(no subject)

[lareinenoire]

Stolen from rynne. Looks like fun, and I'm lazy. But we knew that last bit.

Prose or Poetry? Prose, probably. Though if Renaissance drama in some way counts as poetry, because it isn't prose either...I don't know.

Book you’re reading now: Les Trois Mousquetaires by Alexandre Dumas. Also rereading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. And a large pile of books on the role of history in nineteenth-century France, and the memoirs of Alexandre Dumas. Add random Shakespearean criticism to the mix, and we get...my dissertation.

Last book you’ve read: Hmm...for pleasure? I finished The Fall of the Kings by Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman not too long ago, and read Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden on the coach to visit rosamund last week.

Next book you’re going to buy/read: Well, I have a large TBR pile for after I finish the aforementioned dissertation, though some may end up read in the interim when I'm going insane from too much French Romanticism. Sandman: Dream Country by Neil Gaiman, Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne-Jones, Partisans by Alistair Macleane, Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, The Reckoning by Charles Nicholl, The Talisman by Stephen King...and the list goes on. And on. And on. The books I mentioned are only the ones I already own. We will not get into the To Be Bought pile.

Book you’ve read the most times: Oh my, I have no idea. Phantom by Susan Kay is up there, I know. As is Le Comte de Monte-Cristo and The Sunne in Splendour. And almost certainly A Little Princess. Oyy, I don't know! Too many books read too many times...I have comfort books, dammit!

Longest book you’ve read: Either War and Peace Les Misérables, or Monte-Cristo. I believe Tolstoy is the longest...I seem to recall 1800 pages coming into the mix somewhere.

Book you’ve read in the shortest time (relative to the number of pages): I'm not sure what the question is, there. I read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in five hours, but I also read Prisoner of Azkaban in an hour and a half, so I'm not sure which one comes out faster. And the first time I read Sunne (936 pages), I finished it in...seven hours, I think? Possibly six. It was a long time ago. And then A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin (992 pages) in a single afternoon, but I'm not sure where the afternoon began and where it ended.

One book you wanted to read that disappointed you: I've run across quite a few, but let me see...Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. After all that fuss about her, and the exquisite rendering of the first scene, I *wanted* to like it. So much. But I simply didn't understand it.

Have you read books in a language different from yours? Lots! ::is a postgraduate student in French, after all::

Writer you’ve read the most books from: Umm...William Shakespeare? ;)

Some books you like (not necessarily your faves):
Just putting these down as they come to mind...
Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
A Dead Man in Deptford by Anthony Burgess
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Kushiel's Legacy trilogy by Jacqueline Carey
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

3 books you don’t like:
The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway. Man goes out to sea. Man chases fish. Man catches fish. Sharks eat fish. Man is sad. Why write a book about it??? /rant
Ulysses by James Joyce. Another one I simply do not understand.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I suspect I'm going to be flamed for this one, but I truly didn't like it. The first twenty chapters did nothing for me. The last five were good, but tainted after slogging through the first twenty.

3 people who should take this survey (and why):
Well, nobody needs to, certainly. I suspect rosamund and adelynne would probably like it. As would most people on my flist, should they have the time and the inclination.