Book 'Em, Danno!!

Shamefacedly nicked from Rol's blog (in turn a strand taken from Chev's thread, IIRC), here's the amazing fantabulous book post!

1) Which author do you own the most books by?

Stephen King

2) Which book do you own the most copies of?

I only own one copy of any book but have the original and updated Dark Tower: The Gunslinger. I discarded my old copy of The Stand when I bought the expanded version and would consider the Salem's Lot update except I have sentimental reasons for holding on to my original copy (from 1987!!)...

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?

Not as much as the fact that you had to point out that it was a preposition in the first place...besides, nobody ever has the exact grammar to say something like "Of which book do you own the most copies?" in real life, do they?

4) Which fictional character are you secretly in love with?

I could say Barbarella, Wonder Woman or Lois Lane but I think it's less to do with the character and more today with the actresses portraying them (and I mean Erica Durance's Lois, BTW).

Don't think there's an answer on this one...

5) What book have you read the most times in your life? (Excluding picture books read to children.)

I've never said the same novel twice (amended editions aside), so it's probably a comic/graphic novel---Watchmen or The Rocketeer maybe...

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?

I never read books as a kid, so I'll have to say Rampage magazine with the Claremont/Byrne/Austin X-Men reprints...

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?

I don't really have the necessary time to concentrate on fiction at the moment, so it'd be The Blue Beetle Companion.

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?

I've only read one novel in the past year so I'll say the most enjoyable READ I had this year was the collection of Locke & Key by Joe Hill---wasn't expecting much and it quietly sneaked up on me and blew me away.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?

Pfff!

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?

Again, I Am Legend, done right this time! Failing that, the Dark Tower books (which are truly unfilmable really!)

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?

Pfff!

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.

Don't think I've ever had any.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?

I'm usually mid-brow so don't go near cheap, trashy 'n' dumb...having said that, maybe a movie or TV tie-in, such as Alan dean Foster's swearing-edited Aliens novelisation, which features Ripley facing off with the Alien Queen in her power loader with the really threatening "Get away from her, you!" Cos, Ripley's like, 8, int she?

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?

Probably The X-Men: the Characters and Their Universe: that was frigging huge and weighed a ton, I could barely hold it!

Oh, wait...

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?

I run from Shakespeare like children from Jackson...

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?

French probably, you racist inciter!

18) Roth or Updike?

Roth, he was great as the Abomination...

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?

Do you mean the Clooney Sedaris or the original Russian?

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?

Milton, if only because the plot of Paradise Lost interests me...

21) Austen or Eliot?

Neither

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading??

Well, I don't venture anywhere near "the Classics" so I'd say that at some point I really need to sample some respected "genre" writers like Bradbury...

23) What is your favorite novel?

Not sure...probably The Stand or I Am Legend, with It a possible third contender...

24) Play?

Don't read plays either: they should be watched, not read but then again I generally find even the idea of theatre pompous, dull and irritating. That's why when I go to the theatre, I watch Evil Dead: the Musical instead of an RSC production of Ling Lear or summat...

(25) Poem?

Oh, how much do I hate poetry? My answer's probably "Diarrhea, Diarrhea"...

26) Essay?

Pfff!

27) Short Story?

Um...none spring to mind, but it's probably something by Stephen King or maybe Bubba-Hotep by Joe R Lansdale...

28) Work of nonfiction?

Technically, probably one of my big art books devoted to Bolland, Frazetta, Williamson or Stevens but if you mean "proper" writing, then maybe My Boring Ass Life by Kevin Smith...not as a whole but specifically for the 70-odd page sequence detailing Jason Mewes' struggle with addiction, powerful reading without needing to know the people involved...

29) Who is your favorite writer?

By number of appearances on my bookshelf, probably Stephen King

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?

I don't read modern/contemporary fiction so dunno...

31) What is your desert island book?

It'd have to be The Stand, purely for practical reasons: I like it and it takes ages to read!

32) And... what are you reading right now?

Funnily enough, the first collection of comic version of The Stand and I'm slowly flicking through the Hawkman Companion during my lunch breaks..