Book asks! 1, 4, 5, 7, 12, 16, 25, 26, 30, 38, 39, 40
1: Currently Reading
Hmm, quite a few things. I tend to have several collections of short stories going at once. Primarily, however, I’ve been reading Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, by M. R. James. It makes for wonderful bedtime reading. Creepy and dreamlike, just right for drifting off to sleep.
4: Quick, you're in desperate need of a fake name. What character name do you think of first?
Huh, well, first that came to mind is Johannes Cabal (because I absolutely adore Johannes Cabal), but I really don’t think the name would suit my appearance. I do not look at all like a Johannes. I might be able to get by with the second one that came to mind, Randolph Carter, but of course my mind fled (almost) immediately to Lovecraft’s self insert character.
5: Favorite series and why
Dear god, its far too hard to choose a favorite, so I will get three series that I love that come to mind first: Dresden Files (Wizards mixed with hardboiled detectives in my very own home town, how could I not love it), Johannes Cabal (the most wonderfully precise bastard of a necromancer, I love him so much), and the Chronicles of Chrestomanci (Dianna Wynne Jones is amazing, and it was the very first series I ever got into; I still reread them all every year or two).
7: What is the most important part of a book, in your opinion?
I don’t think there is an answer to this. Books vary so widely, and I’ve loved very different books for very different reasons. Lovecraft I love for his winding, twisting, dense vocabulary, a twisting maze of adjectives leading you around and around the horrible concept at the center while keeping it tantilizingly out of view. The Kingkiller Chronicle I love for the story, the slow building of a legend from the legend’s point of view. James I love for his glorious descriptions of landscapes and places, from dusty echoing churches to cold desolate seashores. In summary, it all comes down to the book itself, and what you want out of it.
12: Tell one book story or memory (what you were wearing when you were reading something, someone saw you cry in public, you threw a book across the room and broke a window, etc.)
My best book memory is one of my first. The first book I ever bought. It was at Anderson’s Bookstore, in the town where I was raised. The place had the wonderful, essential smell of books permeating through every inch of the place, laid so thick I always swore I could give up food and drink and live off the air in the store alone. I was there with my mother to buy a book, and while browsing around one of the people working there came up and offered to help me find something. After I explained that I was quite fond of magic, she swiftly led me to a corridor in the shelves (which I would revisit so regularly over the next decade I could find books on the shelves with my eyes closed) and pulled off Charmed Life, the first book in the Chronicles of Chrestomanci. I still have that book, ragged and worn from being read and reread time and time again, and it is still one of my favorite books, favorite series, and by far one of my favorite authors.
16: Rant about anything book related
VICTOR. FUCKING. FRANKENSTEIN. You weak, whiny, useless trashchild. You make it through god knows how much study, theorizing, developing unheard of medical techniques, finding and assembling corpses, and you SUCCEED! ON YOUR FIRST GODDAMN TRY! YOU REVERSE DEATH ITSELF! And what do you do? After all of that, after all of those strange depths you plumbed? You run the hell away and whine to yourself while your life gets torn apart by amazing feat you achieved, and you cannot lift a goddamn finger out of your tar pit of self pity to do anything to stop it. How such a useless waste of space managed to achieve such an amazing feat I do not understand. You deserved everything that happened to you, and I only wish it had happened faster so I didn’t have to sit through an entire books worth of you.
25: A book that you think about and you cringe because of how terrible it was
SEE. ABOVE.
(Note: I love all the parts with Frankensteins’s monster, it’s just the doctor himself I despise.)
26: Do you read from recommendations or whatever book catches your eye?
Mostly recommendations. I have many good friends who know me very well and their recommendations are just about always spot on. Though, back when I was younger and friendless, I tended to just wander the bookstore/library, fingers trailing along the spines, and pick out anything that felt right. I don’t think I ever chose poorly, either.
30: One book everyone should read
The Name of the Wind. Just go do it. Now.
38: What qualities do you find annoying in a character?
Uselessness, selfishness, attempting to scheme without the brains or guts to actually pull off a scheme. See Magnifico de Vandimion in Berserk for a prime example.
39: Favorite villain
Oh god, I love villians. There’s so many wonderful ones. How about Johannes Cabal, since he’s at the top of my mind lately. Oh, here we go, Dio goddamn Brando. God he’s a great villian. Technically from a manga/anime, and I’ve only seen the anime, but he’s been on my mind lately. That gorgeous, terrifying bastard.
40: Has there ever been a book you wish you could un-read?
Nope. My memory is absolutely awful, and I take pleasure from really astoundingly terrible things, so the only thing I wouldn’t want to remember would be something that was terrible in a bland, uninteresting way, and that I’ll just forget soon enough already. It’s great.
