What are you reading?

I've decided I'm going to join in with the 50 books challenge that Ruth kicked off on her blog at the start of the new year, many (some 'sheepishly' Car lol) others have followed, so I think it's almost an official challenge now.

50 books for 2009, I have about a thousand I should be reading for Uni, so better get started.

I'll do up a list in another post, but I just thought I would throw this out there (you obviously don't have to be participating in the 'challenge' to answer.

1) What are you reading now?
2) What book do you think EVERYONE should read at some point in their lives?
3) What is your favourite book? (Might be the same as No. 2)
4) What book would you recommend to a friend who needs a bit of cheering up?
5) Who is your favourite author (and why)?
6) What is your favourite non-fiction book?
7) What is your favourite genre/type of books?
8) What is your favourite era in literature?
9) What book do you REALLY want to finish this year (even if you don't manage another 49)?
10) What is the most disappointing book you have read (i.e. you expected it to be really great, or it had a disappointing ending).
11) What BIG book do you have sitting on your shelf that you would love to have time to read?
12) What are you reading next?

I think that's enough, I considered aiming for 50 questions, but thought that might be a bit much...

So, my answers...


1) What are you reading now? Juliet Nicolson, The Perfect Summer: Dancing into Shadow in 1911 (non-fiction about the build up to the first world war as seen by the British aristocracy - this was a Christmas present and I'm really enjoying it)
2) What book do you think EVERYONE should read at some point in their lives? Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
3) What is your favourite book? (Might be the same as No. 2) Hanif Kureshi, The Black Album
4) What book would you recommend to a friend who needs a bit of cheering up? Roddy Doyle, The Woman who Walked into Doors - not cheery but then you'd realise your life isn't so bad after all, or Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran which is engaging enough to take your mind off things, but not hard to read.
5) Who is your favourite author? Hanif Kureshi, or Adaf Soueif (Map of Love).
6) What is your favourite non-fiction book? Well, can't go past anything by Nigella Lawson, I reckon her recipes read like fiction, I have been known to read her books from cover to cover... Study wise Nancy Etoff's Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty.
7) What is your favourite genre/type of books? I love books on the Middle East and India, even though they are places I have never been to, books about the characters' everyday life, and I'm not immune to a bit of crime drama (a la Dan Brown) for a forget-all-about-the-real-world type read.
8) What is your favourite era in literature? Early 20th Century, through to 2nd world war, although I have really enjoyed Phillipa Gregory's historical novels as well.
9) What book do you REALLY want to finish this year (even if you don't manage another 49)? Germaine Greer, Shakespeare's Wife, and lots of Uni reading.
10) What is the most disappointing book you have read (i.e. you expected it to be really great, or it had a disappointing ending). Yann Martel, Life of Pi, I could never shake the feeling all the way through that he was a patient in a mental insititue, and I promise I didn't read the ending first, so I just couldn't suspend disbelief enough to buy the story; Arthur Golden, Memoirs of Geisha, I believed it, all the way through, and then it turned out it wasn't real, just a story. I was gutted.
11) What BIG book do you have sitting on your shelf that you would love to have time to read? Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy (and Ulysses, and Anna Karenina)
12) What are you reading next? For pleasure - Germaine Greer, Shakespeare's Wife, for Study - Dana Heller (ed.) Makeover Television: Realities Remodelled... and many more.