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May. 5th, 2005 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solitary_summerProse or Poetry?
Prose, with very few exceptions. There are a few poems I do like, but... mostly I just lack the patience and/or appropriate mind-set for poetry.
Book(s) you're reading now:
Oh my. Kind of undecided at the moment. Clive Barker, Sacramant, a re-read that drags on since February; Patrick O'Brian, The Yellow Admiral, mostly during lunchbreaks; Amos Oz, Eine Geschichte von Liebe und Finsternis started, but not really into it yet; Amy Dempsey, Stile, Schulen, Bewegungen. Ein Handbuch zur Kunst der Moderne., half-way through. The TM 1936-38 diaries are lying around somewhere half-read, too.
Last book you've read:
Eva Menasse, Vienna
Next book you're going to buy/read:
No idea yet. Buy, the next Harry Potter probably, unless something really catches my interest before, there are so many books at home already that I ought to read before I buy anything new. Read... again, no idea. I don't really plan this kind of thing, mostly just try to find something that fits my mood.
Book you've read the most times:
Hard to say, because I haven't exactly been keeping count: And while I used to re-read books a lot, I rarely do now, there just nevers seems to be the time. Judging from a vague memory and the worn-down state of the books, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, M.Renault's Alexander trilogy, or any of her novels, really. E. M. Forster, A Passage to India?
Longest book you've read:
Thomas Mann's Joseph books, if you want to count that as one. Or Hugo's Les Miserables. If neither of these counts, probably Der Zauberberg. Gone With the Wind? That's quite long, too, as far as I remember.
Book you've read in the shortest time (relative to the number of pages):
More recently, I'm guessing the last Harry Potter, because I was in a hurry to finish it to pass it on to my sister before I left for holidays. The Joseph books were a pretty fast read too, considering the volume and style...
One book you wanted to read that disappointed you:
Well, i've already ranted at length about my recent disappointment with Schiffbruch mit Tiger / Life of Pi. Otherwise... I'm a very eclectic reader, I rarely read, or if I happen to start them, finish books I don't like, so mostly I'm just not involved enough to be really disappointed. Come to think of it, though, Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman's The Fall Of Kings. Gah. Kushner's Swordspoint is a such a lovely book, great characters, great style, wheras The Fall Of Kings, a sort-of sequel, suddenly throws in a magical/metaphysical element, even though there never was the slightest indication that the supernatural played any role in the world of Swordspoint, and all-too obviously either Kushner or Sherman channels her frustration with academia. I hate it when authors do this kind of thing.
Have you read books in a language different from yours?
I read a lot of English books, during quite a long period of my life read more English than German even. My German teacher wasn't particularly inspiring, wheras I had a slight academic crush on my weird but interesting English teacher. French... ::sigh:: I dread finding out how far it has eroded. Years ago I still read Hugo's Les Miserables, the unabridged version, with only the occasional help of a dictionary, but now...
Writer you've read the most books from:
Unless you want to count Patrick O'Brian and his endless series, and, er, can we also leave aside Marion Zimmer Bradley (read almost everything written by her as a teenager) and other series-producing authors, it'd probably be a toss up between E.M.Forster and Thomas Mann. If we're counting pages, and the diaries, Mann wins.
Some books you like (not necessarily your faves):
Thomas Mann, Doktor Faustus; Buddenbrooks
Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs d'Hadrien
Patricia McKillip, The Riddle Master trilogy
Friedrich Schiller, Don Carlos
Yasar Kemal, Die Ameiseninsel
Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Catch Trap
Virginia Woolf, Orlando
Clive Barker, Imajica
E.M.Forster, The Longest Journey
&c., & so on...
3 books you don't like:
See above. I don't believe in books-you-must-read (either because they're classics, or bestsellers), so if I don't like them, I don't read them, don't finish them and on the rare occasion that I do, tend to promptly forget them.
There are of course those I read, and liked at the time, and now cringe and blush at the memory.
Hm. Elfriede Jelinek, Die Klavierspielerin
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Date: 2005-05-05 07:44 pm (UTC)Gah, didn't think of T.Mann for the "most books by same author" question. Must be a tie between him and Dickens.
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Date: 2005-05-05 08:01 pm (UTC)Seriously these memes... I never can think of anything in the first place, and *then* I get an Entscheidungsneurose and the answers are endlessly long...
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Date: 2005-05-05 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-05 08:03 pm (UTC)