A reader's meme

I lifted this meme from Average Jane:

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest? Jane Eyre, though not the same copy. I keep reading that story to shreds.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?
Current Read: Jane and the Ghosts of Netley, by Stephanie Barron
Last Read: The Archivist, by Martha Cooley
Next Book: Magical Thinking, by Augusten Burroughs -- unless something else catches my eye.

3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
I was significantly underwhelmed by The Bridges of Madison County. I didn't see it as romantic at all. I was impatient with him and irritated by her.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?
Not so much that I'm telling myself I'll read it, but that I despair of ever finishing it: A Suitable Boy. I keep picking it up and putting it down. And it's so long between attempts, I usually have to start over. It's good, but it's l-o-o-o-o-o-n-g. Oy.

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”
Well, I have to learn French first, but one thing I'd really like to do is read Les Miserables in its original language. Dunno why, I'm sure there are plenty of good translations out there. I just want to read it in French.

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?
I wait 'til the end.

7. Acknowledgments: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
I like them if they explain who the people are being thanked. If it's just a list of names, I tend to move on.

8. Which book character would you switch places with?
Can't think of anyone.

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
No, not really. Now, ask me that about pieces I've embroidered, that's a different story. For example, the pillow top I was working on during the long drive back from my cousin J's wedding in Virginia. NASCAR radio was on, I was embroidering in the back seat (roads were well-paved, car had decent shocks, and it was a blunt needle. And my small-hand coordination's very good). I've never finished the piece, 'cause every time I look at it I hear nnnnnnnNNNNNYOWMMMMNNNNnnnnnn in my head.

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
My aunt gave me the whole "Little House" series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, in hardback, one book every year or so, until I had them all.

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?
I've been doing for my aunt's grandchild what my aunt did for me. I think the next one I have to get her is The Long Winter. Need to check on that.

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
Most of my childhood books are packed away somewhere. I haven't seen them since we moved out away from the Philly area when I was 17. I hope they're still in good condition. Somehow or other Northanger Abbey missed getting packed up with everything else. I got that

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?
Nope. I still don't like The Red Badge of Courage, and I can't see "The Big Two-Hearted River" as anything but a fishing trip.

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?
Found a photo in one I bought at a used book sale--old black and white photo of a woman holding a baby. Nothing written on the back. I don't remember what I did with it. If Look at Me had been around at the time, I would have scanned and posted the photo there.

15. Used or brand new?
Either. Both. Gimme!

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
Eh. He's all right. Some of his stuff is really good, other works not so much. I think he answered the question himself when he wrote books under the name "Richard Bachman," and they didn't sell until he leaked it that they were his.

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
I have learned to treat the movie and the book as separate. Other wise I get irritated with what I see as liberties taken with the way the story is told once it's put on film.

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
The Woman in White.

19. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?
My mom's taste and mine seem to coincide. Though my friend G's pointed some interesting books out for me, too. Another one on my list, either after Magical Thinking or before, depending on my mood when I get down with what I'm reading now, is one he recommended called When Languages Die.