I Dare You! Book Tag

I’ve seen this on various blogs, but can’t seem to find the creator, so I can’t credit them. I’d like to, if anyone knows who did it.

Rules:

• Be Honest! (ummm, really? Why bother lying here?)
• Answer all the questions (what’s the point otherwise?)
• Tag at least 4 people (so I’ve failed, I’m going to break this rule)

1. What book has been on your shelf the longest?

That’s a very good question, I’m not 100% sure, but I think it’s an a copy of

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

I think I got it at a neighbor’s garage sale just before I entered 7th grade, and while my mother was hesitant to let me read such salacious material (and she should have been), she allowed it. Not only did it blow my mind, but I distinctly remember some high schoolers seeing me reading it on the school bus and being impressed. It probably saved me from some hazing.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?

Last read: Looking for Rachel Wallace by Robert P. Parker
Current read: Of Mutts and Men by Spencer Quinn
Next read: The Curator by M. W. Craven

3. What book did everyone like, but you hated?

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

As I said when I read it. I really, really liked it until the end. And then…nope. Just nope.

4. What book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read… but you probably won’t?

Maybe The Wheel of Time series, but I think I got honest about that a long time ago. Early Delillo? Oh, oh, Dennis Lehane’s Live by Night. I bought the hardcover the week it was released eight years ago, and I just don’t see it happening.

5. What book are you saving for your retirement?

The Wheel of Time series? I don’t know, I have a hard enough time planning the rest of this summer, I’ve got 20+ years until retirement, there’s no way I can think that far ahead.

6. Last page: Read it first or save it to the end?

Do I look like Harry Burns to you? The last page should be read last. That’s why it’s called that.

7. Acknowledgement: waste of paper and ink, or interesting aside?

I find them frequently interesting, if at a glance, they’re more than just a list of names, I’ll give them a read.

8. Which book character would you switch places with?

If the switch involved gaining his intelligence, then the choice is easy.

Nero Wolfe created by Rex Stout

He spends most of his days reading, drinking beer and eating gourmet food. What’s not to like?

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (place, time, person)?

Pretty much every book on my shelves does.

10. Name a book that you acquired in an interesting way?

Er…I really can’t think of anything that fits. Like most people, I’ve had the suprise find at a Library Sale, or Used Book store, but there’s really nothing terribly interesting there. The closest I came was when I was checking out a new indie store last year, and I tried to special order a paperback of Tom Jones, but one of the clerks insisted they had a copy. Their inventory didn’t show one, but he went off and looked through books that hadn’t been entered yet and came back with this spiffy hardcover in a slipcase. No online store is going to do that.

11. Have you ever given a book away for a special reason to a special person?

One of my own books? Um…no. I’ve “given” a few away via loaning them and not getting them back, but that’s not what the question was going for.

12. Which book has been with you most places?

It’d be a tie between: God Save the Child, Mortal Stakes , Promised Land, The Judas Goat,Looking for Rachel Wallace, Early Autumn, A Savage Place, Ceremony, The Widening Gyre , Valediction, A Catskill Eagle, Taming a Sea-Horse, and Pale Kings and Princes by Robert. B. Paker (13 of the first 14 Spenser novels. The first (as I mentioned) didn’t make the move with my family in 1988. But those have been everywhere I’ve lived since, including the various dorm rooms in college (most other novels stayed at my parents).

13. Any “required reading” that you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad two years later?

I can’t remember hating anything that I didn’t keep on hating (e.g., Heart of Darkness, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Grapes of Wrath). I think I apprecaited The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms more when I read them a couple of years later, but that’s as close as I get.

14. Used or brand new?

Either, but I skew new.

15. Have you ever read a Dan Brown book?

I read one of them twice–sure, it had different titles (Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code) and covers both times. More than enough for a lifetime.

16. Have you ever seen a movie you liked more than the book?

Sure, Matthew Vaughn’s Stardust is better than Gaiman’s (but if I read the latter a couple of more times, I may be swayed). I really dug Crighton’s Jurassic Park, but I might have enjoyed the movie a bit more. But the ultimate example of this is Let the Right One In (either version, though the Swedish is probably superior)–couldn’t finish the book (and I got pretty far, I think).

17. Have you ever made a book that made you hungry, cookbooks included?

A lot of what Elvis Cole and Spenser eat and/or cook does. I’d love to eat Nero Wolfe’s scrambled eggs (from The Mother Hunt. Faith Hunter’s Nell Ingram gives me cravings for stuff I shouldn’t eat as she discovers what food is like outside the cult she was raised in. Almost every cookbook I’ve eaten has made me want to eat. No fantasy novel has ever got me hungry (I like stew as much as the next guy, but not that much)–especially Martin’s “six page descriptions of every last meal”. But the best book along those lines is:

Sourdough by Robin Sloan

Even thinking about this book years later makes me hanker for the spicy soup and spicy sandwich. Still, that’s not what the prompt was about, technically, but as I noted when I wrote about it, I had to fight to not interrupt my reading and demand that my son bring some sourdough home from the bakery he worked at.

18. Who is the person who’s book advice you’ll always take?

Most people I know IRL are intimidated by giving me book advice (which is odd, I’m always open to suggestion) Still, Micah’s got a pretty good track record, Paul’s pretty spot on.

19. Is there a book outside of your comfort zone that you ended up loving?

Probably, but once I ended up loving (or at least enjoying it), I’d stop considering it outside of my comfort zone. The only thing that I can think of at the moment is the Romance Novel:

Finding Felix by Jo Platt

Which was a heckuva fun read (and only outside of my comfort zone as it’s marketed as Romance). If a thing tells a story, it’s my comfort zone–or close enough, anyway.

As usual, I’m not tagging anyone in this—but I’d like to see what you all have to come up with.