Finishing the book meme....

What book have you stayed up all night NOT reading (because it disturbed you in some way)? Has a book ever entered your dreams?
Hmmmm. I don't think a book ever disturbed me to the point of not sleeping... I put Pet Sematary down first. Most books I read come into my dreams, especially if I read just before bed and I like the characters immensely.

What book/ series would you like to write an ending too? Or rewrite? I'm not strictly talking about fanfic, just this: given the opportunity, which stories would you like to work on?
Again, a toughie. I generally love long series, so I like to work out my own post-series endings. When I was a kid I had new books plotted out for Mary Poppins and the Anne of Green Gables series (post- Rilla of Ingleside, of course)

Best book to movie transition? And as a corollary, what books should NEVER be a movie?
Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone was done well, as was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Also, two of the best book movies were The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption. Now that I think about it, Stand By Me was also good (from the Stephen King novella "The Body").... The Count of Monte Cristo is such an intricate story, it DOES NOT make a good film, ditto Dumas' other classic, the Three Musketeers. I'll have to think of others....

Do you prefer one-off novels or character-driven series books? What's your favorite book series?
I love series books, always have. Starting with Laura (Little House) and Anne (of Green Gables); Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. My shelves are full of series novels: Alexander McCall Smith (Sunday Philosophers' Club, 44 Scotland Street, and Ladies #1 Detective Agency series); the Big Stone Gap series by Adriana Trigiani; Robert Crais' Elvis Cole mysteries; J.A. Jance's J.P. Beaumont; Kathy Reichs (I can't watch Bones because I like the books so much, BTW); The Dragonfly in Amber series; A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket; Harry Potter (of course); Sherlock Holmes; Peter Mayle's Provence books; Eragon and Eldest; Tolkien; C.S. Lewis' Narnia series; Stephen King's Dark Tower; etc. etc. There's more, but I can't think of them now. I think when I read a story, the characters speak to me more than the plot, and I like to follow them as they change across the ebb and flow of their lives.

Which book character do you see yourself as most like? How about when you were a kid?
That's pretty tough. Today the character MOST like me that I've read is Hermione Granger. I know, kinda trite, but you know that whole scene in HP7 where she gets mad at Ron (I'd say more but some haven't yet gotten that far)? That's me. I knew what was going to happen there before I read it. Think I've lived it. Not to mention the whole nerd thing. As a kid the characters I most identified with were Josephine March and Laura Ingalls. Which shouldn't surprise anyone that knows me at all.

Ever NOT want to finish a book because you were desperately afraid that the author was going to take it somewhere you didn't like? Ever fling a book at the wall because that happened?
Yes. Definitely. I get very wrapped up in the characters, and I have a maxim that life is too short for unhappy endings. There is little more I dislike in literature than when the characters I love and adore get the shit end of the stick at the end of the book. Give me a break. I feel really cheated when that happens. Speaking of cheating, the last book I remember flinging was "Big Cherry Holler". If you've read it, you know what I mean.


Sorry it was later than I planned, but there it is.

Posted by caltechgirl at August 22, 2007 11:22 PM | TrackBack