Friday, February 15, 2008

Non-Fiction Meme

I've been tagged for this meme by Bookfool. I'm pleased. Fiction vs. non-fiction duke it out every year in my reading journals, with fiction winning every year so far except 1998. I always hope non-fiction will win, but it doesn't work out that way. Maybe this year...who knows? I can never stick to a reading plan, because I'm always discovering new (to me) writers...like Nick *sigh* Hornby. Meanwhile, I'm working on a non-fiction book right now -- Brainiac by Ken Jennings -- and doing this meme:

1. What issues/topics interest you the most? Anything with a Korean connection interests me, for obvious reasons, and I'm starting to feel an extreme fascination for Canada. I like memoirs about moving into another culture, difficulties/ease in assimilating along with the additional complexity of encountering/learning another language. Put a biography of a literary/artsy figure in my hands and I'm pretty happy, but I like it better if they're dead, so I'm reading their complete story. I like accounts of people who endured great hardship, whether or not they lived or perished. Book about food interest me, but not neccessarily cookbooks, which frustrate me because I have no decent cooking equipment and no access to many of the ingredients required. I'm attracted to self-help books. I try to resist them, but sometimes I lose. After I finish them, I often feel cheated. I like critical studies and essays about cinema. I'm interested in books about baseball, but I'm starting to get interested in reading about other sports as well. Games, too, like Scrabble or poker. If the subject is a little quirky, I'm all over it, or have plans to be. Most of all, I'm crazy for books about books and reading and readers. There's more, but this paragraph is monstrously long, even for me.

2. Would you like to review books concerning these? Oh, sure.

3. Would you like to be paid or do it as an interest or hobby? Why? In my wildest dreams, I'd like to be a book reviewer for either of the big English-language newspapers here. Why? Oh, so I could meet every other expat bookworm in South Korea, of course. Deep down, I know it's best to keep it all as a hobby, so as not to take the shine off of it.

4. Would you recommend those to your friends and how? I babbled incessantly about A Walk In The Woods for about 3 years until Mr. Bybee took it back with him to read on the plane. My mom is a tough nut to crack. I read the semi-porn romance POS she recommended, but she has yet to check out the copy of The Glass Castle I gave her two birthdays ago or The Prize Winner Of Defiance, Ohio that I left behind this last visit. She'd eat them up if she'd just give them a chance! Sometimes I have some luck with my son, but lately, he's been introducing interesting non-fiction to me, more than the other way around. My best luck in recommending books seems to be here, on my blog.

5. If you've already done something like this, link it to your post: Last May, I reviewed How To Cook A Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher, a book about food that filled and dazzled my senses.

5 comments:

Literary Feline said...

I will be posting this probably tomorrow. I think we have a few similar interests in what we like to read, nonfiction wise.

Bookfool said...

Oh, that's funny that you mentioned A Walk in the Woods and then said your mother's a tough nut to crack, because I just gave my mother a copy of A Walk in the Woods and she loved it. I've been her supplier, lately, and I'm pretty good at choosing books that work for her, if I do say so myself.

The problem with recommending books of *any* kind, though, is that people are fickle and quirky. Sometimes you'll think you know the perfect book for someone . . . they'll love it! You just know it!! And, they hate it with a purple passion. That is always so depressing.

Thanks for joining in. :)

Dewey said...

Ha ha, nothing like semi-porn you have to keep picturing your mother reading!

I keep meaning to do this myself, although I wasn't tagged. It just looks fun!

Susan said...

I love all the non-fiction books you read! I was afraid to do mine (like Dewey, have not been tagged, are we supposed to be? I just did the memes if they looked like fun.....) cause my list would be long like yours. I think we should start a club for people like us, who basically buy a book if it looks interesting, will read just about anything (or try anything) if it looks half-decent, and are obsessed with books. I love how you come home with the strangest books from the book exchange, and put some books back with the same reasoning I do 'if it's meant for me, it will be there next week....'
I haven't read A Walk in the Woods yet but i own it! Another one soon to get on the pile of TBR books!

Bob McCarty Writes said...

Suzi -- You don't know me, but I'm swimming around cyberspace in search of book junkies who might be interested in reviewing ten installments of my soon-to-be-self-published (fall) fiction work, SCRATCH OFF. If you're interested, please visit my blog, Bob McCarty Writes. Thanks in advance!