Seven Deadly Book Sins

[osprey_archer]

sovay just posted this delightful meme, so I had to snag it.

1. Lust, books I want to read for their cover.

I just put a book on hold for this very reason: Sophia Gonzalez’s Nobody in Particular. Isn’t that a gorgeous cover? A bit suspicious of modern YA on principle, but I figured I owed it to the cover designer to at least give the book a try.

2. Pride, challenging books I've finished.

Lydia Chukovskaya’s Sofia Petrovna, in the original Russian, which I read for a class in my senior year of college. I got caught up in the story and spent an afternoon curled up before the fire, plowing through the remaining chapters. This apparently unlocked the next level of my Russian ability, because the next time I had to read aloud in class, I read so well that my professor asked me to read the next paragraph too, I think just to make sure that it wasn’t a fluke.

3. Gluttony, books I've read more than once.

Many! I’m an inveterate re-reader. Mary Norton’s The Borrowers, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books (as a child I always called them the “Laura and Mary” books, and have never quite accepted that the general name for the series is Little House), Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s The Changeling and The Headless Cupid and The Egypt Game, and so forth and so on… why buy books if not to reread? If I just want to read a book one time, that’s what the library is for.

4. Sloth, books on my to-read list the longest.

Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me is probably the one that’s been there longest, but honorable mentions to Elizabeth Kostova’s The Swan Thieves and Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. There are just too many books! I can’t get to them all!

5. Greed, books I own multiple editions of.

I don’t think I actually own multiple editions of any books right now. I DID have two editions of Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s The Changeling at one time, because I found a signed copy (!) at Goodwill, but then I lent my unsigned copy out to someone who never gave it back (and can you blame them?) so I’m down to one again.

6. Wrath, books I despised.

Well, I did just finish a four-post series ripping The Amber Spyglass to shreds…

7. Envy, books I want to live in.

At this particular moment in world history, an awful lot of books look like a better place to live than reality. Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden are perennial choices, of course. (A Little Princess is dearer to my heart than The Secret Garden, but I wouldn’t want to live at Miss Minchin’s!) Betsy-Tacy’s Deep Valley. As a child I would have loved to live in any one of a number of fantasy novels, but as an adult I prefer to visit at a literary remove on account of the high degree of Mortal Peril.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Giggling at your answer to no. 6. It's a good example too of how there can be a lot more to say about things we don't like than about things we do.

And a signed edition of The Changeling!! Awesome.

... I think I'll do this meme...

[osprey_archer]

Sometimes there's just so much to say about how someone is wrong!

The signed edition of The Changeling is one of my prized possessions.

And I'd love to see your answers to this meme!

[black_bentley]

Stealing this immediately, I am a chronic re-reader of books and have been swayed by a nice cover more times than I'd care to admit!

Your posts on The Amber Spyglass were great. I haven't read it in a good few years, but I can remember it being a disappointment even the first time when I was only 11 or 12. I've never really tried to put my finger on why I didn't like it much, but having read your thoughts on it I agree on basically all counts. Northern Lights is still utterly fantastic, though <3

If it makes you feel better, I've been trying to get round to The Name of the Rose for at LEAST a decade... /o\

[osprey_archer]

Sometimes there's just nothing like a good reread.

I was 12 when I first read it and simply had Big Feelings about it all, so it was very satisfying to go back and work out how to articulate just how and why I felt it was so bad. (Although disconcerting to kind of enjoy the mulefa this time around!) Truly unfair that the first book in the trilogy should be so transcendently good and the others just get worse and worse.

I don't know what it is about The Name of the Rose, but it's SO put-off-able.

[sovay]

I don't know what it is about The Name of the Rose, but it's SO put-off-able.

I read it without any difficulty years ago and then couldn't figure out why people were so nuts about it. I had the same experience with Foucault's Pendulum. Plenty of other postmodernism went down fine. I concluded I was not the target audience for Umberto Eco.

[magid]

Umberto Eco has written some interesting essays, much more readable than the novels, I think. How to Travel with a Salmon is great!

[sovay]

Umberto Eco has written some interesting essays, much more readable than the novels, I think. How to Travel with a Salmon is great!

I'm glad to know that! The title is promising.

[magid]

The title essay is very funny; I read it at a story reading years ago, and everyone enjoyed it.

[lucymonster]

Oh, now I want to read that Sophia Gonzalez book too! I’m bouncing hard off YA at the moment but damn, that art is CUTE.

I cannot join you in the Amber Spyglass haters’ club, but only because I never made it that far - I disliked The Golden Compass, noped out entirely a few chapters into The Subtle Knife, and have never felt the need to go back. Something about Pullman just really doesn’t work for me.

[osprey_archer]

Just because we START the Gonzalez book doesn't mean we have to finish it. Inhuman to expect us to resist that cover completely!

The Golden Compass is IMO the apex of Pullman's achievement so if you don't like that, there's no point reading any other Pullman. Which is perhaps just as well because as far as I can tell he's never come close to the heights of The Golden Compass again.