Jen's Meme

Books mentioned in this meme.

                         

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews? Honestly?
I’ll probably be chastised for admitting this, but the rest of the Harry Potter series.  I read the first three books and then burned out.  While I enjoyed them at the time, it wasn’t enough to continue.  I think my interest wanes too quickly for anything beyond trilogies.

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?

A day in NYC: First, I would like to spend the day frolicking around with Hunter Braque from So Yesterday; it would be fascinating to hang out with the guy who decides what’s cool.  Then I would listen to some live music with Nick and Norah from Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.  After that, I would conclude my evening clubbing with Edward, the hottest vampire ever, from Twilight. 

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realize it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?
It would be a tie between the three G’s (a.k.a. the worst required reading from my high school days):  The Good Earth, The Grapes of Wrath and Great Expectations.

Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?
Once again, the Harry Potter series.  And it’s not that I pretended to read it, I just didn’t volunteer that I didn’t finish it when people talk about it.

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realize when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book?
Nope.  How about this one though:  “Has there ever been a book that you thought you haven’t read, but when you start it, it turns out that you did?”  While this has never happened to me, it often happens to our customers who usually only read from our Bestsellers table, which is always populated with the works of Danielle Steel, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, etc.  Typically, these customers wish that our computers kept track of everything they’ve ever checked out.

You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (If you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead and personalize the VIP.)
If I were the official book advisor to a not-to-be-named war monger who doesn’t read, I would first recommend Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo because it’s written in a straightforward way that doesn’t require higher level thinking skills and the subject matter packs a powerful punch.  I gave this book to my cousin who was considering enlisting and now he’s in trade school instead – I like to think I played a small role in this decision.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with? 
I would pick Arabic to read the Koran in its original form so I could better decipher world events.  I just finished Terrorist by John Updike, so that’s probably influencing this choice.

A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?

Probably Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman because while it’s an uplifting story, it’s short.  I don’t like to reread books because there are too many out there that I want to read.  I’ve never been a sentimentalist about anything, including books.

 Jen – CLP, West End