Two Tags

 

Hello, my good people!  (At least I hope you've been good.  You haven't been naughty while I've been away have you?  Dear me, I turn my back for one minute...)

Anyhow.  I'm here today with two tags which are long overdue.  And when I say long, I mean long.  Indeed, I shudder to think how long it's been since I was tagged for these...

*checks to see when it was*

Oh goodness.

It was back in April and May!!! 

*gulp*

I'm such a failure.  Why am I even a blogger?

 

Ahem!

 

But this is no time for moping and wailing over past failures.  Let's forget all that!  Let's be optimistic!  Let's pretend for the time being that Miss March is actually good at something and let's move forward!! 

 

 I present to you...

 

 

The Book Tag
(or whatever it's called)

~*~

 

Rules:

 

1. You must be honest.  (Indeed you must.  Honesty is the best policy, people!)  

2. You must answer all the questions.  (Why of course!  Even if you don't have an answer.  Because it really doesn't matter what you say just so long as you say something.)  

3. You must tag at least 4 people.  (Oh.  Well, we'll see about that one.) 

 

I was tagged for this by both Hamlette and Elanor.  (Thanks, girls!)  You can check out their answers to the tag here and here.

 

Now onto the questions!

 



1. What book has been on your shelf the longest?

 

Probably my NIV illustrated children's Bible.  In it's blue and red case.  It has been a prominent fixture on the left end of my bookshelf for a good many years. 

Behold.

 

And yes, I know.  The professionalism of my photography skills is astounding.  *bows*

2. What is your current read, your last read, and the book you'll read next?

Current Read: Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell.  I read this one years ago but figured it was about time to reread it. 

Last Read: Dr. Thorne by Anthony Trollope.  It doesn't quite make it onto my favorite's list, but it was still good.

Book I'll read next: Hmm...now that's a bit more difficult to answer.  Maybe North and South?  Watching the movie recently made me want to read the book again.  But then...I don't know.  It all depends on the availability of the book at the time (I have to get it from the library) and just my overall mood once I'm finished with Wives and Daughters.

You get the idea.

3. What book did everyone like but you hated?

Well apparently a lot of people must have liked Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea because it became a classic.  (Don't ask me how that phenomenon occurred.)  Personally, I call it boring.


And Emma agrees with me!  ;)

 

4. What book do you keep telling yourself you'll read, but you probably won't?

Well, I don't usually tell myself that I'll read anything because I don't like to go back on my word--shows you how much I trust myself when it comes to my reading habits *coughcough*--but, well...maybe War and Peace could count. I've been thinking I'd like to read it ever since my dad and brother read it the other year and said that it was good, but I have a feeling that with regards to that book I may never move beyond the thinking stage.  It's just a hunch.
 

5. What book are you saving for retirement?

Dear me.  Who thinks that far ahead?  One more question like that and you're going to make me feel old!

6. Last page: read it first or wait 'til the end?

Oh!  I never make a point of reading it first!  No indeed.  I always wait until the end.  Always.  (Unless of course things get altogether too suspenseful and I just have to know what happens...or, on the other hand, if things get too boring and I just want to know how it ends without having to read all the dull stuff in between.  You know.)

 

7. Acknowledgements: waste of paper and ink or interesting aside?

Well the word "acknowledgements" certainly doesn't sound very interesting, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a waste of paper and ink because the acknowledgements are really for those people who are being acknowledged in them, right?  And I'm sure they all appreciate it. ;)

 

8. Which book character would you switch places with?

How about Meg March (Brooke)?  I should like to have my own little home and my own little family.  On second thought though, maybe I'll just stay here and wait for that to come naturally in it's own good time.  (Very wise, Miss March, very wise.)

 

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life?

 

This one.  I received it as a Christmas present in 2003 (wow!  didn't realize it was that long ago!).  I just remember how happy I was to find that it fit snuggly in the large pocket of my new purse (also a Christmas present) and how thrilled I was to be able to conveniently carry both presents along with me to my grandparents house that evening.  Ah!  The good old days!  :) 

 

10. Name a book you acquired in an interesting way.

Umm.   I actually can't think of a specific one at the moment.   Sorry about that.

11. Have you ever given a book away for a special reason to a special person?

Uh...you won't believe this.  But I can't think of an answer for this one either.  (Strike out number 2.  We are now on our way to being a very boring post indeed.)

12. Which book has been with you most places?

I guess my Bible.  Not that I carry it with me wherever I go, but more so than any other book probably.

13. Any required reading you hated in high school that wasn't so bad later?

Oh dear.  Nothing's coming to mind for this one either.  (What's wrong with me today?  Lost my thinker?)  Anyhow, I'm guessing if there was a book I hated I probably never reread it.  Why would I want to give a hateful book a second chance anyway?

 14. Used or brand new?

Either or, but I probably have more used books than new books just because...they're cheaper, don't ya know?!  (And I'm not so abnormal as to turn up my nose at a good bargain.)

15. Have you ever read a Dan Brown book?

Nope.  Ain't never even heerd of him.  No doubt it's the result of my lack of edication.   I ne'er was ter college yeh know.

(Don't ask.  Just don't ask.)

(And no, I am not educated in how to speak uneducatedly so...oh never mind.  Just forget it.)

16. Have you ever seen a movie you liked more than the book?

Maybe Captain's Courageous.  The book has a bit too much sea lingo in it--tends to drag a bit sometimes (at least the last time I read it, it did)--but then...I don't know.  They're almost completely different stories really, so it's kind of hard to compare them.   But no.  I think I do like the movie better.   There.

17. Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks included?

Cookbooks included?  Well then, yes!  Not that I've actually read this one, mostly I've just looked at the pictures. But that was enough.  ;)

 

My siblings and I used to love to get this book out and go page by page choosing which dessert on each page we liked best.  Talk about teasing oneself with unattainable pleasures!

18. Who is the person whose book advice you'll always take?

My own.  Haha.  ;P 

Probably most any one of my siblings.  (Though even some of my siblings have odd taste in books sometimes.  *shakes head sadly*)

And look at that!  We've come to the end of the questions. 

I've decided after all not to tag anyone today--far too lazy--so instead we'll just move on immediately to the second tag.  I was tagged for this one by MovieCritic who was in fact the creator of this tag.  Cool, right?  You can check out MovieCritic's original post here.

And now.  The tag.

Rules:

 1. Be honest.  (When am I not?)
2. Put an asterisk next to the ones you have read all the way through. Put an addition sign next to the ones you have started.  (And I'm going to be put two asterisks next to the one's my dad read aloud to me, because even though I didn't read them myself I feel like they ought to count.)

3. Tag as many people as these books that you have read.  (*gulp*  Something tells me I'm going to be breaking rules again...)

 

Thanks for the tag, MovieCritic!  This should be fun!  :D

 



1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen*

2. Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte*
4. Temple of the Golden Pavilion - Yukio Mishima
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee*
6. The Story of the Eye - George Bataille
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. Adrift on the Nile - Naguib Mahfouz
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens*
11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott*
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Rhinoceros - Eugene Ionesco
15. Baron in the Trees - Italo Calvino
16. The Master of Go - Yasunari Kawabata
17. Woman in the Dunes - Abe Kobo
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gogol's Wife - Tomasso Landolfi
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. Ferdydurke - Gombrowicz
26. Narcissus and Goldmund - Herman Hesse
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
33. Tom Sawyer / Huck Finn - Mark Twain*
34. Emma -Jane Austen*
35. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
36. Delta Wedding - Eudora Welty
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Naomi - Junichiro Tanizaki
39. Cosmicomics - Italo Calvino
40. The Joke - Milan Kundera
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. Labyrinths - Gorge Luis Borges
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. Under My Skin - Doris Lessing
46. Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery*
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. Don Quixote - Miguel Cervantes
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Absalom Absalom - William Faulkner
51. Beloved - Toni Morrison
52. The Flounder - Gunther Grass
53. Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen*
55. My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
56. A Doll's House - Henrik Ibsen
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens*
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Idiot - Fodor Dostoevesky
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
64. Death on the Installment Plan - Celine
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas**
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Pedro Paramo - Juan Rulfo
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens*
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Metamorphosis - Kafka
74. Epitaph of a Small Winner - Machado De Assis
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Inferno - Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. The Light House - Virginia Woolf
80. Disgrace - John Maxwell Coetzee
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens**
82. Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Box Man - Abe Kobo
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. The Stranger - Camus
88. Acquainted with the Night - Heinrich Boll
89. Don't Call It Night - Amos Oz
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pychon
94. Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Faust - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
100. Metamorphosis - Ovid

Okay so I've read/listened to thirteen of these books.  That's not hugely impressive (if they'd only included more Jane Austen and Charles Dickens I would have been set!), but it's a comfort at least to know that I've read double the amount BBC expected of me!  *pats self on back*

 

This was quite fun and it's making me want to read more.  I don't care for most of the titles on the list, but I really should read The Wind in the Willows, and Alice in Wonderland sometime.  Middlemarch probably wouldn't be a bad idea either.  Also, there's that War and Peace again...

 

Thank you so much for the tag, MovieCritic!!  I enjoyed it! 

 

And now I must be off.

 

Farewell my friends!  Go and read a good book!

 

 

Yours as ever,
Miss March