Questions for You, Literary Edition, plus a lit meme. (Stolen from Sarah and Karen)

GoodNESS it's September. How in the hell did that happen?

Sarah asked these questions over at her spot yestertoday (I can't finish anything on time right now. It's pathological.) and because it's Monday (in my time machine, bitches! It's actually Tuesday now.) and the first day of the semester (ditto, time machine. Totally the second day now.) AND I'm feeling especially illiterate lately because I haven't finished a book in far too long, (that part is sadly still true) I thought I'd post them here. Maybe I'll care enough about a book soon to actually finish it.

Oh wait. I'm in a book group. I should probably care. Are there blog book groups?

Never mind. That would require me to actually finish something that other people are expecting I'll finish. God I suck.

Anyway, here are my answers, that I failed to put in Sarah's comments, because I also can't follow directions and concurrently dislike leaving long ass comments. Feel free to share your answers. Pay this little list forward, whatever you feel like doing.

1) What is your favorite novel of all time? (fiction)A Prayer for Owen Meany changed my brain. I feel compelled to recognize female writerly brilliance so Sense and Sensibility makes it a tie.

2)What is your favorite non-fiction book? Lately? The Forever War by Dexter Filkins. So good. It's non-fiction written by a journalist that reads like fiction. And it sucks that it's not. I highly recommend it for anyone who has an opinion about the Iraq/Afghanistan wars.

3) Name a book you just quit reading in the middle, something you just could not get through. Eat, Pray, Love, or as I refer to it, Whine, Bitch, Drone. Feel free to tell me that I am not a person or more specifically a woman. Hated it. Also The DaVinci Code, and anything Charles Dickens wrote that didn't contend with Christmas and the supernatural.

4) Is there an author that you have read everything that he or she has written?** Ann Patchett.

5) What book made you laugh so hard you embarrassed yourself? Wow, I don't think any. I'm not that easily embarrassed, I guess. David Sedaris always makes me laugh out loud. I think I just need more funny stuff.

Oh. Actually I need to amend this because several years ago when I worked at Barnes & Noble a woman acame in and yelled at me because her husband bought her son Beavis & Butthead: This Book Sucks and she asked if I knew it referenced (umm, sorry.) intimate activity with animals and how I should think twice before I allowed those kinds of books on the shelves.

Of the big box book store I clearly owned, because I made $7 an hour to not only contibrute to censorship ("My favorite!" I told her, in completely other words that offended her a lot a lot) but also to help her husband parent their son. Do we always have to blame the other woman? In any event she left the book on the counter and I picked it up and read it and it made me laugh out loud at work and a more responsible person would have been way more embarrassed than I was. Especially because I probably took it to the breakroom to read during lunch.

These windows into my soul, aren't you glad you have them, whoever you are? (Also in the music department you do not want to get me started on "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch" or "Come Sail Away" as performed by Eric Cartman because I won't be able to talk for minutes.)

I was also going to do Sassymonkey's literary meme because I need someone else to help me think (and yes, I did just write "think me help," see?) during the first week of the semester but it turns out you really have to think to do it. I can't do that at the moment. I also, shamefully, haven't read enough books in 2009 to even attempt it without verging on some kind of Mad Libs-style insanity. But you can, maybe? If you're more literate than I am, maybe, which would be a super although admittedly not very difficult accomplishment.

Comments

[Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah]

I embarrassed myself reading David Sedaris too.

And more recently, Danny Evans.

[sassymonkey]

Christopher Moore is the one that makes me laugh so much I embarrass myself. I try not to read him in public anymore.

[Genie]

Oh holy crap, A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of the best books EVER! My brother told me about it when he said there were portions of it where he was weeping with laughter and other portions weeping with sadness.

I also really enjoyed Handling Sin at Kim's recommendation - very absurd and laugh out loud.

I should go back and read a Confederacy of Dunces again. Anything to be a break from all these "you and your womb" things I'm reading these days in preparation for baby's big day.

[Kim]

Well, I would come here and tell you about Michael Malone and my favorite book of his Handling Sin but I can see my proselytizing and constantly buying that book for people has paid off, and my minions have already mentioned it. Perfect.

I just marked a Robin Hobb book "abandoned" on my Goodreads page because it was just TOO MUCH PAIN and our hero kept failing, failing, failing and I know some people like epic fucking tragedy and all but I can't even get through this book to get to the next book where god, I hope the hero wins because I AM READING THIS TO RELAX.

Anyways.

You should join my book club. We've been meeting for years!
http://mortal.peril.org/readers/
The info is out of date on the page because I can't fucking SSH from work.