15 Book Things

Saw this going around the internet. You post 15 facts about books and you. I’d tag Julie, since she hasn’t posted since July, but I know she’s snowed under with deadlines right now. 😉

1. A whole wall of our apartment is covered with books. It is my dream to have one of those libraries with the rolling ladders one day.

2. My first “autobuy” romance author was Johanna Lindsey.

3. I have read Clarissa in its 1536 page entirety. The book measures 9.2 x 5.7 x 2.5 inches, and weighs 2.8 pounds.

4. I reread six books of the Chronicles of Narnia every year from the age of ten to the age of twenty. My favorites are Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Horse and His Boy. The correct order of those books is NOT the one currently espoused by the publisher. It is: 1. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe; 2. Prince Caspain; 3. Voyage of the Dawn Treader; 4. The Silver Chair; 5. The Horse and His Boy; 6. The Magician’s Nephew; 7. The Last Battle. Starting with The Magician’s Nephew gets everything all screwed up tonally and plot-development-wise, and also will not properly prepare you for the movie coming out this weekend, which is TLTWATW. Plus, since THAHB occcurs in the MIDDLE of the TLTWATW, these arguments of “chronological order” make no sense at all. Do you stop reading in the middle of Lion to pick up Horse? Of course not! Philistines.

5. I have read all of the “Anne” books by L. M. Montgomery. I reread Anne of the Island and Anne of Windy Poplars every year for many years. Island is my favorite, but I am also very partial to House of Dreams. Ingleside is a travesty that never should have been composed. Who would have thought that Anne and Gilbert would have such insipid children and that she would, apropos of nothing, turn into such an irrational and jealous old shrew. Ugh.

6. When I was a little girl, I only liked the first half of Little Women. I thought that when Jo turned down Laurie the book was ruined, and because he eventually married Amy, I made Amy the villain who steals Laurie away from Jo in the games I used to play with my “Little Women” dolls. (Yes, I had LW dolls.) When the Winona Ryder movie came out, I watched it, and completely fell in love with Smantha Mathis’s portrayal of the grown-up Amy (and really, that’s about the only thing in the film I did like, though I am partial to Gabriel Byrne.) I reread the book, and perhaps, since I was no longer 8, was able to appreciate the story’s outcome.

6. I do not expect movies made of books that I like to be exact replicas of said books.

7. I’m not a fan of Wuthering Heights.

8. I’m a sucker for an antique hardback. I like the way they look and smell, and the pretty inscriptions found inside, the way the page are painted, and the covers embossed.

9. I tend to like SF short stories better than SF novels.

10. I checked out the maroon hardback with ribbon-placeholder and gold painted pages version of Alice Through the Looking Glass more times than anyone else in the Children’s Section of the Largo Public Library. (I like Looking Glass better than Wonderland). I am not sure whether I liked the story or the look of the book more.

11. My mother buys me a book every Christmas, and I read it on Christmas Day.

12. I started writing my first “chapter” book when I was 12. It was about two girls who get lost in the woods. I wrote it in a pink spiral notebook and turned it in as a class project. I read it not so long ago; it’s not bad.

13. I read the second Harry Potter book before the first one. The second one is my least favorite.

14. In a series, I tend to like the third book the best. This is true for Narnia, Anne, and Harry Potter.

15. I do not have “a favorite book.” But I’m awfully fond of Lolita.