A literary survey

This was sent to me by a very good friend that have a Facebook account (I don't have one), it will give you an idea about me...


Rules: You have received this note because someone thinks you are a literary geek. Copy the questions into your own note, answer the questions, and tag any friends who would appreciate the quiz, including the person who sent you this.

Don't bother trying to italicize your book titles, even though we know you want to...

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1) What author do you own the most books by?


Oddly enough: Michel Foucault, followed very closely by Carlos Fuentes and then Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez and Julio Cortázar.



2) What book do you own the most copies of?


I normally don’t buy the same book twice with the exception of The Divine Comedy (Dante) and The Republic (Plato), weird, eh!!?



3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?


No, I am an ESL person. 



4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?


Hmm, nothing came to mind at first, but then two characters from detective fiction show up: Tempe Brennan (from the Kathy Reichs’ novels) and Siobhan Clarke (from the Rebus’s novels by Ian Rankin)



5) What book have you read the most times in your life?


Rayuela, La insoportable levedad del ser, Don Quijote and A solas con el enemigo (Yuri Dold Mijailik, a Soviet spy novel set in World War II)


6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?


Probably something by Jules Verne or Emilio Salgari



7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?

Peña Batlle en la Era de Trujillo (I started it in December, so it qualify)


8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?


Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Wolf) and Tres Tristes Tigres (Guillermo Cabrera Infante)


9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?


I don’t tag people, but that book would be Rayuela.



10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?


A triple tie for the first time between Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Mario Vargas Llosa.



11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?


I have to agree with my friend Agnes (the one who sent me the survey): Morirás lejos (José Emilio Pacheco) could be a good movie, but also (and it’s coming soon): The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Díaz), with a honorable mention for: A solas con el enemigo



13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.


I don’t dream anything that is printable, publishable or susceptible to be share in any public forum. 



14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?


Again, agreeing with Agnes (this is not good at all!!!) The Da Vinci Code and I did not like it. 



15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?


I will say History in Transit (Dominick LaCapra), I did not enjoy that one, I should plow through it again according to some people. Beginnings: Intention and Method (Edward W. Said) is a close second but very enjoyable, maybe because it’s Said, and I will read that one again, soon. 



16) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?

Both

17) Austen or Eliot?

I haven’t read any of them seriously, but I will go with Austen


20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?


Shakespeare and Cervantes



22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?


Ok, are we talking about authors, particular books, traditions, genres...!? So pick one category and I will have a lot of gaps...



23) What is your favorite novel?


Rayuela, because you ask so directly, Jesus!!!!, but then also Cien años de soledad, La región más transparente, Cambio de Piel, La insoportable levedad del ser, La tía Julia y el escribidor, Los detectives salvajes, The Human Stain, A solas con el enemigo

...

24) Play?


A play that I have seen or a play that I have read? Ok, play that I have seen... I don’t go to the theater as I should. Play that I have read: Hamlet, Antigone and all Lorca.


26) Short story?

Authors: Cortázar, Borges, Poe, Bosch, René del Risco

28) Work of non-fiction?


Vigilar y Castigar, Las palabras y las cosas (Foucault)



29) Who is your favorite writer?


HAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!! Ok then, Cortázar, Dylan, Foucault, Vargas Llosa, Fuentes, García Márquez, and I am becoming a Bolaño fan, a big, big one



30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?

Not a clue, but probably Dan Brown tied with Paulo Coelho

31) What is your desert island book?

I was tempted to answer: If you have to ask...but I will answer it anyway: Rayuela

32) And ... what are you reading right now?

Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France, 1977-1978 (Foucault), The Love of a Good Woman (Alice Munro), Caribe Two Ways (Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel) and I just finished re-reading Madame Bovary...