I Interview You!

[GenteelFiggar]

I don't have too many friends who read a lot where I live, which is sad for me because, like movies and tv and games, it's fun to talk about and hear different opinions on the things you love. So when I found this site awhile back I joined it, though I've only been reading and not posting until now.

So, for my first post, I'll ask you all some of the interesting questions on literature I've thought about that I wish I had been asked. This should be fun :)

I made them all easily answerable questions too, so that we can read a bunch of responses quickly...


1 What book/story most captured your imagination as a child?

2 What book have you read the most amount of times?

3 What's one book you keep meaning to read but seem to never get around to?

4 What book has made you laugh the hardest?

5 What character would be really interesting to personally know?

6 What book have you read that you wish you could more fully understand what the author is trying to get across?

7 Do you tend to like or dislike prologues?

8 What book did you dislike upon first read only to change your mind later?

9 What 2 authors (one alive and one... resurrected) would you like to sit down and talk with?

10 If you could remove one author from existence, who would it be?

11 What book has "a bad rap" with the literary elite that you think may be or is unfair?

12 What's one book you've read that you think was a waste of your time/money?

13 What book do you wish you could make required reading for every kid in school?

14 If you could make one underappreciated author (dead or alive) hugely popular/renowned, who would it be?

15 What book in existence do you wish you could have written?

[Patrick_Bateman]

1 What book/story most captured your imagination as a child?
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/ciu/1d/18/c3b336c622a01a1ce5c89110.L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

2 What book have you read the most amount of times?
http://www.sneakymagpie.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/american-psycho-cover1.jpg


3 What's one book you keep meaning to read but seem to never get around to?

[COLOR="Blue"]The Brothers Karamazov

4 What book has made you laugh the hardest?


Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends

5 What character would be really interesting to personally know?

Behemoth - Master and Margarita

6 What book have you read that you wish you could more fully understand what the author is trying to get across?



7 Do you tend to like or dislike prologues?

like

8 What book did you dislike upon first read only to change your mind later?

The Fall - Albert Camus

9 What 2 authors (one alive and one... resurrected) would you like to sit down and talk with?

Albert Camus and Ray Bradbury

10 If you could remove one author from existence, who would it be?

Dan Brown

11 What book has "a bad rap" with the literary elite that you think may be or is unfair?



12 What's one book you've read that you think was a waste of your time/money?

Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis

13 What book do you wish you could make required reading for every kid in school?

The Stranger - Albert Camus

14 If you could make one underappreciated author (dead or alive) hugely popular/renowned, who would it be?



15 What book in existence do you wish you could have written?

Faust - von Goethe

[Rores28]

1 What book/story most captured your imagination as a child?

Goosebumps: The Ghost Next Door - R.L. Stine or the entire Animorphs series

2 What book have you read the most amount of times?

3 What's one book you keep meaning to read but seem to never get around to?

Infinite Jest and American Psycho

4 What book has made you laugh the hardest?

Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut

5 What character would be really interesting to personally know?

Hamlet, with The Judge, and Ishmael being close behind.

6 What book have you read that you wish you could more fully understand what the author is trying to get across?

Blood Meridian

7 Do you tend to like or dislike prologues?

Like

8 What book did you dislike upon first read only to change your mind later?

Moby Dick

9 What 2 authors (one alive and one... resurrected) would you like to sit down and talk with?

Shakespeare and Cormac

10 If you could remove one author from existence, who would it be?

Hitler

11 What book has "a bad rap" with the literary elite that you think may be or is unfair?

The Graphic Novel medium

12 What's one book you've read that you think was a waste of your time/money?

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea


13 What book do you wish you could make required reading for every kid in school?

In Defense of Food and Stumbling on Happiness

14 If you could make one underappreciated author (dead or alive) hugely popular/renowned, who would it be?

Myself

15 What book in existence do you wish you could have written?

[GenteelFiggar]

I'l go ahead and add mine too :)

1 What book/story most captured your imagination as a child?

My Side of the Mountain

2 What book have you read the most amount of times?

probably Frankenstein or The Great Gatsby

3 What's one book you keep meaning to read but seem to never get around to?

A Wrinkle In Time

4 What book has made you laugh the hardest?

Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby

5 What character would be really interesting to personally know?

Huck Finn

6 What book have you read that you wish you could more fully understand what the author is trying to get across?

The Neverending Story

7 Do you tend to like or dislike prologues?

Dislike prologues

8 What book did you dislike upon first read only to change your mind later?

The Great Gatsby, also The Sun Also Rises

9 What 2 authors (one alive and one... resurrected) would you like to sit down and talk with?

C.S. Lewis

10 If you could remove one author from existence, who would it be?

11 What book has "a bad rap" with the literary elite that you think may be or is unfair?

Harry Potter series

12 What's one book you've read that you think was a waste of your time/money?

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

13 What book do you wish you could make required reading for every kid in school?

Ender's Game

14 If you could make one underappreciated author (dead or alive) hugely popular/renowned, who would it be?

Michael Ende

15 What book in existence do you wish you could have written?

Frankenstein

[Pecksie]

1 What book/story most captured your imagination as a child?

Many books and stories --- I loved Enid Blyton's books, for example.

2 What book have you read the most amount of times?

Don't know. Probably Turgenev's 'First Love', but I'm not sure.

3 What's one book you keep meaning to read but seem to never get around to?

War and Peace.

5 What character would be really interesting to personally know?

Sydney Carton. I always fall in love with the losers.

7 Do you tend to like or dislike prologues?

Like.

8 What book did you dislike upon first read only to change your mind later?

I read one of Chrétien de Troyes's medieval romances when I was a kid, and I didn't like it... I think I probably just didn't understand it, and would enjoy it more if I read it now.

9 What 2 authors (one alive and one... resurrected) would you like to sit down and talk with?

Orhan Pamuk and Percy B. Shelley.

10 If you could remove one author from existence, who would it be?

Just one? Paulo Coelho, closely followed by Stieg Larsson... oh wait, he's not in existence any more... ;)

12 What's one book you've read that you think was a waste of your time/money?

Marianne Fredriksson's 'Dear Daughter' (or whatever it's called). Now I know better and don't finish books I don't like...

14 If you could make one underappreciated author (dead or alive) hugely popular/renowned, who would it be?

Probably me.

15 What book in existence do you wish you could have written?

Anna Karenina.

[arrytus]

1 What book/story most captured your imagination as a child?

Huck Finn

2 What book have you read the most amount of times?

Hamlet. Read it every month for two years.

3 What's one book you keep meaning to read but seem to never get around to?

Lady Murasaki's Tale of Genji. I've been meaning to read it for about 5 years. Close second is the last volume of Proust's ISOLT, the same amount of time.

4 What book has made you laugh the hardest?

Although,to borrow a phrase of Hemingway's, I merely read him when I don't want to think, the books of David Sedaris always get me to laugh out loud a few times.

5 What character would be really interesting to personally know?

I don't think about this because then I would to think about fiction practically and it would simply do away with the wonder.

6 What book have you read that you wish you could more fully understand what the author is trying to get across?

Quite literally all of them.

7 Do you tend to like or dislike prologues?

I'm not prejudiced against form.

8 What book did you dislike upon first read only to change your mind later?

Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit

9 What 2 authors (one alive and one... resurrected) would you like to sit down and talk with?

Pynchon and Goethe

10 If you could remove one author from existence, who would it be?

I'm rather offended by this question. Who am I to say another person or their creative conceptions are unworthy of existence or the attempt to inspire or enjoy? If forced to choose I'd take myself.

11 What book has "a bad rap" with the literary elite that you think may be or is unfair?

Whatever it is, it's likely a book of poetry...

12 What's one book you've read that you think was a waste of your time/money?

London Fields by Martin Amis

13 What book do you wish you could make required reading for every kid in school?

Any book on science.

14 If you could make one underappreciated author (dead or alive) hugely popular/renowned, who would it be?

Gaddis, I suppose.

15 What book in existence do you wish you could have written?

Any of them. I wish I could write a book good enough to see the light of day, enjoyable to a few hundred persons.

[mal4mac]

1 What book/story most captured your imagination as a child?

The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm

2 What book have you read the most amount of times?

Probably 1984 or Hamlet

3 What's one book you keep meaning to read but seem to never get around to?

Moby Dick

4 What book has made you laugh the hardest?

Tie between: Don Quixote, Pickwick Papers, A Midsummer Night's Dream

5 What character would be really interesting to personally know?

I 'd love to invite the following to dinner, with lady companions: Don Quixote, Pickwick, Bottom, Hamlet (he needs cheering up!)

6 What book have you read that you wish you could more fully understand what the author is trying to get across?

Ulysses

7 Do you tend to like or dislike prologues?

If they are written by the author as an integral part of the book then I usually like them. If they are written by some academic I usually dislike them intensely - I've given up reading them completely.

8 What book did you dislike upon first read only to change your mind later?

Don Quixote (the first translation I read was bad...)

9 What 2 authors (one alive and one... resurrected) would you like to sit down and talk with?

Shakespeare, Alain de Botton (this week - mainly just to congratulate him for his attack on Oxford academics on Points of View last week...)

10 If you could remove one author from existence, who would it be?

The J writer - then atheistic humanism might have been dominant for the past two thousand years. Then writers like Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Epicurus might be at the centre of our culture - and we might have all their works as there would have been no Christian bigots around to destroy them.

11 What book has "a bad rap" with the literary elite that you think may be or is unfair?

Taking the consensus of the elite on this forum :) I don't think Dickens is appreciated enough.

12 What's one book you've read that you think was a waste of your time/money?

Ulysses - I stopped after a hundred pages (three times in three decades! Totally baffling...)

Proust RLT (made it half way through the whole series, and could never see what the fuss was about. Eventually I just had to stop, when I found staring at the wall more entertaining...)

For books I've completed - Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy. I read all three books thinking "it's got to get better". It didn't.

Arthur C Clarke's "The City and the Stars". I read it as a kid and remembered enjoying it. I stopped after 50 pages as an adult wondering how I could have such fond memories of it... maybe it was the cover or the title?

13 What book do you wish you could make required reading for every kid in school?

For older teenagers, "The Cossacks" by Tolstoy.

14 If you could make one under-appreciated author (dead or alive) hugely popular/renowned, who would it be?

In the UK - Chekhov - I don't think his short stories are appreciated enough. Or Zola, I only just started reading his novels. So exciting! The anti-Proust...

15 What book in existence do you wish you could have written?

Don Quixote, or any of Dickens' or Tolstoy's major novels (or Zola's...)