bending_sickle | "Oohh, aahh, that's how all of this starts, but then later there's the running and screaming.*

Had been thinking about staying up all night for serious, but am actually sleepy now. So have some memes! I hate my life.

ETA: I stopped being lame for a tiny portion of the day and updated one day of

amboseli.

Book Meme via

active_apathy:
1. The worst reading experience that you have ever had?

My last year of high school, as part of the elective reading for IB, my English teacher chose The Lawless Roads: A Mexican Journey, a travel novel by Graham Greene, mainly because we were in Mexico. What she didn't know, and what we all soon found out, was that Graham was a whiney bitch who hated Mexico and wanted nothing more than a beer when riding his sorry-ass donkey. Needless to say, no one in the class ever finished the book, which we only got through by each of us reading one chapter and summarizing it for the class. Gods, but that was a bad, bad book.

2. The best reading experience you have ever had?

For a given value of "best" (favoritism, I know thee not), Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, because it was the first book to ever make me laugh out loud.

3. Which book has affected or influenced you the most so far?

For a given value of "the most", I'm going to go with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and all other Narnia books. I kid you not when I say that the only time I've ever prayed was when I was pleaded Aslan to let me into Narnia. (I was, of course, a young slip of a thing.)

4. Have you ever read a book that you got really scared of?

Caitlin Kiernan (

greygirlbeast)'s Threshold will always make me afraid of the dark to an extreme when I'm reading it.

5. What do you use as a bookmark?

Any scrap of paper, or that one tiger bookmark I've had since my pre-teens.

6. When do you usually read? At home, work, while cooking, in the morning, noon, afternoon, before you go to bed...?

Lately, on the train. (Or, if listening to an audio book counts - which it doesn't - then on my bike.) I don't read much lately, though.

7. Do you remember the first book that you read?

The earliest books I can remember include that one about the caterpillar, where the page has holes that the bug goes through. I do remember an awesome plastic, inflatable book about a whale, for the enjoyment of kids in the tub.

8. Which do you prefer - paperback or hardcover?

Paperback is lighter, cheaper, and easier to pack, but I have no preference besides these practicalities.

9. What are you currently reading? What page are you on?

The Whispering Land by Gerald Durrel - p. 103 (actively reading)
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond - p. 391 (stuck on)
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - p. 18 (abandoned re-read)
The Worm Ourobouros by Eric Rücker Eddison - p. ? (reading on hold since 2005 - book in on another continent)

10. Do you ever leave "a mark" (deliberate and/or not deliberate) in your books? For example, write in them, underline quotes, coffeemarks or food crumbs and etc.

Infidel! We do not hurt books!

11. Does the title, amount of pages and the cover affect you when you are considering a specific book?

I'm a sucker for beautiful or interesting titles, and am sorely disappointed if the plot doesn't live up to the title's promise. Curious formatting of the cover (e.g. all-black page edges) will catch my eye, but that's what it's there for anyway.

12. Do you ever browse through to the last pages in order find out the ending?

I sometimes read the very last sentence, though I never read the chapter titles.

13. Has knowing the ending of a book (example, through spoilers or a movie) ever made you decide whether you will read the book or not?

No. Part of it is due to my being able to put on selective amnesia whilst reading, but the main part is that there is so much more to reading than just "and then this happened". Reading the words is the point of it.

14. Is there a book that you have read more than five times?

I'm not sure, but I think a number of my Roald Dalh books (most definately The Witches and Fantastic Mr. Fox), The Island of the Blue Dolphins, some of The Narnia Chronicles, East of Midnight and Good Omens.

15. Have you ever been in an accident where the book was the cause? (for example, almost getting hit by a car when reading while walking, or having stacks of books falling on you from a bookshelf...)

...no? (Unless paper-cuts count.)

16. Do you sell/give away your books or do you keep them, even though you don't like one of them?

Most definitely not. (Unless forced by mother because we're moving again, although that breaks my heart.)

17. Do you have some kind of book system, where you write down what you are reading, have bought, will read, will buy and etc?

I did for a time write down books I'd read, and I've got loads of crumpled up scraps of paper with lists of books I want to read.

Icon-Making Meme via

active_apathy:

1. Choose an episode of anime or television series you have on your computer . Make sure you're certain you want that one, you cannot change your mind once you skip this step. DO NOT TELL YOUR FLIST WHAT YOU CHOSE.

(This one is quite plainly not an episode of TV, but we will ignore that.)

2. Make note of how long the episode is here: 43:09

3. Ask your flist to choose a time between 00:00 and whatever the length of your episode is. Be specific, (ie: 19:11, 21:09, 02:42, 01:23:45)

4. Make them an icon using THAT FRAME ONLY no matter what it is. And remember, you can only use that ONE episode you chose previous, even if the person posting isn't familiar with it.

Links of the Day:
And then Buffy staked Edward, the End shirt
Severus Snape: The Unlikely Hero of Harry Potter 7
Why Snape? Analysis Theories
David Usher's Blog: Cloudid

* Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park: The Lost World