Five on Friday

Bookworm

1. What was the last book you read?
The last one I finished was The Lions of the North, by Edward Marston.

2. What book(s) are you reading now?
It's easier--for me--to just link to my reading blog.

3. Do you have a library card? Do you use it?
Imagine my gales of laughter.
Although, truly, I don't ever get my card out: I have my number memorized.

4. How do you choose a new book to read?
Recommendations from friends, book reviews, books that pass through my hands as I catalog them, and my two reading lists.

5. We all had to read books in school. Which was your favorite? Your least favorite? Do you think you would feel differently about them if you read them now?
When I was in school, I read everything...until junior year in college. In one semester I was assigned something like 8 books for a history class and about 6 books for a lit course. And then there were some other classes, too. It was in the course of struggling through Book Four on the history and politics of the Soviet Union that I realized that I was the only one reading these things. So I stopped, and started picking and choosing.

I never finished The Last of the Mohicans and, having seen the movie, feel there is no need to try it again. I have tried Cry, the Beloved Country more than once since it was assigned in high school--to no avail. I will never willingly read another Hemingway book. Hated Grapes of Wrath (and never truly finished it)--though I love Steinbeck's other books. Madame Bovary = vomit.

I love(d) Shakespeare. I could read Will every day. I also really enjoyed The Great Gatsby and The Scarlet Letter. The Brontes were good too; I've reread Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights numerous times. I even like Tess of the D'Urbervilles, though I wouldn't read it again.



Moral: never ask a librarian about books. ;-)