BTT this week is about fictional characters:

Are there any fictional characters whom you have emulated (or tried to)? Who and why?

What literary character do you feel is most like you personality-wise (explain)?

I don’t think I have tried to emulate any character specifically, I have admired and respected some characters as I would some people in real life. For some reason, the narrator in Gilead comes to mind. Also, when I was very young, I did want to be some of the characters in books like Wendy in Peter Pan if only because I wanted to have adventures.

As for who I am like, this is difficult to answer. I’ve read so many books with so many characters. There hasn’t been an instance where I feel a character is a GPOY or Gratuitous Picture of Yourself (Myself). I once took a Jane Austen quiz and it told me I was Elizabeth Bennet and I do agree that Lizzie and I have the same sense of humor. Along the line of the classics, when I read Jane Eyre, I saw a bit of myself in her mostly in terms of her pragmatism and her sensitivity. I can’t be like these characters though in terms of their romantic lives. It is actually a bit limiting to encapsulate myself from one character in a novel. Most stories don’t even tell you everything about the character or their journeys. So it is a bit apples to oranges for me.

how many of us write notes in our books. Are you a Footprint Leaver or a Preservationist? – BTT

Preservationist. I don’t really like writing in books and leave them as they are. If I wanted to leave notes about them, I’d blog it or write in one of my notebooks or journals. I also can’t stand when people leave notes in library books. I once read a Bill Bryson book where someone had written in the margins complaining about the editing of the French words in the book.  Some people have too much time on their hands. I will say that I like when books are personalized. When I buy a used book or take out a book that used to be owned by someone, I actually like reading the first page, “To J from M, December 1965” or something to that effect. No one has ever done that for me, but I wouldn’t mind it if the book and person were close to my heart.

Do you have “issues” with too much profanity or overly explicit (ahem) “romantic” scenes in books? Or do you take them in stride? Have issues like these ever caused you to close a book? Or do you go looking for more exactly like them? (grin) – BTT

Not really. I take them in stride, and I first started reading books intended for adults when I was a preteen. That was a surprising, but I learned to take it in stride. Censorship in books is rather an anathema for me. I usually like the books I read so the writing works with these elements or around them to make a decent book. I have looked for these books before, but I’m usually let down by the result. Overly explicit “romantic” books can be rather overrated in the published world.

Okay . . . picture this (really) worst-case scenario: It’s cold and raining, your boyfriend/girlfriend has just dumped you, you’ve just been fired, the pile of unpaid bills is sky-high, your beloved pet has recently died, and you think you’re coming down with a cold. All you want to do (other than hiding under the covers) is to curl up with a good book, something warm and comforting that will make you feel better.

What do you read? – BTT

If that really happened, I wouldn’t be reading. But if I was, I’d want something light. I’d want chicklit. If I didn’t have that around, I usually go for a good, ol favourite classic such as Jane Austen. I can be stressed quite often so I do want lighter books. I like fiction that I have a feeling won’t be too dark or with an ending too bleak. I usually have a good instinct about books. I also like going through knitting patttern books and cookbooks when I don’t feel up for a real book to cheer me up.

There was a widely bruited-about statistic reported last week, stating that 1 in 4 Americans did not read a single book last year. Clearly, we don’t fall into that category, but . . . how many of our friends do? Do you have friends/family who read as much as you do? Or are you the only person you know who has a serious reading habit? – BTT

We were talking about this on the Ravelry group Yarnwords. I’m not surprised at all since I am one of the biggest readers I know. Most of my friends do read a few books every year, but they do not have the compulsion for it nor do they get the anxiety that I do when I have not read a book for a few weeks. As I said last week, my parents aren’t big readers anymore. I have never seen my mother read a book. I have a couple of friends that read as much as I do. Most don’t. It can be rather isolating because you have no other people to recommend books.

At a big used book sale last year, my friend Annie (who is one of the biggest reading friends) and I went. At one point, we began discussing books with a lot of random people. I was convinced by an older gentleman than Anthony Trollope is better than Charles Dickens and promptly gave me a few of his books to buy. They are on my shelf TBR now. In the contemporary books section, this woman and I began discussing books we had read and she showed me this huge pile she had chosen and asked if I had read any of them and my thoughts. I had read more than half of her books and told her my thoughts. All this was very liberating and wonderful if you can tell. I just don’t talk about fiction with most other people.