(Please note that I copied and pasted this here and for some reason couldn't control the italics. Really I do know how to use them, they just didn't listen. Wild critters, italics are.)
- What was the last book you bought? The Faraway Horses (Not too impressed, really. He's very negative.)
- Name a book you have read MORE than once? There are so many. To Kill a Mockingbird, Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein), Anthem (Ayn Rand), The Disposessed (Ursula LeGuin), Siddhartha (Hesse), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, King of the Wind, Mustang: Wild Spirit of the West, Brighty of the Grand Canyon, The Illuminatus Trilogy, Green Eggs and Ham (I had it memorized when my daughter was about 3 years old)
- Has a book ever fundamentally changed the way you see life? If yes, what was it? To Kill a Mockingbird. Heinlein's books Farnam's Freehold, Tunnel in the Sky, Time Enough for Love, To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Siddhartha, Stranger in a Strange Land, My Antonia, Mark Rashid's books, Atlas Shrugged, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and many more. Really, how can a book not change us, at least for a short while? I'm not sure exactly how "fundamental" the change in my life would be for each of these, but they're all very important to me.
- How do you choose a book? e.g. by cover design and summary, recommendations or reviews? I look for certain authors and I read books recommended by friends. For horse books I look through the table of contents and I read books that I hear a lot about.
- Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction? Fiction. I have a problem paying attention to non-fiction, even if it's a horse training book.
- What’s more important in a novel - beautiful writing or a gripping plot? PLOT. The writing had better be good, but I don't like it when it gets too flowery or pretentious. Another very important thing - the human relationships in a book. Some authors are harder for me to read, like the hard-core science fiction guys, because it's more about plot than relationships. The people are flat.
- Most loved/memorable character? Oh gosh. That's not right, how can you ask that? Scout and Atticus and Boo Radley. Antonia (My Antonia). The Reluctant Messiah (Read that so long ago I don't remember his name, or if he had one, or the real name of the book.) Wild Horse Annie of course. Every horse character in every horse book :). Jubal Harshaw. Drizzt Do'Urden.
- Which book or books can be found on your nightstand at the moment? Orson Scott Card's Homecoming series, books 1,2,3 & 5 (Currently reading book 2). Life Lessons of a Ranch Horse by Mark Rashid. War and Peace, A Tale of Two Cities, The Idiot, Duh - the Stupid History of the Human Race, 3 Marion Zimmer Bradley Darkover books, Tom Dorrance's True Unity, and an issue of Western Horseman. A couple kids' books and some old Parelli thing. I'd have To Kill a Mockingbird there to re-read, but I can't find it. (If you hadn't noticed I think that's my favorite book of all time. I'm always left thirsting for more, wishing the story wouldn't end, tempted to immediately turn from the last to the first page again and read it all over.) I'm all set for the next couple months, I think.
- What was the last book you read? The Memory of Earth by Orson Scott Card
- Have you ever given up on a book halfway in? Not very many. I consider it a failure not to finish one. But there have been a couple in the past year that I just could not read. One that I wish I had put down was Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Horrible. HORRIBLE. Like I said, flowery prose is not my thing, and when the good part FINALLY comes, she passes over it with one - ONE - dry and unsatisfying sentence.
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