All about Books

Seeing this tag on Parul’s blog, I decided to do it too since it is about such a fun topic – books!

 

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Alistair Maclean. (I have almost all his books, except for the few that people borrowed and never bothered to return.) Stephen King comes a close second, and the master of humour, PG Wodehouse is a distant third.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I have three copies of ‘The Guns of Navarone’ by Alistair Maclean. I thought I had lost the first one, so bought a second, and then I thought the second one has been permanently ‘borrowed’ by a ‘friend’ so bought a third one. (Of course, I was wrong both times, so ended up with three copies.)

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
No! Sentences/Questions ending in prepositions are to be ruminated upon. (Tee hee!! :D )

 
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Now that I’m confessing it here, it’s no longer secret love! But, I think Arwen from the Lord of the Rings would be one. (Maybe, it was partly because of her portrayal by Liv Tyler.)

 

5) What book have you read the most times in your life?
’Gerrard’ by Liverpool captain, Steven Gerrard. It is his story, as told by him. And when I read the part about the 2005 Champions League final against AC Milan, I just can’t stop the tears. Truly inspirational!

 

A close second would be HMS Ulysses. (Another Alistair Maclean book) The way he writes about World War II is such that you can’t take sides – the Axis power vs. the Allied powers. You learn to just hate war and the misery it brings.

 

And yet another would be ‘Illusions’ by Richard Bach. I think that book gives me answers to all the questions that keep cropping up in my life. Each time I read it, when I face a tough spot, and each time, it gives me some new meaning to life.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
The Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene. (I think I had a crush on Nancy.)

 
7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
’The Three Mistakes of my Life’ by Chetan Bhagat. (On the positive side, it’s a very encouraging book. If Mr. Bhagat can write such tripe and get published, then O discerning readers, here I come with my tales to tell! :) )

 
8) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.

9) If you could force everyone to read one book, what would it be?
’Running from Safety’ by Richard Bach. That book talks about how we kill the kid inside each one of us just because we want to appear ‘grown-up’.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
Tough call… I haven’t really been following the latest authors.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
’Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less’ by Jeffrey Archer. I thought it was fast-paced, devious, and funny!

 
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Chetan Bhagat books. ‘Hello’ was a disaster, and actually competed strongly with the book -  One Night at a Call Center in terms of ridiculousness quotient. (That’s my ‘metric’ for defining how ridiculous something is.)

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I dreamt of myself as the highwayman from Alfred Noyes’ beautiful poem ‘The Highwayman’ and rescued the innkeeper’s daughter Bess, from the clutches of the Royal Guard. :)

14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
The Bourne Legacy by Lustbader. (It is a continuation of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series, after Ludlum’s death by a useless creature called Lustbader. After reading this, you will understand that Indian movies with those clichéd concepts are unnecessarily reviled.)

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Ahem… a book on Corporate Finance in the last term.

 
16) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare, of course.

17) Austen or Eliot?
Tough call… but Austen, probably.

 
18) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth.

 
19) What is your favorite novel?
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. (I think the opening quote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” is applicable to many situations in life.)

 
20) Play?
Macbeth! (Julius Caesar comes a close second, followed by some of Oscar Wilde’s plays.)

21) Short story?
The face on the wall by E.V. Lucas, almost anything by Saki, O Henry, or Anton Chekhov.

22) Work of non-fiction?
Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish – a compilation of entrepreneurial success stories by Rashmi Bansal.

 

23) Who is your favourite writer?
I can’t name just one. It would depend on the genre. For example:

fantasy – Tolkien

horror – Stephen King

romance – Eric Segal

thriller – Robert Ludlum

Of course, we could go on. :)