f morsie reads

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Meme of Fives

Heather/errantdreams tagged me for a meme today. I'll answer some of the questions, but I'm also going to create a few of my own to keep the meme on topic for the blog.

What are five places where you have lived?
In order: Ossining, NY; Uelsen, Germany; Chicago, IL; Athens, Greece; Ann Arbor, Michigan

What are five jobs you have had?
Babysitter, Lifeguard, Shoe salesperson, Intern, Archivist

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)

- Work on a Digital Library Collection proposal
- Pick out some finding aids for Isadore to encode tomorrow
- Read Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett
- Research Louis Kahn
- Work on the J.J. catalog

Five books I've most recently completed:
- The Bride Stripped Bare, Anonymous
- The Illustrated Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte/Dame Darcy
- Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
- New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
- The Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards

Five (random) books on Mt. TBR:
(chosen by the LibraryThing widget in my sidebar)
- Garden of Eve by K.L. Going
- The Helmet of Horror: The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur by Victor Pelevin
- Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
- Cry of the Dove by Fadia Faqir
- Death of a Joyce Scholar by Bartholomew Gill

Five BookCrossing books I've had in my possession for over a year:
(I got these by sorting my bookshelf TBR by registration date, earliest first)
- Evening by Susan Minot
- Murder at the National Gallery by Margaret Truman
- The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
- The Underpainter by Jane Urquhart
- Virgin Earth by Philippa Gregory

Labels:

posted by karen! @ 1:33 PM   3 comments

Sunday, February 24, 2008

What are you reading?

My friend Breeni of Breeni Books tagged me for the What are you reading? meme.

I'm supposed to -
Turn to page 123 of the nearest book, go to the fifth sentence and post the next three! Then tag five more people.

I'll cheat and do this for the two books that I'm most actively reading at the moment and not tag five people.

First -
Tobacco particulate thickens the air.
A shelf of books: Auden, Veblen, Spengler, Steinbeck, Dos Passos. Tropic of Cancer, out in plain view, it must have been smuggled.
That's from Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, which I am reading in preparation for our book club discussion on Wednesday.

Second -
I went eagerly into it. Then we took a sharp left, and the road changed, we crunched over dirt. There was a car parked at the end of the lane, and the hard black of a building through the overhanging branches, and we got out and walked towards it, around a corner, and now there was a single bulb above a door.
That's from Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra. I got a lovely hardcover copy of this book last weekend for $2 at Russell's new favorite used book store. I'm not supposed to be adding books to Mt. TBR - but I'd heard really good things about this book and the protagonist is a Sikh - so I've decided to read it before it can make it to one of our book cases (so it'll never technically by on Mt. TBR). I'm on page 181 of 900.

Labels:

posted by karen! @ 11:53 AM   4 comments

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Eva's Reading Meme

Dana of the Ace & Hoser Blook tagged me for Eva's Reading Meme.

On so many of these questions, I have the feeling that I'll wish I could go back and change my answers as soon as the post is published.

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?
The Lord of the Rings, much to the chagrin of both my father and my husband who love the books. To be fair, I did try to read the books after I read and enjoyed The Hobbit, but I just couldn't get into The Fellowship of the Ring. It seemed so dull in comparison that I quickly gave up on the books and haven't given them a second chance.

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?
A cruise would be fantastic, but maybe high tea instead so I can get rid of them if they start driving me crazy in real life. Now, who to invite...
- Chelle LaFleur, one of Susan Helene Gottfried's characters. She'd be a blast to have around.
- Captain Nemo. Honestly I have no idea why. He probably wouldn't be a fantastic dinner companion, but he's stuck in my head today. Maybe Chelle will give him a talking to.
- Albus Dumbledore. Just to mix things up a bit.

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?
Ooooh... I love the Thursday Next books... poor Granny Next trying to read the ten most boring books ever written.
Anyway, the most boring novel on the planet - The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway? Honestly, I have no idea, but I haven't read The Old Man and the Sea yet and I've heard that it's quite boring.

Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?
In most cases, I've done this with books I have every intention of reading like The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, which I have on my book shelf. My biggest sins in this regard have probably been implying that I've read J.M. Coetzee and (ugh, I cringe just admitting this) Orhan Pamuk (yes, I own most of his novels, I just haven't gotten around to reading them).

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book?
Jane Eyre. I was certain that I'd read it in high school.

You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead of personalise the VIP)
Here are a couple that I might recommend, based on the VIP:
- 1984 by George Orwell. I know that there are lots of people out there who don't like 1984, but I think it might be the perfect lure for some.
- Zahrah and the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu. I adore this book and think that many people will be able to relate to Zahrah.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?
This question is soooooo hard. Right now the language I most want to learn in Turkish, but I'm really not sure that Turkish would be the ideal choice for this wish. Maybe Russian?

A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?
Maybe The Invitation to the Voyage: An Illustrated Poem. This is a beautiful book. I have the bi-lingual edition so I can enjoy both the original French and an English translation. And, the book is short so it wouldn't keep me away from new reading for too long.

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?
I'll spin this question a bit and add the BookCrossing community to the blogging community and say that I've rediscovered mysteries since I got involved in BookCrossing and the broader online community of readers.

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.
My dream library might come along with a book-binding facility. I'd love all my books to be rebound by me in three-quarter leather (similar to a German bookbinding book I rebound during my book conservation apprenticeship).
As for the library itself, it must have comfy chairs with nice reading lamps. Russell wants a good speaker system to pump music in while we are reading and a spiral staircase, so I guess it'll have to have two floors.

As directed, I'll tag four other people to complete this meme:
- Chelle (I'm hoping that Susan at WestofMars will humor me on this one)
- Lotus of Lotus Reads
- Milan (zzz) of While sleepwalking...
- Puss reboots
I wanted to tag Gautami, but I saw her name on the list of people who have already completed the meme.

Labels: ,

posted by karen! @ 7:06 PM   5 comments