Book Blog Me Meme

I got memed by moonlight ambulette and almost missed it.

1. Hardcover or paperback, and why?

Hardcover because I wanted them to last and they looked nice on the shelf. Paperback because they’re easier and cheaper.

2. If I were to own a book shop I would call it…

Hopefully Books

3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is…

“If God doesn’t exist, that’s his problem.”

Wilfrid Sheed, People Will Always Be Kind

“If I say Henry Green taught me how to write, it implies that I learned and it is not a business one learns, the used ecstacies and premature certainties unravelling as one goes” (from memory)

John Updike, reviewing Henry Green

4. The author (alive or diseased) I would love to have lunch with would be ….

Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert. If you can lunch with the dead, you can lunch with two people. 

5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except from the SAS survival guide, it would be…

A blank notebook. And several pens.  If I couldn’t make my own, I’d be banal and take Shakespeare’s Collected.

6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that….

I don’t want to go all Sven Birkerts here but the book is almost a perfect piece of technology as it is.  Waterproof books would be cool. Also Nerf books.

7. The smell of an old book reminds me of….

The Newberry Library in Chicago, where I studied for a semester and made a bunch of life-long friends. 

8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be….

Augie March.

9. The most overestimated book of all times is….

Swann’s Way. I know I must be missing something.

10. I hate it when a book….

Kills all its darlings.

And so you shall be memed:  E, Joel, Kootch, Wyl, Stix, Carolyn.  Enter your answers as comments below or as entries on your own blogs. If you like, I'll link to them.  You can find other answers at Kate's blog (Mothers who write) and Mandy and James's (When (Not) in Cairo on my links bar.

Comments

[Mandy]

Holy cow. You know they make waterproof baby bath books - why not the adult version? Oh, man, that's sweet. Or maybe just a Book Slicker will do.

Ditto on Swann's Way. Not the book slicker. You know what I mean.

[Ellen]

I'm not doing COTH anymore so I'll put my answers here:

1. Hardcover or paperback, and why?
Paperback. I don’t treat my books reverently. In fact, I tend to molest them.
2. If I were to own a book shop I would call it…
Ye Olde Lake Doughbegone Book Shoppe & Emporium of All Things Twee (too much?)
3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is…
“I was that most useless and helpless of all things: a rich girl with no money whatsoever.”
- Emily Carter, Glory Goes and Gets Some
4. The author (alive or diseased) I would love to have lunch with would be ….
Edith Wharton, who is neither alive nor diseased.
5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except from the SAS survival guide, it would be…
The Library of America’s Wharton novels in one volume: House of Mirth, The Reef, The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence
6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that….
Allows you to go right back to the first mention of the minor character who’s reappeared 80 pages later, so you can remember who they are and what they’re doing in the book
7. The smell of an old book reminds me of….
Another old book
8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be….
I dunno. Mrs. Dalloway, maybe.
9. The most overestimated book of all times is….
Ulysses. Just because you can stuff everything you know into a book doesn’t mean you should make hungover college juniors answer essay questions about it.
10. I hate it when a book….
Is deliberately and cynically pitched to the lowest common denominator.

[minnesotaj]

OK, I answered: but I'm not passing it on. You know: in school I was always the guy standing pessimistically to the side throwing verbal fireballs and casting hard glares at the enthusiastic kids. I'm not about to change now...

[Stix]

1. Hardcover or paperback, and why?
Hardcover, of course. Because when you make the commitment to open a hardcover book you are committing to spending time with the book. Paperbacks tend to be more "on the fly."
2. If I were to own a book shop I would call it…
Stix's Used Books -- because they probably would be all mine.
3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is…
...I've been collecting quotes from books since I was 12 and you want me to pick ONE favorite!!!!
4. The author (alive or diseased) I would love to have lunch with would be ….
Kevin Fenton -- I haven't seen him in ages and it would be good to eat and chat. (But I hope he isn't diseased...and I'm sure he's not deceased.)
5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except from the SAS survival guide, it would be…
I hate to be unoriginal, but I agree with K -- a blank book and pencil or the complete works of Shakespeare. If I had to pick something that no one else had picked, I want the Amber series by Roger Zelazny (and assuming I picked before Kootch).
6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that….
Allows you to read in the dark but isn't clunky or involve damaging clips or use batteries that wear out after two readings. I've got something that is really good, but it's too big for paperbacks.
7. The smell of an old book reminds me of….
spending HOURS in the basement of Mary Twyce Antiques looking for any prized tome.
8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be….
Hmm...I feel like I often recognize myself in books, but I can't think of anyone that I'd want to be. After all, something shitty usually happens to a lead, and I'd rather avoid that.
9. The most overestimated book of all times is….
The Harry Potter books. ...please...!
10. I hate it when a book….
isn't complete as a book but is really part of a series and you HAVE to read more to get the story. If it's a book, it should be complete in and of itself. If it's good, I'll read more with those characters/settings.

[K]

Stix--

Flattery will get you lunch. At the Acoustic or that new place where the country club used to be, the next time we're both in Winona.

[Carolyn]

Oh boy, these questions are hard!

1. Hardcover or paperback, and why?

I always like paperback because they are easier to hold with one hand when laying down.

2. If I were to own a book shop I would call it…

What was I thinking? Because I get so many of my books from Amazon now. Doesn't everybody? If it was a used bookstore, I'd call it Conflictedly Yours, because of all the poor authors who don't get royalties on used books. I understand in England it's illegal to sell used books. Is this still true?

3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is…

There are too many, I can't think of one.

4. The author (alive or diseased) I would love to have lunch with would be ….

Somerset Maugham. And I'd like it to be tiffin.

5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except from the SAS survival guide, it would be…

Could I go for a massive book of sudokus and a pen?

6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that….

If I underline or mark a passage, I'd want a gadget that copies the passage into a central notebook. Which, actually, I think is call an e-reader. Then I could quite easily answer questions like #3.

7. The smell of an old book reminds me of….

Who said another old book? Me too.

8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be….

I might go with the Garden of Eden, Hemingway, either of the leads. It's not his best book, but I think their life sounds fun.

9. The most overestimated book of all times is….

Kafka, The Trial. Can I also say the most overestimated cheese of all time is fresh mozerella?

10. I hate it when a book….

Makes me so worried about the characters that I have to read the last page before its time.

[K]

A quote scanner would be awesome.

[Brian Felland]

Hey, the question about what writer would you like to lunch with reminds me of a comment Thomas Pynchon made in his introduction to Slow Learner, a collection of his early short stories. He said if you were to turn a corner some day and bump into your self twenty years younger, would you recognize yourself. Would you take yourself out for a beer or would you pretend not to see you.

SO I'm thinking a good answer to the question would be to have lunch with your writer self, the twenty year younger person who remembers all that stuff you've forgotten for self protection, a person who can still make rational arguments for all that irrational stuff done in the past.

[K]

I would have a fascinating lunch with my decades-younger self. I'm very curious if I would like him.

[Kootch]

1. Hardcover or paperback? Why?

Trade paperback.

2. If I were to own a bookshop I would call it...

Actually, it's my dream to own a used book store. Maybe someday. I call it "Another person's treasure."

3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is

As Stix and others have pointed out, there are so many. Here's one;

“He did not expect reasonable conduct from human beings; most people were candidates for protective restraint.”
--Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

4. The author (alive or diseased) I would love to have lunch with would be...

Neil Gaiman. If only for the sushi.

5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except from the SAS survival guide, it would be…

Lord of the Rings.

6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that….

Hmm...something that would hold a book in place so I could read while riding my bike on my trainer in the living room, maybe?

7. The smell of an old book reminds me of….

All the great used bookstores I frequent or have ever frequented.

8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be….

Corwin, from Roger Zelazny's Amber series. (I can't believe Stix didn't use this one.)

9. The most overestimated book of all times is….

Ulysses. Joyce.

10. I hate it when a book….

is great all the way through and comes to an unsatisfying ending.

[Kootch]

I would love to have lunch with my twenty years younger self. There is so much advice I could give that little bastard that it would totally screw up the entire space-time continuum.

[Stix]

Kootch...I thought seriously about the Corwin answer but I seriously don't know if I'd trade places with him. I'm a wimp at heart (and in person!) and I just don't want to have to go through all that crap! I think that's one of the reasons I enjoy reading...to live through all these ordeal vicariously and to walk away without a scratch!

K--the restaurant is called Signatures and they have very good food. There, the Accoustic...wherever, whenever!

My twenty years younger self...I think that's me now. I just love living delusionally!

[amy]

god, these are fun to read. why? i'm not sure, but i love them.

interesting about the lunch with much-younger self. my twenty-years-younger self would be, uh, 8 years old, so that might be REALLY interesting. i might be interested to know if, like, my 16-year-old self would like me now, but also, she was kind of silly, so i probably don't care.

and also, come on, swann's way is great! you just have to be very very awake and alert and full of energy and then read like 10 pages at a time. that's a lot to ask, sure.

or maybe it's just that i love sleep so much that i have a supernatural patience for his writing about sleeping.

hm.

[K]

I think my beef might be with C. K. Scott-Moncrieff (awesome accidental rhyme), not Proust. I will give the Lydia Davis version a shot.

[Carolyn]

You know, I'd really like to have lunch with my 20 years older self. I think. Maybe I should think about that more. What if she's a no show? But I think I would. As long as my 20 year older self considered her comments wisely. Because having lunch with your 20 years younger self is very dangerous. Suddenly that episode of Star Trek: Next Generation comes to mind. Picard goes back in time and saves himself from getting an awful injury, but it changes the path of his life and he's just a meek clerk. It was good he got in that knife fight after all!

[K]

BTW, Carolyn: Cheddar is the most overrated cheese. Cheddar is evil.