32 Question Book Quiz

1. Book, Short Story, Poem, or Magazine sort of person?
Book

2. Does "genre" mean anything to you?
If the book is well written, I can read anything. But I can tend to read poorly written horror better than most, and some poorly written sf, so I guess it does.

3. If so, what's your favorite(s)?
I love 19th century novels, old science fiction, 1960's speculative, and horror from all over.

4. Do you think your favorite genre reflects on your personality?
It does a little. I do tend to like ghastly things, because I have sort of a negative world view. And I tend to be pretty speculative, so there you go.

5. Put the following things in the order of importance to you: plot, characters, themes, neologistics (i.e. new things in the writing), style.
Themes, Plot, Character, Style, Neologistics. Most days.

6. Put the following things in the order of importance to you: romance, suspense, conflict, problem solving, comedy.
Problem solving, suspense, comedy, romance, conflict. Again, most days.

7. Once you start a book, how strongly do you feel the need to finish it? Have you ever stopped a book in the middle? How often? Why?
Fairly strongly, though I have stopped books in the middle (American Tragedy and Madame Bovary). It is rarely that I do so, and it often has to do with the writing style not accurately lining up with the sort of thing my mind wants to read.

8. On a scale of 1-10, how much do the following things detract from your reading experience (things in the text that drive you out of the moment)?
A. Racism: 7. I never can just "let it go", but I can kind of overlook it in some texts.
B. Sexism: 4. It gets on my nerves sometime, but considering the genres I tend to read, it is so rampant that I am somewhat numb to it.
C. Graphic sexuality: 3. As long as Tom Wolfe doesn't write it.
D. Graphic Violence: 2. I kind of like it, at times, and in context.
E. Rape, Child abuse, Etc: 7. I can take it in context. One of the reason that I left the fantasy genre behind is because it tends to dwell on rape too much. Something like five fantasy novels I read in a row had one or more cases of it. I know it was common in medieval times, but those books are rarely written with an honest medieval mindset.
F. Religion (or lack thereof), expliticitly stated: 4. I can take it, unless it gets really repetitive. I used to not be able to take it, though, when I was younger. If it wasn't diehard Christianity, it would make my heart beat faster and I would get angry.
G. "Poor" fact checking: 5. It tends to rumple me right off the bat, but I can deal with the concept of the facts in the world being "different" than our own, or characters being confused about something. When there are disagreements within the text, it really bothers me.
H. Typos: 9. I hate it, but more than anything an editing mistake will cause me to get out of reading pattern and it sometimes takes me a while to get back to it.

9. Do you tend to attribute everything a (or every) character says to the writer's personal beliefs?
I honestly try not to do this, but often do subconsiously. I find it odd that our tendency seems to be to attribute all characters, "good" and "bad", to the writer. We just assume "bad" characters are their deep, dark desires.

10. How many pages per hour would you say is your general reading goal, all things considered? How many books per month?
I would say about 100 pages, though I usually hit about the 75 mark. I think two books a week, or maybe three, is a good base line goal.

11. Do you consider reading goals helpful?
For me, they are. I read more with them, seem to actually enjoy it more, and oddly seem to recall more. It helps the reading engage more of my brain, I think.

12. Do you enjoy reading more or less now than you used to?
Reading has always been my chief hobby. Now it is more of a full facet of my life, so I am going to say that it is more important.

13. Have you ever skipped school/work/a date/etc to read?
Yes.

14. "Desert Disk" book time. You can take 2000 pages (about 10 point font) on an island with you to make up your primary reading material for the indefinite future while waiting on rescue. What do you take (and yes, it was worded like this to stop cheaters, heh)?
Philip K Dick's Scanner Darkly (200pp). Christopher Moore's Practical Demon Keeping (250pp). Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (300pp). Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (200pp). P.G. Wodehouse's Most of Wodehouse (500pp). And, to finish it off, probably Dickens' Tale of Two Cities (500pp). If I have any left over, then various poems by E.E. Cummings.

15. Now that THAT is out of the way, what would you say your favorite novel is?
The one that keeps coming to mind as an almost perfect book is Cormac McCarthy's The Road, though I can't read it that often. A Scanner Darkly tends to be a good mix of my dark side and my light side, as does Neverwhere. Probably one of those three, currently.

16. Short Story?
It makes me an ass, I admit, but I love the little Hemingway super short story of "For sale: children's shoes. Never used." For a slightly more meatier piece of work, I have probably reread Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu more times than any other piece. Well, that or Cold Equations.

17. Favorite non-fiction?
Probably Nature of Scientific Revolutions.

18. Do you read plays? Do you have a favorite?
Only one I have read for pleasure, and more than once, is Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are dead.

19. Do you audiobook?
No, not really. Only rarely. It has to be real good.

20. Do you "e-book"?
Yeah, though most often in conjunction with a print copy.

21. If you could purge the world of any one writer's works, which would it be?
Sorry, but Norah Roberts.

22. If you could double the number of works by any one writer, assuming equal distribution of writing quality, who would you pick?
I know, it makes me a scene kid, but Palahniuk. Besides, this means we would get another "Guts" story. Isn't that swell?

23. What gender normally writes the books you write? What time period? What nation?
Male. 1850-1950. And American and England fairly neck and neck. I also read a good number of 1990's Japanese literature, for some reason.

24. Favorite novel to the screen adaptation? Favorite short story to screen? Favorite play to screen?
Favorite novel to screen adaptation might have to be Lord of the Rings, for sheer epic enjoyment. Favorite short story to screen would probably go to The Thing for updating a classic tale while keeping most of the salient points in mind. Play to screen? I liked the fairly recent remake of Midsummer's Night Dream.

25. Any movies better than their source material?
Fight Club was a better movie. Not only did it seem to tell the story better, but it ended better, and had more little "in jokes" than the novel.

26. Least favorite word to screen adaption?
The Hours. I disliked the book and the movie seemed to make it worse.

27. Book or movie first?
I usually do the book first, though I can attest (from personal experience) that it seems to be better the other way around.

28. What book (or short story, or play) needs to be made into a movie?
I personally think that Practical Demonkeeping would be a fun movie. That, or Ubik by PKD (though probably fully as a cartoon).

29. Do you prefer precise, or loose, translations from print to the screen?
I used to prefer precise translations, but now I think I prefer for them to be fairly loose, enough that the story gets to grow in some unexpected way.

30. What writer are you most likely to name drop in a conversation, whether earnestly or not?
I do it all the time. For me, it would probably Kuhn, Dick, Palahniuk, or Nietzsche. Hey, least it's not Proust.

31. How much do you trust translated literature?
Not that much, actually. If able, I will often thumb through different translations to get a better idea. I really should let it go because it does not matter that much, but I can't.

32. Last question. If you had to buy a book for a dear one's birthday, what section of a bookstore would you hate to be spotted in the most?
I HATE being seen in the diet section, and the New Age section, and Self Help section. People always tend to stare at me when I am there.