Thanks muchadoaboutmolly for tagging me! :D
RULE 1: Always post the rules
RULE 2: Answer the questions the person who tagged you asked and write 10 new ones
RULE 3: Tag 10 people and link them to the post
RULE 4: Tell them you have tagged them
Questions:
1. Do you treat your books like they’re made of glass, or do you let them get roughed up a bit?
I'm really weird this way. But really though. The inside of my books usually indicate that they are well loved. I am a full believer in underlining and highlighting and even a little bit of stainage doesn't bother me. I also couldn't give less of a shit about the spines of my books. But the covers MUST. STAY. BEAUTIFUL. If I buy any books with jackets, I always, always take them off because I don't want it to get ruined.
2. What’s the first book (that you can remember) that made you feel book-magical?
I like this phrase, though I'm not 100% sure what you mean by that. If you mean which book I felt magical for reading, Anna Karenina, which I ostensibly read for bragging rights but ended up really loving. If you mean which book I read that made me think “Hot damn, books are fucking magical” Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Actually, I'm pretty sure that I would always find myself answering this question with whatever book I last read. This is because I like to spread out the types of books I read, so I never get bored and reading feels magical all the time. Also, it's more the genre or tone being magical as opposed to reading. Which is helpful in that regard.
3. Do you always return your library books on time, or have you accrued some fines over the years?
Always on time. Except for that one time when I was visiting family in Long Island and left a library book in my uncle's car...in New York. That one was returned SEVERAL MONTHS late. But I was no older than nine, so I don't know if that even really counts.
4. What do you consider to be the value of reading classic literature?
OOH! I like this question. I think there's a shit-ton of wonderful things to say about reading classical literature, but most of the reason I value classic literature is the same reason I value learning about history, the same reason I studied the Victorian era – that when one strips away the specifics behind events and any sort of linguistic barriers, one finds that people remain much the same. While the obstacles and/or antagonists in a plot might be different, the way in each the characters approach and react to the issues that face them are much the same. Whether one is reading Joseph Conrad or John Green, characters laugh and cry and express sarcasm. Classics humanize history.
5. What are some of your favorite genres, and some of your favorite books within those genres?
I'm going to need to answer this question in a weird way, because I'm actually not that well-read when it comes to genres. I mostly read a lot of fantasy and classics (which I feel weird referring to as a drama – but what else would I call Dickens, Austen, etc. – Dramadies?), but it's less because I like those dramas and more because I read what my friends like...which mostly falls into those categories. I've barely read any contemporary stuff or sci-fi and I'm trying to read more dystopian literature. So uh...ask me this question again at the end of the year...? Ha ha. But anyway, I'm going to need to answer this question in terms of fiction and nonfiction. My favorite fiction books include Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Poisonwood Bible, Middlemarch, and Heart of Darkness. As for nonfiction, anything that Edward Said did. He is a Victorian literature buff, historian, AND social justice warrior. Or was. He died in 2003 and the world lost a magnificent human. He was survived by my other favorite nonfiction writer, a Scottish man named Peter Bowler. Mr. Bowler is a die-hard atheist who actually acknowledges religion as a worldview rather than an exercise of willful belief. In other words, he is the academia equivalent of a unicorn.
6. Do you always read or re-read before you go see a movie adaptation of a book?
Nope. If anything, I re-read the book after see the adaptation. I think it's best to look at a book and an adaptation as two separate entities, and the lack of a pre-movie re-read makes that easier for me. Sometimes reading a book afterward simply for comparison's sake is fun though.
7. What is your favorite movie adaptation of a book?
CATCHING. FIRE. Nuff said.
8. Which author (alive or dead) would you most want to meet for tea and cookies?
Jane Austen. Homegirl needed more friends.
9. If you could make any two characters get together from any two books, which ones would you set up?
Eleanor of Eleanor & Park and Holden of The Catcher in the Rye. Neither of them are Manic Pixie Dream People but they'd abolish each others' shit with snark. (That said, I loved Eleanor & Park and hate The Catcher in the Rye).
10. What book do you want to read next?
I have Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler on my floor right now, queued up to be my next read. I also need to read The Book Thief in a HUGE WAY.
Here are my questions for you! Followers - Feel free to participate!
1) What's your favorite book featuring a queer protagonist or a person of color as a protagonist?
2) Three Parter! What was your favorite book as a child? Have you read it again recently? Was it still as good as you remember?
3) Name something you would like to see more of in books (ie. Types of settings, types of characters, different fonts, use of illustrations, etc.)?
4) What is your favorite book that you received as a gift?
5) You can punch a character in the mouth and they can't do anything to harm you back. Who do you punch?
6)Name a genre in which you aren't well-read.
7) Where do you get most of your reading done?
8) Among the books you read for high school, which was your favorite?
9) What book would you most like to see adapted to film or television?
10) What do you think qualifies a book as “good?”
