Baa!

[lathany]

Book Sheep

If you were a book, what kind of book would you be? Prose rather than poetry, slightly old-fashioned. I think something hard-backed belonging at the end of the shelf. With a blue-coloured cover.

What was your favorite book when you were little? Depends how little, but probably Power of Three by Diana Wynne Jones.

What book(s) can you read over and over? There are loads, but particular favourites are: Lord of the Rings, The Ice King by Michael Scott Rohan, the Magician trilogy by Feist (and the Empire trilogy by Feist and Wurts), The Color Purple, Pride and Prejudice, anything by Diana Wynne Jones (except The Merlin Conspiracy), any Night Watch from Pratchett, A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away by Christopher Brookmyre and Count Zero by Gibson.

Do you buy/read books if you know nothing about the book or its author beforehand? Practically never. I think only when it has been recommended to me without details and, even then, only if I trust the person in question to know my tastes.

Have you ever bought/read a book just because you liked the cover art? If yes, do you think this is a good method for buying books? No - and therefore I don’t know!

What book(s) do you find yourself always recommending to people? The Color Purple, The Art of Murder by Jose Carlos Somoza, The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper; plus I should recommend Greg Bear’s Songs of Earth and Power more.

Now, for the tagging . . . five, you say... lanfykins, ao_lai, chrisvenus, dracunculus and venta. If you're happy to do this, copy the questions, add your answers, and then tag five more people!

Comments

[chrisvenus]

Happy to answer but I'm not a big fan of proliferating so I'll just do so here... :)

If you were a book, what kind of book would you be? Hmmm... I'm never sure how to answer these sorts of questions... I'd probably be a paperback with an exciting sci-fi cover about a fairly hard sci fi setting. Or possibly a cyberpunky setting. Either way I like to think I'd be a really great read but at the same time fairly trashy. :)

What was your favorite book when you were little? I'm not sure I remember really... I remember reading the novelisation of Return of the Jedi when I was little and just opening it straight up at the final fight scene. I remember owning a "dictionary of science" which was like a mini encyclopaedia aimed at giving an introduction (and in some cases a relatively detailed look) at sciencey stuff. I remember reading about nuclear reactors and stuff like that. I don't really remember what I liked when I was really little though. I do remember the very hungry caterpillar and everybody loves that.

What book(s) can you read over and over? First ones that come to mind are Timothy Zahn's Star Wars books. They are all awesome and I've read a couple of times. I want to go back and read the dresden books from the beginning again (which I only just read starting christmas 2007). I've read Gibson stuff a couple of times and probably could. I don't re-read often though because there are usually other things to do. :)

Do you buy/read books if you know nothing about the book or its author beforehand? Not really. The closest I used to get was when I was young and I used to constantly get books from the library but then I'd still read the covers to find out what they were about. Reading a book that you know *nothing* about just strikes me as being pretty unfeasible. These days I'll tend to mainly read stuff I am reccomended in which case it can be unknown authors etc. Currently I am reading Space Captain Smith whcih elethiomel reccomended to the extent of buying it for me as a birthday present. I'd never heard of the book or the author before. It is quite fun though. :)

Have you ever bought/read a book just because you liked the cover art? If yes, do you think this is a good method for buying books? Not *just* for that reason though I always think that covers make a good impression. As I said above though I'll always read the blurb and maybe even the first few pages/chapters before buying it.

What book(s) do you find yourself always recommending to people? I rarely recommend books to people but on the assumption that this question is designed to be a book recommendation thing I would probably currently say the Dresden Files. The Sandman graphic novels (not sure if they count as books). If the person I was recommending to liked star wars I'd probably recommend the Timothy Zahn that I mentioned above. I am aware that books are very subjective so unless I knew the other person had the same taste as me I'd generally avoid receommending so much as just saying I enjoyed X.

[sosoclever.livejournal.com]

I read the blurbs on the back, or on the inside of the dustjacket, but so often it seems the person who wrote that didn't actually read the book . . . or they give away something important from the last half! Of course, oftentimes it seems the person who does the cover art hasn't read the book and knows nothing about it, so that can be misleading, too.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

the Timothy Zahn

I own all three (of the first trilogy?) and two of them made it to Ashford. It's possible that the third is somewhere in Isleworth and I'll eventually get it back.

[sosoclever.livejournal.com]

A blue cover . . . hmmm. I wonder what that means.

Thank you for answering!:-)