Head Tale

I saw an interview with author, Joshua Ferris, in a recent Entertainment Weekly and thought the series of book-themed questions they asked would be fun to answer for myself…

Your Favourite Book As a Child
“Child” usually means someone quite young  but honestly, the first book to come to mind when I read this question was one I read as a pre-teen.  So I’ll say that one – “Space Station 7th Grade” by Jerry Spinelli.

Your Favourite Book in High School
Probably “The Secret Annex” aka The Diary of Anne Frank.

An Illicit Book I Read in Secret As a Kid
I don’t know the title but there was some paperback my mom had that was about a female Russian spy who somehow gets plastic surgery and training so she can take the place of the US First Lady.  I think I opened it up to read based on the spy-thriller blurb on the back cover but my memory is it had some pretty raunchy sex scenes too! 😉

The Book I’ve Read Over and Over
Either “The Secret Annex” or “Slaughterhouse Five”.

My Favourite Movie Adaptation
It’s rare to find a movie that exceeds the book its based on but I’d say “Fight Club” comes close.

The Classics I’m Embarrassed To Say I’ve Never Read
As an English major, my answer is…most of them!  This is partly because there are just so many classics you’re “supposed” to read and although I appreciate most of the Classics that I have read, I’ve always been more drawn to popular material, non-fiction and the like (no surprise I turned out to be a librarian instead of an English prof I guess) so I haven’t read the “good” books that I’m supposed to. 😉

A Book I Consider Grossly Over-Rated
The Bible.  Seriously, when you think about how much of our world is defined by and tries to live by, what I recently called “the campfire stories of a bunch of desert nomads”, that’s the definition of over-rated as far as I’m concerned.  A well-meaning Christian friend recently posted an infographic on Facebook that claimed to list the Top 10 Most Read Books of All-Time with sales figures showing The Bible at #1 by a wide margin followed by the Quotations of Chairman Mao then the Harry Potter books.  Someone else left a comment pointing out exactly what I was thinking: “The list shows the Bestselling Books but the infographic’s title claims to show the Most Read books – these are two vastly different things when you consider how many people own a Bible but have never read it in any depth, let alone cover-to-cover.”

The Recent Book I Wish I’d Written
“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy.  So damn good.

The Book People Might Be Surprised To Learn I Love
As a librarian, I’m a pretty big believer in not judging people for their reading choices.  On top of that, I’ve already copped to loving pop culture biographies, pro wrestling (so any books about wrasslin’ are on my “To Read” list) and all kinds of other embarrassing stuff on this blog.  So I’m not sure what book would surprise people that I love?  Well, I wouldn’t say I love it but I enjoyed John Gormley’s first book which was basically a 200-page take down of the Sask NDP.  I always think it’s valuable to try to understand the mindset and arguments of people who don’t agree with and this is a prime example of that.

The Last Book To Make You Laugh
Maybe “The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas” which was a series of essays relating to various secular aspects of Christmas, many of which were quite funny.

The Last Book To Make You Cry
Not sure if I cried but “Wonder” by RJ Palacio was pretty powerful.  Same with “Fault in Our Stars” which I read around the same time.  

What You’re Reading Now
Reading the autobiography of one of my favourite wrestlers from the 1980s and re-reading “Evolution” by Stephen Baxter.