Book Survey

1) What author do you own the most books by?
JK Rowling. (The most books that I own by an author that aren't part of a series are by Jane Austen and Mark Twain.)

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Angela's Ashes. I have two paperbacks as well as a hardcover that I bought when I was in Limerick, which is where Frank McCourt grew up and the story takes place. Bam.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
No, because it's grammatically okay for sentences to end with prepositions if their absence would make the question or sentence sound weird. Although I am sure there are better ways to have phrased those questions.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Well, it's no secret. I love so many characters. Who do I start with? Edward Cullen? Mr. Darcy? Aragorn? Mr. Rochester? Atticus Finch? Holly Golightly? Elizabeth Bennet? Tom Sawyer?

5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children?)
The Catcher in the Rye. I read it every Christmas. I'm kind of emo like that.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Little House in the Big Woods. I was obsessed with Laura Ingalls and wanted to be a prairie girl. I loved all her books.

7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. Too much.

8 ) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Water for Elephants was super entertaining, and I loved Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (I'm slowly dipping my pinkie toe into the pool of nonfiction, little by little...).

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
I'm not tagging anyone, but this is impossible to answer. I would recommend different books to everyone. No one has the same tastes.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
I am not sure what the requirements are to win a Nobel Prize, but Ian McEwan might deserve one.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a film?
Not sure...the books are always better, aren't they? I am excited to see Water for Elephants in April though.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a film?
Any bad one.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I cannot recall anything super weird. I did have a dream that one of Peter Pan's lost boys waited on me in a restaurant though.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
I do not read anything I would consider lowbrow. I mean, Nicholas Sparks books are a joke, but they're entertaining...I guess American Psycho? It was horrible...I did not finish it.

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Hmm...The Grapes of Wrath was difficult just because I am such a non-fan of Steinbeck. I could only read about eight chapters. And Wuthering Heights was just the worst book to get through ever.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
I haven't seen any obscure ones...in fact, I think I've only seen A Midsummer Night's Dream.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
FRENCH....Dumas forever.

18) Roth or Updike?
I haven't read either.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Eggers.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare.

21) Austen or Eliot
I haven't read Eliot, but will say Austen regardless.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I have not read a single Dickens novel...only A Christmas Carol, which is more of a novella. Shameful, shameful. What sort of second-rate educational institutions did I attend that I was not forced to read at least one Dickens novel?!

23) What is your favorite novel?
So many...Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey, The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Jungle, The Bell Jar, Peter Pan, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fahrenheit 451, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Color Purple, This Side of Paradise, Lolita, To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Angela's Ashes, A Clockwork Orange, Pride and Prejudice, Into the Wild, The Hobbit, The Twilight books, and The Road are some of my all-time favorites.

24) Play?
In college, I was obsessed with The Crucible. I also loved Doubt and Crimes of the Heart. I love reading plays. I just got the Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole...excited to read it.

25) Poem?
No way can I choose a favorite. No. Way.

26) Essay?
Essay? Really?

27) Short story?
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson. It'll take you five minutes...read it. You'll cry.

28) Work of non-fiction?
Into the Wild. Catch Me If You Can. Kitchen Confidential. Zeitoun.

29) Who is your favorite writer?
Again, I have so many. Cormac McCarthy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ian McEwan, Truman Capote, J.D. Salinger, Jane Austen, Frank McCourt, Jack Kerouac, C.S. Lewis, Oscar Wilde, Hunter Thompson, Tolkien, Rowling, Bradbury, Orwell...

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Dan Brown.

31) What is your desert island book?
The Count of Monte Cristo.

32) And … what are you reading right now?
The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly. It's a book about medieval European history and alllll about the plague.

Post your own survey if you're into books...