This week, I read and finished Last Orders, The Good Earth, and His Last Bow (review coming soon). Today, I am reading The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien. LOTR was winning by far in the poll from last week so I’ve decided to just read it now before my move because I rather carry the even heavier Don Quixote and Possession with me.

If you have not taken the poll from last week about which books I should take and read from my TBR pile, please do so here or in the column to the right of the screen.

I’ll leave with a meme/survey I found last week among one of the Salonists.

On your nightstand now: I actually do not put books by the nightstand, but current books on the top of the TBR pile include The Tower Towers, The Return of the King, Cannery Row, and also numerous others.

Book you’ve “faked” reading: Actually, when I had English classes in school, I generally read all the books through so I did not fake much. In a rare case or two, I have said I read a book, but really, I skimmed most of it. This happened with Cold Mountain for some reason.

Book you’ve bought for the cover: This happened once, and it was not even that the cover was pretty, but it was good quality. It’s a book I never heard of from an author I’ve never heard of: William – An Englishman by Cecily Hamilton.

Favorite book when you were a child: Peter Pan, Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Pydrain (I read so many of Alexander’s books before the age of 13 and then stopped for some reason), The Arthurian Legends, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Road Dahl’s books.

Book that changed your life: In my childhood Peter Pan, in my teens, Anna Karenina. I think Tolstoy has been a big part of my life.

Favorite line from a book: Going through some of my collection quotations:

Dreaming is not merely an act of communication (or coded communication if you like); it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself. Our dreams prove that to imagine–to dream about things that have not happened–is among mankind’s deepest needs. Hereinlies the danger. If dreams were not beautiful, they would quickly be forgotten.
— Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Top five favorite authors: To be rebellious, I am going to name ten since I can never really pick top favourites: Leo Tolstoy, William Shakespeare, Nick Hornby, Neil Gaiman, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Steinbeck, E. M. Forster, Philip Pullman, Edith Wharton, and Jane Austen.

Books you recommend as regeneration when people say, “I’m bored by almost all contemporary American writers.”: Oh well, I’m wary of giving book recommendations unless I know the person well and has a high likihood of liking the books. Some American contemporary authors I like are Jeffrey Eugenides, Audrey Niffenegger, Marilynne Robinson, Anthony Bourdain (for travel and food), Bill Bryson (travel and nonfiction), Madeleine L’Engle, and Adam Gopnik. I read a lot more from British authors and their oeuvres.

Book you can’t believe that everyone has not read and loved: Going along the lines of why I’m not big on giving recommendations as whole, I do believe there are books people else loves and others don’t.

Book you are an “evangelist” for: From my reading list, I seem to like my classic books. It’s hard to say really.

Book you most want to read again for the first time: Anna Karenina, Howards End, Pride and Prejudice and on it goes.

Books you wanted to begin again immediately after finishing them: Strangely enough, War and Peace, but I know it’ll be a few more years before I try that again. The rare chicklit book such as when I read Bridget Jones’s Diary (P&P and Persuasion too) for the first time.

Have a good Sunday!