Thursday, March 24, 2005

A nice book quiz from Helen

Helen has put up a lovely book quiz and declared she's passing it to me next, so here's my take on it.


1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be? 

See Helen's excellent explanation of it. Safe to say, it involves memorising a single book.

I'd choose Dodie Smith's 'I Capture the Castle' - which I love so much that I've nearly memorised it anyway.


2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Yes. I think a few of the men in my past were actually fictional, because their real selves turned out to be very far removed from who I'd thought they were. If you see what I mean.


3. The last book you bought is:

'Longing' by JD Landis. A novel (yes, another one) about Robert and Clara Schumann. I'm currently stuck, around page 60.


4. The last book you read:

'Ferruccio Busoni: A Musical Ishmael' by Della Couling.


5. What are you currently reading?

'My Sister's Keeper' by Jodi Picoult.


6. Five books you would take to a deserted island:

Vikram Seth: 'A Suitable Boy'
Ian McEwan: 'The Child in Time'
George Eliot: 'Middlemarch'
Tolstoy: 'War and Peace' (though if 'Anna Karenina' could be appended to it, that'd be nice)
A very large book of poetry, including as much as possible of Keats, Yeats, Eliot and Ted Hughes, ideally with some Verlaine and Rimbaud and Baudelaire thrown in in the original French, and some Lorca, preferably translated...does this book exist or is it the poetic equivalent of iTunes?


7. Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons)? And Why?

Will think about this and do it later because the people I wanted to suggest have already done it!