma Nazi; then I recommend beginning your therapy with New Fowler’s Modern English Usage—it has to be the third edition to get maximum benefit.]
10. Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
I haven’t read enough by one author. I think Langston Hughes should get some more recognition for something.
11. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Hmmm, a great many of them have been. Anna in the Afterlife would be a great period piece and opportunity for some visual metaphors. Don’t Look Down would be a romp; also has some great visuals.
12. What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Hmmm, a great many of them have been. Movies are so easy to avoid, though, if you don’t approve.
13. Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Eeeek, can’t remember any . . . but I’m sure there’ve been some weird ones.
14. What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
The Da Vinci Code; others would say all the category romances
15. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
La Jalousie by Alain Robbe-Grillet
16. What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
Timon of Athens
17. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
French
18. Roth or Updike?
Uhhhhh . . . do I have to?
19. David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Never read Eggers; Sedaris is hilarious.
20. Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakes.
21. Austen or Eliot?
I quote from whence the quiz came: “Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!?!”
22. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
So many gaps to choose from . . . dude, I was a biochemistry major. Cut me some slack, here.
23. What is your favorite novel?
Depends on my mood, what kind of story I’m looking for.
24. Play?
Noises Off
25. Poem?
“Wedding Toast” by Richard Wilbur
26. Essay?
David Denby on being a movie critic and raising children and maturity
27. Short story?
Something by Saki
28. Work of nonfiction?
Reader’s Digest Complete Book of Home Repair
29. Who is your favorite writer?
Wallace Stegner
30. Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
This is outside my genre, although I have my suspicions about some current hotties.
31. What is your desert island book?
Dang . . . how about a Norton Anthology to get caught up.
32. And . . . what are you reading right now?*
Crafty TV Writing, Writing Alone and with Others, The Pocket Muse, The High King, and The Graveyard Book
*This, of course, is a snapshot of a moment in time that is now months old.
Ann Marie Gamble 