Book Meme

Thanks to Iliana, I woke up Sunday morning to find that I've been tagged! After washing my face, brushing my teeth (yes, you can tell what's the first thing I do when I wake up on weekends - ack!) and fixing a cup of coffee, I sat down to play.

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?
Books with painful themes of sacrifice, conflict, hardships, loss, uncomfortable topics. Self-help books like The Secret which I absolutely refuse to read despite everyone and their mother telling me to.

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?
Hmm...I'd love to have Thursday Next, Green Gables' Anne Shirley and Dumbledore for tea.

(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 realise it's past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?
Oh no!! Please don't make me try to read it again. I mean I want the nice grave and all, but honestly! It would have to be my nemesis: War & Peace.

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?
I have some very well-intentioned aunts and friends who have insisted on lending me books, telling me how much they loved it, and that I'll love it too. I hate that cause usually it's a book I have absolutely no interest in reading, nor would I ever pick up at a bookstore. The last one was The House of Blue Mangoes by David Davidar. It sat on a shelf for like a month, before I returned it to an aunt with thanks. I mumbled something about the book and plot, stuff I got from Amazon. So please... shhh!

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to 'reread' it that you haven't? Which book?
None really. I usually do remember what I've read.

You've been appointed Book Advisor to a 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 of personalise the VIP)
Oooh...this hints of An Uncommon Reader. So much so, that that would be the book I'd recommend. It's a short, easy read (especially so as the VIP would be a very busy person with not much time to relax) and it's about another VIP with an interesting choice books. Enough to get him/her started reading, I hope.

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?
Spanish, so I can read Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pablo Neruda in their original language. Besides, it sounds awfully romantic too.

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?
Some books I would re-read (and have) are part of a series (like David Eddings' Belgariad and Mallorean series with 10 books - lost count of my re-reads here) so it'd be hard to just read just that one. I'd pick Perfume - beautifully written with a touch of the bizarre.

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What's one bookish thing you 'discovered' from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?
'Meeting' Lesley originally from Newfoundland. That prompted my discovery of Jim DeFede's The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland when I went looking in Amazon for a book on Newfoundland.

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she's granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.
It's a very large, bright room with a darkly polished wooden floor and scattered soft, deep pile richly coloured carpets, air-conditioned against hot muggy days but with french doors framed by white curtains that open out to a large shaded verandah, well protected from the December monsoon. There are huge overstuffed sofas and armchairs, inside and out. Potted palms soften hard corners and provide a natural screen between reading areas.

The library proper has floor to ceiling teak shelves with those running ladders. Oh, and because of magic, no dust or cobwebs or bugs are ever found here. Books of all kinds fill the shelves; hardback, paperback, tradeback, fiction, non fiction, arranged by genre then author. Shelves at eye level hold first editions, some signed. There are framed pictures of favourite authors on the walls. I'd have several first editions of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, one set in a glass box, opened to the first chapter.

It's not a neat room: there are stacks of books on coffee tables, side tables and some chairs, that lovely organised mess that makes a room cosy. It smells of books and printed paper, and of always fresh jasmine arranged in crystal vases scattered around the place. And of course, music is piped through cleverly hidden speakers. At night, candles glow as crickets sing outside. Bliss!

I'm not sure who else to tag who would play but if you're reading this and would love to, please consider youself tagged. Now to go for a shower.