Tag: Opposite Books

I haven’t done a book blog post in a while, so here’s a little tag. It was originally created here but I saw it over on LittleBookOwl.

1) The first book in your collection/The last book you bought.

I have no idea what the first book in my collection would be! Maybe one of the Harry Potter books, although I’m not sure I bout any of them with my own money. The last books I bought were a present for my sister: Grimm Tales for Young and Old by Phillip Pullman; The Kill Order, The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure by James Dashner; The Devil in Amber by Mark Gatiss.

2) A cheap book/An expensive book 

The cheapest book I own is probably A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Maria Lewycka which I found for 10p on a charity book stall. I’m not counting the free Kindle books. The most expensive is The Norton Anthology of Shakespeare, which came in at a tidy £27 (although it retails at £34). Its over 3000 pages though, so it’s probably worth it.

3) A book with a male protagonist/A book with a female protagonist. 

I’m going to slightly cheat here and pick Woman’s World: a graphic novel by Graham Rawle. Entirely constructed of clippings from 1950’s women’s magazines, it was one of the best books I’ve read. If you’ve read it, you’ll know why it falls under both categories, but for those who haven’t I won’t go into it too heavily.

4) A book you read quickly/A book that took you long to read. 

I sped through The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams last summer, and would really recommend it. I took ages to read The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevski. I had to read it for my course and it took 6 weeks, reading between 100 and 300 pages each time. It’s a very dense book, almost 1000 pages long, and for huge chunks of it not a lot happens. I felt good once I’d finished it, but if I was reading on my own I wouldn’t have got past the halfway point. I never finished the Millennium series by Steig Larson. I’m still ¼ through The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and don’t know if I’ll ever finish it. I really hated who Lisbeth became after the first book, and it sapped my enjoyment for the series.

5) A pretty cover/An ugly cover. 

The cover of Grimm Tales for Young and Old by Phillip Pullman is beautiful. I got in in hardback and it’s gorgeous. I also love the hardback cover of Mr Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookshop by Robin Sloane. I’m relatively picky with covers, because I can get books on Kindle it needs to be worth my while to get the paper copy. That being said, I do own a couple of ugly books. Ill Wind by Rachel Caine is probably the worst cover that I own (not counting free books, which tend to have less production value).

6) A national book/An international book. 

I presume this means author rather than setting. With that in mind, I’m picking the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. He’s about as national as I can get, as he is originally from my home county! International books tend to dominate my shelves, with most of them being American, and most of my TBR is from American origin. One of the few translated authors I’ve read was Cornelia Funke, who is German. I loved Inkheart, and I own Dragon Rider.

7)  A thin book/A thick book. 

One of the thinnest books I own is The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan. I loved it and you can find my review here. For a thick book I’ve already mentioned The Norton Shakespeare and The Brother’s Karamazov which are 3000+ and 1000 pages respectively.

8) A fiction book/A non-fiction book. 

Most of my books are fiction, so I’ll pick one of my favourites: NW by Zadie Smith. I have mentioned this book loads, but I really do recommend it. Both On Beauty and White Tigers are on my summer TBR pile. For my non-fiction pick I’m choosing Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. I highly recommend it for any writer – it is wonderful.

9) A romantic book/An action book. 

For this I’m going to pick matching books: Pride and Prejudice and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I love these as a pair, and think they’re so much fun to read back to back. I don’t really read straight romance, but so much of YA lit has romance in it, even if it’s action, so The Hunger Games series would cover both of these.

10)  A book that made you happy/One that made you sad. 

Again, I don’t often read wholly happy or wholly sad – I like to think literature is and should be more complex than that. With that in mind, I’m saying pretty much any book by John Green, in particular Looking For Alaska. Both hilarious and heart breaking. If I could twist this to a film, I’d say Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close. I cried throughout the film, but its happy and sad at the same time. I think the book is on my reading list for my traumatergies module next semester, so I’m really looking forward to reading it.

There you have it! I tag everyone, so if you do give it a go please leave a comment to let me know or tweet me @Vicki Maitland!