A Book Questionaire

This questionaire was posted on a message board by someone who had read Anne Fadiman's book Ex-Libris. There is a chapter in her book where she tooks about being courtly lovers or carnal lovers of books. A courtly lover takes care of books,not marking them at all and abhors the idea of putting open books face down. On the other hand a carnal loves forms a close relationship with a book by jotting in margins, folding the corners down etc, and often their books become worn by use. Which are you?

1. Do you write, underline, or otherwise mark in your books?
No. I can't even bring myself to write in my Bible apart from the front and back pages.

2. What do you use for bookmarks?
Bookmarks? lol. I fold down the corner. The top of the page is folded to show where I'm up to in reading, and I'll fold the bottom corner if there is something that stands out to me so I can copy it later or think more on it.

3. Do you lay your books open and face down when you break from reading?
Yes.

4. Do you read while you eat and drink? Do you have food or drink spills or smudges in your books?

Yeah I eat and drink while reading, but it's not often anything ends up on a book. Not even chocolate.

5. Do you go crazy if there's nothing to read in the bathroom?
I use to go crazy. In fact, a childhood friend reminded me how she would be yelling outside the toliet door for me to come and play with her but I would be too wrapped up in a book. lol. With four kiddos at home I don't have that luxury any more.

6. On a scale of 1-10, how urgent is it for you to always have a book available-- in the car, on a trip, at the doctor's office, etc.? (this is related to the one above)
Oh, I say a nine. If the kids are with me it's not so important, but if I'm alone then I'll definitely have a book along. If I go on a trip somewhere I'll always back a couple of books even for one night. Just incase I don't fancy reading one particular book.
Going back to childhood memories again, my mother would occasionally take us out for the day to do bush walks. My brother and I would not be able to go without packing about 20 books to read each. Not that there was a lot of time to read, but I guess they were a bit like a security thing. We *may* of been stuck out in the whop-whops (NZ slang for country) for hours if the car broke down or something and then where would we be with no books?

7. Do you read your books before buying more? Have you read all of your books?
No. I have a whole bookshelves of books to read but still I buy more. In defense I generally buy books second hand and it's a matter of grabbing them while I see them.

8. Do you read mostly fiction or non-fiction?
Mostly non-fiction these days. I still aim to read four fiction books a month and one of those will hopefully be a classic. The bulk of my reading is often scrapbook and craft related books.

9. Are your bookshelves carefully organized? If so, how?
Generally they are organised. I have groups of homeschooling books, finance books, weight-watchers cookbooks, books about books, a shelf of history books, my fiction books and about eight shelves of children's lit.

10. Do you keep reading journals or do your write down quotes from *your own* reading? Do you make lists of new words you come across?
Sometimes. I do keep a list of books that I've read each year for the last couple of years. When it comes to new words I'll pull a dictionary out straight away if I can otherwise I'll forget to look it up.


11.How many books do you have going at once, on average (these are books you're actually reading)? Then add to that the number of books you tend to *browse* at once?
Maybe two or three fiction, and about five non-fiction. I tend to browse quite a bit, probably around 5 books a day.

12. On average, how often do you visit the library?
Too often. At least twice a week, sometimes daily.

13. Do you re-read your favorite books?
Yes, I have done.

14. Do you have a shelf or a small collection of what Fadiman would call "odd books"? These are books about an unusual or surprising subject-- something others might not guess or know about you. Anne Fadiman's "odd books" shelf happens to hold books about polar exploration.

My beginning collection of doll house books. Or maybe my collection of weight watcher's cookbooks considering I haven't lost any weight for a bit. I just like collected the books because they have good recipes. lol.