Getting All Bookified

My dear friend Amber at Musings of Amber Murphy posted a meme handed to her by..someone...and it was about reading and books. Since my name is something other than YOU, and I'm feeling saucy (saucy is what you feel when you haven't had anything resembling "near enough sleep over the past three days", right?), I thought I'd comply.

Plus, you know, she's pregnant, and we all need to be nice to pregnant ladies.

Without further ado...

What have you just read?

Earlier this morning, I finished Off the Beaten Path: Indiana, which I picked up on a whim when I was at the library two weeks ago while I was letting the house air out after committing Buggageddon. I got it mostly for obscure trivia about my home state.

I picked some up, like how it's illegal to allow monkeys to smoke in South Bend, IN. Or how there have been over 2000 recordings of "Stardust" by Hoagy Carmichael.

What are you reading now?

I'm reading Black Ships before Troy which is a translated, prose version of the Iliad. And The Ride of Our Lives by NBC newsman Michael Leonard, which is a story of how he drove his parents cross-country to see places in the U.S. they had never seen, to see some of the places of their childhood, and to be there for the birth of their first great-grandchild.

Oh, and I technically started reading Neverwhere the other night on the Nook my wife checked out from work, but I only got to read the first paragraph before she whisked me off to do something else with the device, and then I had other things to do, so I didn't get it started again.

Do you have any idea what you'll read when you're done with that?

Neverwhere sounds nice...though I might finally start Anansi Boys. However, I have a copy of The Sea, The Sea by Xenophon that I checked out from the library and a book called One for the Road by Tony Horwitz about Australia that I also borrowed from the library.

Which reminds me, I need to renew those things online this week...

What's the worst thing you've ever been forced to read?

Hmmm...tough call. I didn't read all of The Scarlet Letter or Madame Bovary in high school. Both sucked so much I had to put them down. Without a doubt, the worst thing I had to read that I actually finished was Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin when I was a freshman in college. When I finished it, I threw it across my dorm room, swearing at it as it flew.

I received a $5 fine from housekeeping for the chip of paint that fell off my closet door where the book hit.

What's one book you always recommend to just about anyone?

These days? American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

Begin the mancrush in three...two...one...

And if modern fantasy isn't your cup of tea, I recommend A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.

Also, if I should ever get it published, The Boar War by moi.

Do you read books while you eat?

When I was single, I would take a book with me when I would sit down for a meal in a restaurant. On the rare occasions when I'm out eating by myself, I take a book with me. Lately, I've been buying the most recent Pearls before Swine anthologies and laughing aloud whilst trying to finish my meal.

However, I did grow up reading the sides and backs of cereal boxes at breakfast. I later graduated to the paper. Both practices have been suspended since I went to college.

While you bathe?

I tried it a couple of times, but my arms would sag and the edges of the book would dip into the water and capillary action would wick the water up into the leaves. I ruined a copy of The Two Towers that way.

Eventually, I stopped bathing (I get a rash linked to the heat of the water on my precious, delicate skin) and just took showers. Also, on those rare bath nights that I would still indulge in whilst a teen, I would bathe, soak for a bit, and end up masturbating. No time for reading in there!!!

While you watch movies or tv?

If I'm actually watching the movie or tv? Never. Sometimes I have it on in the background for some white noise and I'll glance up from time to time to see what's going on via the flickering phosphers of my television screen.

While you're on the computer?

No.

When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits?

Not really. They might have chided me a little over the size of the book I was currently trying to tackle, but I never got called nerd or geek or dork for that, at least.

What's the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn't put it down?

American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which is why I recommend it.

Not to say it doesn't have its flaws--or that it's everyone's cup of tea--but it's a damn good story.

Have any books made you cry?

When Theo's mom died in Tad Williams' War of the Flowers and he found that she had bought a copy of Good-Night Moon for Theo's child which had died in utero, it made me pretty sad. I may or may not have had some moist eyes during that part of the story...

This is the point where I'm supposed to tag a handful of others to do this. Since I'm not inclined to do such, feel free to fill this out on your own if you should like.