A little book Q&A

Last night was World Book Night, which spreads the joy and love of reading. I'm an avid reader, and tend to rely on friends and family for my reading recommendations. I'm also interested in people's reading habits. So, with this in mind, I thought I'd start a little Q&A about books and reading.

The Rules:
1. Post these rules
2. Post a photo of your favourite book cover
3. Answer the questions below
4. Tag a few people to answer them too
5. Go to their blog/twitter and tell them you've tagged them
6. Make sure you tell the person who tagged you that you've taken part!

I tag Rosie, Lauren, Geninne, Louise and Pamela



What are you reading right now?
The Vagrants by Yiyun Li. A colleague had just finished it and thrust into my hand saying "you must read this!"

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?
Hopefully A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

What 5 books have you always wanted to read but haven’t got round to?
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
Wuthering Heights by Emile Bronte

What magazines do you have in your bathroom/lounge right now?
National Geographic and Mollie Makes

What’s the worst book you've ever read?
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. Complete load of over-sentimental tripe. The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas wasn’t much better either. Very pretentious and dull.

What book seems really popular but you actually hated?
The Sea by John Banville, which actually one the Man Booker prize. I just didn't get why…

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone?
Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee  for its English charm

What are your 3 favourite poems?
True Love by Sharon Olds
Sonnet XXVI by Pablo Neruda
Mental Fight by Ben Okri

Where do you usually get your books?
Although I have a library card, I’m more of a book buyer than a renter. I tend to get them online, or else use swapping sites like Book Mooch. I don't have a Kindle, although I'm more open to the idea these days. I also love going to old bookshops and browsing through the dusty covers.

Where do you usually read your books?
I tend to read on my commute, through my lunch times and before I go to sleep. My worst trait is reading while I’m walking to/from work. It makes me bump into people :S

When you were little, did you have any particular reading habits?
After ‘lights out’, I would read under my duvet with a torch. Didn’t everyone?

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Have you ever “faked” reading a book?
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler when I was about 14. I read some of it and found it eerily self-assured. I never finished it but told my classmates I had.

Have you ever bought a book just because you liked the cover?
I always buy books because I like the covers, but it tends to be a specific version of a book I already wanted. I tend to read books on recommendation rather than just picking something random from the shelf.

What was your favourite book when you were a child?
I had a few. The Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton, anything by Roald Dahl, Prince among Ponies by Josephine Pullen-Thompson and when I was a little older I loved the Whitby Witches by Robin Jarvis.

What book changed your life?
I don't know that a book has changed my life as such, but certain writers' styles have left a lasting impact. These include Vladimir Nabokov and Toni Morrison.

What is your favourite passage from a book?
"With the fishermen and the life on the river, the beautiful barges with their own life on board, the tugs with their smoke-stacks that folded back to pass under the bridges, pulling a tow of barges, the great elms on the stone banks of the river, the plane trees and in some places the poplars, I could never be lonely along the river.

With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life. This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural.

You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.

In those days, though, the spring always came finally but it was frightening that it had nearly failed." From a Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

What are your top five favourite authors?
Rohinton Mistry
Toni Morrison
Laurie Lee
Oscar Wilde
Vladimir Nabokov

What book has no one heard about but should read?
Mental Fight by Ben Okri

What 3 books are you an “evangelist” for?
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
The Great Gastby by F Scott Fitzgerald
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

What are your favourite book by a first-time author?
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

What is your favourite classic book?
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

5 other notable mentions?
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
The House of the Spirits by Isobel Allende