Book Q&A Rules

1. Post these rules

2. Post a photo of your favourite book coverImage

3. Answer the questions below

4. Tag a few people to answer them too

5. Go to their blog/twitter and tell them you’ve tagged them

6. Make sure you tell the person who tagged you that you’ve taken part!

What are you reading right now?

Fuck You, I Was Ducking!  – it’s a manuscript of a work-in-progress by Jo Day, and I’m loving it.

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?

The Orchard of Lost Souls – I’m reviewing it for The Big Issue.

What five books have you always wanted to read but haven’t got round to?

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

What is the What by Dave Eggers

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

What magazines do you have in your bathroom/ lounge right now?

Lucky Peach, Creative NonFiction

What’s the worst book you’ve ever read?

Oh, that’s tough… I read multiple Dan Brown books, I’m not proud of that.

What book seemed really popular but you didn’t like?

Diary of a Bad Year was critically well-received and analysed to death, but I just didn’t like it. Sorry, Coetzee.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone?

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.

Where do you usually get your books?

Depends what it is… Work (Dymocks), op-shops, reading copies. 

When you were little, did you have any particular reading habits?

Same books, repeatedly. I loved The Worst Witch and Sweet Valley books. As I got a bit older I went for John Marsden. I loved trips to the Frankston library with Dad. 

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was too good to put down?

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Have you ever “faked” reading a book?

I struggled to finish The Man Who Loved Children in time for the week we were studying it, so I kept pretty quiet in the tute but didn’t own up. The discussion was so good that I chose to finish it rather than abandon it, as I probably would have otherwise.

Have you ever bought a book just because you liked the cover?

…No.

What was your favourite book when you were a child?

It depends what age we’re talking about… in order of age: Goodnight Sammy, Silvester and the Magic Pebble, The Worst Witch series, The Magic Faraway Tree, Tomorrow When the War Began series.

What book changed your life?

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

What is your favourite passage from a book?

Oh, there’s many, but we’ll go with this one for now:
““In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven’t Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn’t Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You’ll Wait Till They’re Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody’s Read So It’s As If You Had Read Them, Too. Eluding these assaults, you come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out:

the Books You’ve Been Planning To Read For Ages,

the Books You’ve Been Hunting For Years Without Success,

the Books Dealing With Something You’re Working On At The Moment,

the Books You Want To Own So They’ll Be Handy Just In Case,

the Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer,

the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves,

the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified,

Now you have been able to reduce the countless embattled troops to an array that is, to be sure, very large but still calculable in a finite number; but this relative relief is then undermined by the ambush of the Books Read Long Ago Which It’s Now Time To Reread and the Books You’ve Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It’s Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them.” 

from Italo Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller

Who are your top five favourite authors?

Dave Eggers
David Foster Wallace
Donna Tartt
Shane Koyczan
Nick Flynn

What book has no one heard about but should read?

Get Jiro by Anthony Bourdain – it’s a hilarious graphic novel about a future where food is the ultimate goal for everyone, and whoever has the food has the power.  

What books are you an ‘evangelist’ for?

If on a Winters Night a Traveller, by Italo Calvino

Rocks in the Belly, by John Bauer

House of Leaves, by Mark Z Danielewski

The Happiness Trap, by Russ Harris

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, by Nick Flynn

Automatic Teller by Carmel Bird

Non-fiction by Chuck Palahniuk

…I’ll stop there.

What are your favourite books by a first time author?

Asymmetry, by Josephine Rowe
Rocks in the Belly, by John Bauer (first novel, anyway)
Neon Pilgrim, by Lisa Dempster

What is your favourite classic book?

Little Women or Jane Eyre

Five other notable mentions?

Gaysia by Ben Law
Madness: A Memoir by Kate Richards
Flying With Paper Wings by Sandy Jeffs
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Thanks to Laurie Steed for tagging me in this post. I’m tagging Jo Day, Veronica Sullivan, Tully Hansen, and Ruby Mahoney.

Your thoughts: You don’t have to be tagged to take part in the meme. You can respond in the comments or on your own blog – just share the link in the comments section. (These are Laurie’s thoughts, but I agree!)