The book meme

[jethrien]

From trinityvixen:


01. One book that changed your life:
Star Wars: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn. I know I've told this story before. I'd just seen Star Wars, and I was in the library browsing through the kids' section. And someone had misfiled this book (it was in the middle of the Nancy Drews, I think). And I took it home, read it, and then came back for the second book of the trilogy. Of course, the second book was in the adult science fiction section, where it belonged. So that's the first time I actually ventured into the adult fiction section...and a lot of why I read science fiction and fantasy now.

02. One book that you’ve read more than once:
Oh, wow, lots. I have a tendency to use some books as the literary equivalent of comfort food - bury myself in them when I'm unhappy. At this point, there's some that I don't even read all of - I just skip to the parts I like best, read for half an hour, put it back on the shelf. I feel like I ought to put down one of the nice intellectual books I do this to, like To Kill a Mockingbird or Pride and Prejudice, but to be honest, the books that fit this category best are Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series. It's unrepentant angst. It's not great literature, but I love it anyway.

03. One book you’d want on a desert island:
How about Robinson Crusoe? Or maybe a book with detailed instructions on surviving being on a desert island? Or at least something that's very, very long?

04. One book that made you laugh:
Hmm, trinityvixen already mentioned a bunch of my favorites from this one. Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams are pretty high on the list. So I guess I'll take one of the Death books, who was always my favorite - Reaper Man.

05. One book that made you cry:
The Bridge to Terabithia. I think the ink's smeary on my copy in one place.

06. One book that you wish had never been written:
Again with the Kevin J. Andersen.

07. One book you’re currently reading:
I literally finished The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez this morning. I'm a little over halfway through The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. (I usually have two or three books going at one time.)

08. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
I actually keep a list - there's currently 31 books on it. To pick one at semi-random: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

Comments

[lyriendel.livejournal.com]

Ha! I have a similar story about starting to read sci-fi/fantasy. I was stuck in the kids/young adult section for far too long because I didn't know where the adult fiction was and didn't want to ask. And my brother was reading sci-fi/fantasy, so I followed him there and found some more interesting books to read. It was only a couple years later that I finally stumbled upon the adult fiction section. Never did get into reading most normal fiction after that.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

An awful lot of "normal" adult fiction is crap, though. Bad romances. Spy thrillers that are all the same. Pretentious "literary" garbage. That's not to say that there isn't plenty of great stuff out there. But I've found if you pick a random book off the shelf in the science fiction section and one in the random literature section, you've got a better chance of having something worth reading in the science fiction section. You have to have a better idea of what you're looking for in general fiction to avoid the crap.