2 posts tagged “literary”
I stole this from Cori -- thanks :)
Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?
I prefer trade paperbacks, but since I buy most of my books secondhand, I'll take what I can get. My biggest gripe is the lack of margins in books -- I'm a note jotter, and I LOVE big wide margins for writing. I'd like to publish a line of books printed in just this manner.
Amazon or brick and mortar?
Brick & mortar.
Barnes & Noble or Borders?
I like Barnes & Noble. However, I have a couple of used bookstores that I much prefer to either. Burwood Books (Beatrice, NE) is housed in the historic Burwood Hotel downtown, a beautiful turn of the century place with three stories of used books. The Antiquarian in Omaha's Old Market District is much the same. Stacks of books everywhere, really reasonable prices. My only gripe is The Antiquarian's regular clientele smoke. A lot.
Bookmark or dogear?
Bookmark, usually of a haphazard variety: a kleenex, a gum wrapper, a leaf, or a grocery list will do. I've made beautiful bookmarks for friends & family for Christmas, but I usually don't have one.
Alphabetize by author or alphebetize by title or random?
Maybe this is part of my problem. They're all grouped by subject: Great Plains literature, Native American literature, horror, short story collections, anthologies, 18th century British, 19th century American, etc...
Keep, throw away, or sell?
Keep. Unless I really really hate a book, it'll be mine forever.
Keep dustjacket or toss it?
I always keep them, but I flatten them and keep them on the top shelf. Just in case I end up with an accidental collectible :)
Read with dustjacket or remove it?
I can't read with a dust jacket.
Short story or novel?
I love them all. I Iove the short story form -- so compact, so forceful. It's just beautiful how tiny details can paint a complete picture. But... when you find a novel that is fantastic, it's so lovely to get lost in that world and be able to stay there for days and weeks.
Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)?
Again, I love them all! Collections are great when you're trying to get a feel for a particular author, pick up his idiosynchrasies and figure out "what's it all mean?!" Anthologies, though... of course you can never completely trust that you won't get an editor with an agenda, but the quality of literature in an anthology gives a really high bang for your buck. If you can only have one book, make it a Norton Anthology that's 4 inches thick!
Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?
I've never read Lemony Snicket. I did love the Harry Potter series, but I'm glad to see it wound up.
Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?
I just stop whenever. I carry my books around with me, so I may read a half page while waiting in line, or 43 pages while eating my lunch.
"It was a dark and stormy night" or "Once upon a time"? "Dark and stormy!"
Buy or Borrow?
Depends on the book. I buy fiction and non-fiction related to things I'm especially interested in. I borrow non-fiction for research and school.
New or used?
I love to sniff new books, but I love a used book too. I never buy one that stinks of basement though.
Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse?
I'll take any kind of recommendation, even if it's only a pretty cover.
Tidy ending or cliffhanger?
Tidy endings.
Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading?
I read during carpooling, read at lunch, read while I'm eating, read in the bathtub, read before bed.
Standalone or series?
Both. I'm sorry to say that I sometimes tire of recurrent characters.
Favorite series?
Harry Potter, probably. I don't do many series. I remember liking the Green Mile series by Stephen King.
Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?
Ada the Ayrshire. :) This was a cartoon that ran in my farmer father's favorite magazine, "The Grass & Grain." We had an Ada comic book, and over the years, I never knew what happened to it. But at Burwell Books one afternoon, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I looked down and saw a copy of Ada. It cost 10 cents and is a priceless memento of my childhood. My kids think I'm odd. Who else would get so attached to a cow-comic?
Favorite books read last year?
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy; The Shawl, by Cynthia Ozick; Rachel Calof's Story, Rachel Calof; Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman.
Favorite books of all time?
On Writing, and Misery, Stephen King; Walden, Henry David Thoreau; The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck; My Antonia, Willa Cather;
Wow. Just wow. I stumbled across a copy of Cormac McCarthy's latest book in a used bookstore the other day. $1. I didn't even hesitate; how can you go wrong for a buck? Did I ever get my dollar's worth! I went in to take a bath, took the bath, and came out 3 hours later, prune-fingered and goosebumped and wrapped in my flannel robe, and sat down to start The Road over again.
Let me just say, first off, that I'm an aficionado of apocolypse stories. It all began with The Stand the summer before I started high school. Stephen King created a world that was so horrible, so alien, and an antigen-shifting virus that killed 99.4% everyone in the world. It was also a really bad time to come down with a summer cold, because I was sure that I too had Captain Tripps, but, luckily I lived. However, King let us see five chapters of life as we knew it: rock stars indulging in excess, college kids on summer break, military snafus. It isn't until we realize the nature of those snafus that we realize the horror that's about to be visited upon the United States.
McCarthy's book is different. The world to which McCarthy delivers us can only be described as scorched earth. Plants and trees are dead and black; water is thick with ash; the sky is gray and the sun ineffective; snow falls to the earth gray. From the first page, a reader wonders "What happened?!?" and that reader is still wondering on the last page. We never even know if this was a man-made calamity or an environmental problem gone spectacularly wrong, and perhaps it's best that we not know. This book is, above all else, about going on; does it matter if this was a war or a forest fire?
While King's book featured two groups of survivors, one basically good and one basically bad, McCarthy's survivors are harder to classify. His two main protagonists, a father and son, are basically good, even referring to themselves as "The Good Guys." However, McCarthy also portrays characters that are basically good but steal, characters whom we just never know well enough to classify, and characters who are so hideous in behavior that it's difficult to even consider them human. One particular scene, which I will let you discover for yourself, is revolting, and I say that as a person who is not easily sickened. What sets this book apart is the beauty of the writing and the tale-telling, and as sickening as some scenes are, the writing brings them back, over and over, even after I've put the book down.
King's book, written in the late 70s, ends on a positive note. The guys in the white hats win out in the end, and it seems as though the world will find a way to right itself. McCarthy doesn't let us off that easy. The ending of The Road is not completely without hope, but it never gives us that sense of euphoria, that "Yes! They're gonna be okay!" moment that some readers may want. Far from it. In fact, throughout the book, the situation is so bleak that the mere finding of a windfall apple seems like a triumph.
However, in spite of what may seem a real downer subject, this book is inspiring in its simplicity and its goodness. The writing is absolutely delicious. One particular phrase that I have to share describes the relationship between the boy and his father; they are "each the other's world entire." Now that is beautiful.
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