Meme From Try Harder

1. Hardcover or paperback, and why?
Hardcover. I like the feel of a book on my lap. And it’s not as easy for the cat to bonk it while in bed.

2. If I were to own a book shop I would call it…
Hannah’s Book Emporium.

3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is…
Just like Carrie, who kindly memed me (is it a verb?) a few weeks back, I am terrible at remembering quotes. I do, however, enjoy first lines. Here are a few of my favourites:

This is the saddest story I have ever heard. —Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier (even though I’ve never finished the book)

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. —Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. —Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

4. The author (alive or diseased) I would love to have lunch with would be…
Jack Kerouac. I know it’s trite but I’d love to have a beer with him in San Francisco while listening to jazz before it became affected and sung by Diana Krall. Maybe Jane Austen just so I could wear a pretty dress. And perhaps Thomas Hardy just so I could talk to him about Jude the Obscure, one of my favourite all-time books.

5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except from the SAS survival guide, it would be…
Goodness. Really? Just one? You can fit plenty of paperbacks into a suitcase. Probably something practical then, I couldn’t pick just one book of fiction, so I would take something about the natural world, so I didn’t end up eating a poisonous plant.

6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that…
Makes the pages smell like lavender.

7. The smell of an old book reminds me of…
Sneezing. But in a good way. But in all truthfulness, Balfour Books on College Street where we lived across the way from for almost five years. Stacks and stacks of books and dust and words and pages and classics and none and crusty booksellers. Brilliant.

8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be…
Henry Miller in a Tropic of Cancer or Capricorn. If only to experience Paris at the time that he did, or New York.

9. The most overestimated book of all time is…
I know people will not think kindly but I tried to read The Lord of the Rings and simply couldn’t get past the precious hobbits and their bloody singing. I adored the movies, though.

10. I hate it when a book…
Is full of tired cliches about romance like a certain movie tie-in book I just finished that shall remain nameless.

I am terrible at tagging. So…um. Yeah. I’m not so good with the Pay It Forward. Take it away if you’re intrigued.