I haven’t done one of these in ages! This one popped up in my google reader & looked fun, so here ya go. Sorry it’s not Thursday. Busy week!

1. Favorite childhood book?
Well there are about a zillion but I think if I had to choose just one I’d say The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Part of its charm for me was that I picked it off the library shelf because I liked the title. I had never heard of the book or its author, no one had recommended it to me or given it to me — I simply stumbled across it much as Lucy stumbled across the wardrobe itself: my own private discovery. And of course it is a marvelous story.

2. What are you reading right now?
Just started The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley… sigh. What I wouldn’t give to live in that world.

3. What books do you have on request at the library?
Pedigree by Georges Simenon and The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen.

4. Bad book habit?
Oh dear. *small voice* I do sometimes fold my corners. Although a lot less often since my kids starting making bookmarks for me.

5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
Ha ha, nothing! This is very unusual for me. I get almost all my books from the library. But I returned everything before going on vacation, and then while we were on vacation I actually bought some books, and I’ve been reading those.

6. Do you have an e-reader?
Well, I have an app on my phone that I can read books off of but it is tiny and totally unsatisfying. No thanks.

7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?
Several at once, usually.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
I read more self-consciously and perhaps with a little less enjoyment if I know I’m going to write a review. That is one of the reasons I stopped blogging for a while. I’m still working on this, actually.

9. Least favorite book you read this year (so far?)
Tough question because I usually don’t finish books that I don’t like. I guess I will say The Glass Castle, which I read for my book group. It sure did suck me in and I enjoyed reading it, but at the end I was disappointed.

10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius by Dave Eggers. Blew me away completely.

11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
Not very often, unfortunately.

12. What is your reading comfort zone?
My zone has recently expanded to include “creative nonfiction” — particularly history and pop science. Yum! And of course re-reads of old favorites… fat Victorian novels… sci fi… Age of Sail…

13. Can you read on the bus?
Yup.

14. Favorite place to read?
In bed.

15. What is your policy on book lending?
I get 99% of my books from the library so it never comes up. Or, from another perspective, I guess you could say I’m 99% in favor of it.

16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
*small voice again* Yes.

17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
NEVER.

18. Not even with text books?
Oh. Well, yes, those.

19. What is your favorite language to read in?
I don’t know. I can only read English. No, wait, I can also read Latin. I forgot. :-)

20. What makes you love a book?
It varies. I love a book if it transports me to another world. I love a book if the writing is poetic. I also love postmodern-ish novels that play with form & structure, take risks, and confound your expectations in weird ways. I never feel like I get it, but I like it anyway.

21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
Usually I can’t stop myself from blabbing about whatever I’m reading to whomever will listen, but I try not to do it too much unless I think the person will actually read the book I recommend. My success rate isn’t very high, though. I frequently get “meh” about my recommendations, or maybe those are just the responses I remember. Is there a worse feeling than someone coming back to tell you they didn’t like the book you raved about? It hurts, man, it hurts.

22. Favorite genre?
Historical fiction

23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)
Biography

24. Favorite biography?
Um, see previous response. Well, I will answer Clara by Janice Galloway, which is billed as a novel but it is so biographical that I’m saying it counts. An amazing book, which, btw, fits all three of my criteria: it transports you to another world (mid-19th century Germany), is one big prose poem, and has some experimental postmoderny aspects too. The subject is Clara Schumann, and her life story is the most romantic & tragically beautiful thing ever.

25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
Define self-help. I mean, you could say cookbooks are self-help books, right? I have read things like How to Start Your Own Web Design Business and Photoshop for Dummies, so if those count, yes. If you mean things like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Whatever, then no.

26. Favorite cookbook?
Main Course Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin. The recipes are not only creative, interesting, and varied, but also very well tested. If she says it will take 20 minutes, you can count on it. Simple ingredients, kid-friendly. I’m not even vegetarian.

27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?
Well… let’s see… what all did I read this year? This is why I need to be blogging because otherwise I can’t even remember what I read last week.

28. Favorite reading snack?
Pretzels.

29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
Good question! Actually hype almost always ruins my reading experience. I like to stumble across books on my own (see answer to no. 1 above) and sometimes I find it hard to read a book even if it simply gets a rave review from a friend. I feel under pressure to love it, and what if I don’t? I have had the experience of stumbling across and loving a book which subsequently got a lot of hype; Atonement by Ian McEwan is an example of that. Amazing, amazing book which I probably (foolishly) wouldn’t have read if I had known people were raving about it to that extent.

30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
I don’t really know. I tend to avoid books which get a lot of hype (see previous). But here’s another thing. If I go back and read a review after I’ve read the book, and the critic doesn’t agree with me, but the critic writes persuasively? I will probably change my mind about the book. For example, I loved the movie Avatar when I first saw it, but then I read all this very pointed criticism afterwards and felt like a total dork for having liked it and not noticed all the bad things. Then again, movies are quite different from books.

31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
I once wrote a blog post where I teased my husband for liking a trashy novel and the actual author left a comment within fifteen minutes of my posting it. It was a nice comment (maybe he didn’t realize I was teasing), but still. It made me stop and think. On the other hand I think it can be really instructive and interesting to try to figure out why a book doesn’t work.

32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose?
Russian!!!

33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. Man oh man! The holy grail for obsessive INTJs!

34. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?
Infinite Jest

35. Favorite Poet?
Sappho

36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
Half a dozen or so. I can’t believe I don’t have any right now.

37. How often have you returned book to the library unread?
Dipped into but not finished, very often. Completely unread, almost never. I did return one unread recently but that was because, whoops, it was a large print edition and every instance of italics was in boldface and I just couldn’t stomach it.

38. Favorite fictional character?
Why Aubrey & Maturin of course. And yes, they count as one!

39. Favorite fictional villain?
Rosa Klebb.

40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?
Paperbacks, probably, since they’re easier to pack. As far as subject matter goes, I just read whatever; I don’t choose books specifically to read because I am on vacation.

41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.
Don’t know. Maybe the first four years of my life, before I learned how?

42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.
The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth. I love that book! I love it! I really do! And I’ve never been able to finish it. I’ve tried at least three times.

43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
The radio. My husband is addicted to NPR and he leaves radios on all over the house. I can’t think when the radio is on, let alone read. GAAAAH!

44. Favorite film adaptation of a novel?
Master & Commander. Yes it has its detractors and I agree with some of the criticism, but overall I think it captures the spirit of the age and of the series painfully well.

45. Most disappointing film adaptation?
The Wizard of Oz. Oh don’t get me started.

46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
I spent about fifty bucks in a bookstore recently and that felt like way too much. On the other hand I have racked up library fines in the triple digits…

47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?
I do that quite a lot. Often I will open in the middle, or read page 69, to decide if I think it’s worth checking out. Sometimes I think that’s a much more accurate prediction than reviews/hype.

48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
Sloppy prose.

49. Do you like to keep your books organized?
I like to, but I don’t. My shelves are a hideous mess. They are in no order, and even worse, I’ve got them double stacked. One of these days…

50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?
Well I mostly read library books so yes, I give them away when I’m done. :-)

51. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?
Graphic novels, for one.

52. Name a book that made you angry.
The Red Tent

53. A book you didn’t expect to like but did?
American Gods

54. A book that you expected to like but didn’t?
The Poisonwood Bible

55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
Patrick O’Brian, for all love.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the first of the four books I bought at The Book Stop in Petoskey. I read it when I was a kid, and although I remember that I liked it, I didn’t recall any details other than it was yet another coming-of-age story about a smart bookish girl. I certainly did not remember how gritty & unsparing it is.

This is the story of Francie Nolan, born and raised in the slums of Brooklyn just before WWI. Her mother is a janitor, her father is a singing waiter (when he can find work). Their poverty is relentless; as she grows up Francie comes in contact with physical and sexual abuse, alcoholism, corporal punishment, cold hungry children, unwed mothers, prostitution, failure, disgrace, pederasty, a serial killer, stillbirth, death. She observes it all, digests it somehow, and grows up to be a writer.

The ending is a little too tidy, but overall it works very well. Francie is a wise and lovely narrator, much like Scout Finch in some ways. Her voice is clear and unsentimental, and after all she is describing something universal: growing up. I recognized my own adolescent experiences and feelings over and over again.

One episode that I keep thinking about is the chapter in which Francie tells a lie in order to get a doll. A “Protestant organization” is throwing a Christmas party for the poor children in the neighborhood, and Francie goes even though she is Catholic. At this party, a little rich girl offers to give away a gorgeous doll named Mary to a poor girl whose name is also Mary.

There was a great hush. There were at least a hundred Marys in that audience. It was that adjective “poor” that struck them dumb. No Mary would stand up, no matter how much she wanted the doll, and be a symbol of all the poor little girls in the audience. They began whispering to each other that they weren’t poor and had better dolls home and better clothes than that girl, too, only they didn’t feel like wearing them. France sat numb, longing for that doll with all her soul.

Francie swallows her pride. She raises her hand, lies that her name is Mary, and accepts the doll. To her shame, the lady gives a speech about the Christmas spirit and how wonderful it is that a rich girl with dolls to spare would generously give one away to a poor girl, and the other girls in the audience whisper “Beggar, beggar, beggar” at her.

It was beggar, beggar, beggar, all the way down the aisle. Those girls felt richer than Francie. They were as poor as she but they had something she lacked — pride. And Francie knew it. She had no compunctions about the lie and getting the doll under false pretenses. She was paying for the lie and for the doll by giving up her pride.

Then when she goes home, Francie discovers that unbeknownst to her, her mother had actually christened her Mary Frances.

Wow. That is heavy, don’t you think? I keep thinking of a similar scene in another book, All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown. In that book, which also takes place in the tenements, Henny cuts up her clothes and pretends to be Christian in order to receive a charity doll. On her way home with the doll she realizes the error of her ways, gives the doll to a really poor girl, goes home and confesses all. She doesn’t get punished for her transgressions because she “knew she did wrong” and “tried to correct it.” Granted, the All-of-a-Kind Family books are written for a younger audience, but still. What a rosy view, compared to the other.

It’s interesting too because pride, and hatred of anything smacking of charity, is a huge recurring theme. The fact that the author not only lets Francie keep the doll, but turns her lie into truth, is not at all what I expected. Even though this book is far from preachy, I thought for sure she’d be punished for accepting a handout. The novel is heavily autobiographical; according to the preface it was originally written as a memoir. I keep wondering whether this event actually happened to Betty Smith, or perhaps she simply wished that it had.

Jonah Lehrer’s recent article in Wired.com perfectly illuminates one of my pet peeves: Consumer Reports magazine. I am a longtime subscriber and I do like to flip through each issue when it arrives, although unlike my father I don’t save the back issues just in case I might buy something in the future — after all, you know how I feel about material possessions. No, I flip through each issue mainly because I like to look at the pictures of car interiors. And because I think it’s a good idea to be somewhat informed about consumer issues. And because, I have to say, it’s fun to read the bad reviews, especially of the weird products that they sometimes highlight.

However, I’ve been arguing for years that the ratings themselves are useless, or even worse than useless. The problem is that raters have to find a reason to distinguish between products that are often nearly identical. I remember reading an article about shampoo that began by stating that all shampoos clean your hair equally well. Then it went on to rate a bunch of different brands… and I ask you, if they all clean your hair equally well, how do you possibly rate them? The only way they can come up with rankings is by focusing on distinctions without a difference. And then we read about those differences and get all het up thinking oh I couldn’t possibly buy that shampoo because it has a twist top instead of a flip top, oh those stupid manufacturers.

Lehrer’s article describes a study where college students sampled strawberry jams. Mostly, their preferences agreed with Consumer Reports’ rankings. But when they were asked to explain why they preferred one to another, it all went haywire. It turns out having to explain and analyze and look for reasons to choose one brand over another seriously affects the actual choices. The researchers concluded that “human reason has nothing to do with finding the truth, or locating the best alternative. Instead, it’s all about argumentation.” Says Lehrer:

Ever since the Ancient Greeks, we’ve defined ourselves in terms of our rationality, the Promethean gift of reason. It’s what allows us to make sense of the world and uncover all sorts of hidden truths. It’s what separates us from other Old World primates. But Mercier and Sperber argue that reason has nothing to do with reality. Instead, it’s rooted in communication, in the act of trying to persuade other people that what we believe is true. And that’s why thinking more about strawberry jam doesn’t lead to better jam decisions. What it does do, however, is provide up with more ammunition to convince someone else that the chunky texture of Knott’s Berry Farm is really delicious, even if it’s not.

Indeed.

While we were on vacation, I took the opportunity to teach myself Latin. Joey had brought along this book called Lingua Latina, Pars I: Familia Romana, which purports to teach the language (er, I mean the lingua) through total immersion. The entire book is written in Latin — no translations anywhere! — and you just start reading it. And you know what? It works! You really can just start reading, and understand it. It begins with “Roma in Italia est.” How hard is that?

So the first chapter, excuse me, I mean the capitulum primum, is all about the Imperium Romanum. There are large and small rivers, islands (Corsica insula est), cities, etc. The section ends with sly humor: Magnum est imperium Romanum!

The capitulum secundum is outright hilarious. It’s all about the familia Romana: Iulius, Aemilia, and their three children Marcus, Quintus, and Iulia. And, I kid you not, their hundred servants. It seems that Marcus is a puer improbus — a bad boy. I think I’m just gonna have to type a bit of this out:

Iulia cantat: “Lalla.” Iulia laeta est. [I guess when they sang in Rome they didn't go la la la, but lalla. Laeta means happy.]

Marcus: “St!” Marcus laetus non est. [They didn't say "sh!" either, apparently.]

Iulia cantat: “Lalla, lalla.” [Is she trying to be annoying?]

Marcus: “Ssst!” Marcus iratus est. [Oy, siblings, even in ancient Rome. Pretty obvious what iratus means.]

Iulia cantat: “Lalla, lalla, lalla.” [Uh oh... she better shut up if she knows what's good for her...]

Marcus Iuliam pulsat. [Any guesses as to what pulsat means?]

Iam Iulia non cantat, sed plorat: “Uhuhu!” [I guess they didn't go boo-hoo back then either.]

Marcus ridet: “Hahahae!” [Even his laughter ends with ae!]

Don’t worry, though. Marcus gets his just deserts, as you can see from the photo above. His father, Iulius, who had been sleeping, is awakened by all the commotion. He beats Marcus, while brother Quintus stands by laughing. That goody-goody Iulia, however, is still unhappy, because Marcus is crying. Notice the sound effects from the beating: tuxtax, tuxtax…

The third chapter begins with the father’s discovery that there is money missing from his sacculum. He is interrogating the servorum and ancillae.  I’m only halfway through, but when I finish I’ll let you know whether Medus, Davus, or one of the other 98 (I mean XCVIII) servants stole it. Huh, maybe it was that puer improbus Marcus.

I understand The Book Stop in Petoskey MI is a great place to meet guys, bwahahaha.

This is the store that distracted us when we were on our way to buy a lottery ticket. I had a little revelation while I was there. I almost never buy books; I am a passionate library lover, first of all, and secondly I really don’t care that much about material possessions. The less stuff I own, the happier I am. Weird, but true. I can wash my entire wardrobe in one load of laundry. However, going to a used bookstore in a small town up north seemed like a fun vacationy thing to do, so we did.

The first thing I saw was the alphabetical end of the “literature” section, which was separate from the “fiction” section, though where they drew the line was hard to tell. Anyway, right at eye level was a whole row of Anthony Trollopes. Well, backstory here, I recently gave up on Phineas Finn because the library’s edition I had was so ugly and hard to read. OMG! Maybe they have a nicer edition here! In fact, hey, if I buy books I’m not limited to what the library has! You’d think I would have already figured that out by now…

So I came home with four beautiful volumes: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (gorgeous fat creamy paper!), The Haunted Bookshop (hardcover!), The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (brand new, oversized paperback!), and The American Senator (Dover edition with wide margins and lots of footnotes!). I’m thrilled with all of these, but then again at seven or eight bucks per, they weren’t exactly cheap, and now that I own them I have to put them somewhere…