Sharp Words

Melissa Donovan at Writing Forward featured this meme quite a long while ago in blogging terms. And like so much other material, I’ve been saving it till I have some spare time.

What was the last book you bought?
Apart from a few for Christmas presents that I can’t mention (well, OK, they include Maeve Binchy’s Heart and Soul for my Mum – and she knows she’s getting it), I bought the first 3 Walker Papers books by C. E. Murphy for a friend’s birthday – and have been getting to read them myself. (Ahem.)
The last books I actually bought for myself were second-hand copies of Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy; read my review.

Name a book you have read MORE than once
Have you got all day? I own several hundred books, almost all of which I have read more than once.
Particular favourites that get pulled off the shelves at least every other year are Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, Lindsey Davis’s Falco novels, and everything by Sheri S Tepper.

Has a book ever fundamentally changed the way you see life? If yes, what was it?
If I was being flippant, I could say that the first book to change my life was Forever by Judy Blume, as communally read at the back of my maths clothes when I was 12. It certainly changed my outlook on certain things!
I don’t know if I could pick one book though. There are many that have challenged the way I think; most were in my teens, naturally enough, but I’d like to hope that others can and will still sometimes have that effect.

How do you choose a book – e.g. by cover design and summary, recommendations or reviews
All of the above. Recommendations and reviews are important; if I’m loitering in a bookshop or the library, then a title is actually the first thing I go for if the author is unfamiliar; then I’ll go by the cover summary. Design doesn’t sway me so much.

Do you prefer Fiction or Non-Fiction?
Fiction for pleasure, non-fiction for research.

What’s more important in a novel – beautiful writing or a gripping plot?
If it has a gripping plot, I can forgive a certain amount of ugly writing; I do like beautiful writing (and that’s a very subjective thing), but even if it’s the most beautiful writing ever, I do like to have at least some plot.

Most loved/memorable character (character/book)
Don’t laugh, but it’s probably George from Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books. She was the first character I can remember wanting to be – the tomboy, not soppy Anne who always did the washing-up.

Which book or books can be found on your nightstand at the moment?
I don’t have books /on/ the nightstand, they’re on the floor. But aside from anything else, this questions presupposes that
a) I maybe read more than one book at a time (very rarely)
b) I put books away after I’ve read them (I tend to have a blitz clear-up once a month or so)
So the books lying by my bed are the ones that I’ve read in the past month (or two), not the one I’m currently reading; that one tends to be toted round the house (and to work if I’m getting the bus) so that I can read a few pages whenever I’m sat down or otherwise unoccupied for a moment or two.
Oddly enough, I am reading two books at the moment:
- a re-read of Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, which I want to review and is due back in the library in a few days
- The Companions by Sheri S Tepper (as per her mention above)

What was the last book you’ve read, and when was it?
The last book I finished was Thunderbird Falls by C. E. Murphy (also as mentioned previously); that was last Wednesday evening. Took me two evenings to read – it would have been one, but I had too much else to do.

Have you ever given up on a book half way in?
Just a few, as I tend to only pick up things that interest me – and an awful lot of things interest me. Notably, I gave up on Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist and Patrick Suskind’s Perfume, both of which bored me after a few chapters.