About the Bookish Me

One of my favorite bloggers, Jillian at A Room of One's Own, has a survey on her blog to find out a bit about her readers.  I thought I'd join along. 

1. Sum yourself up in twenty-five words or less:  I'm a wife to a wonderful husband, Sam, and a mother to Hope (12) and Atticus (20 mos) and baby #3 will be here in February.  I love my family and friends but as an introvert I find solitude to be my best friend.  I love reading, baking, stitching, and making copious lists.  I work in a library.
2. Do you read? If so, why, what, and how often?  I read whenever I can.  Reading is absolutely intertwined with my life.  Every memory I have is hooked onto what I was reading at the time.  I try to read at least 50 pages a day, but that all depends on work and parenting.  I particularly love Virago modern classics, the Victorians, non-fiction, and truly anything and everything British literature.
3. Do you blog? If so, your blog’s name & focus (classic books? YA? art? college? writing? movies? miscellaneous? etc?): I do blog!  My blog is Fig and Thistle and it is all about being a mom, baking, thrifting, stitching, and, of course, reading.
   
4. Your favorite adult book(s) &/or children’s book(s)?  My favorite books include The Bell Jar, The Moonstone, The Count of Monte Cristo, Bleak House, and To Kill A Mockingbird to name a few.
5. Your favorite movie(s)? LOTR series, Amelie, Secretary, Sense and Sensibility
6. Your favorite quote(s) from literature? “I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
7. Most challenging book you’ve read in your life?  War and Peace that was certainly a time commitment.
8. Book(s) you’re currently reading, if any?  I've been in a funk lately so I'm dipping into The Bell Jar.  I also have a book of Adrienne Rich poems I'm perusing.
9. Book(s) you’re most looking forward to reading?  In the near future I plan on reading Uncle Silas, which has been on my TBR shelf for ages.  I really can't wait for Hilary Mantel to finish the third book in the Wolf Hall trilogy.
10. Author whose works you’re curious to explore soon?  Anthony Trollope.  I haven't read him yet.
11. Book you’re most scared to read but might read eventually, anyway? I can't really think of an intimidating book at the moment.  I've sort of gotten over the challenging myself to read things I don't want to read. 
12. Book you have re-read the most times in your life (or if you hate re-reading, just write that!)  The Bell Jar.
13. If you could spend a day in any era, where would you go (including “I would not go anywhere! I LOVE the 21st century!”)?  OMG!  I was meant to be a British woman living ... well at any point.  I really love the Victorians, but I don't know if I'd like the corsets and the restrictions on my freedom.  But ideologically, I'd be pals George Eliot or something.
14. If you could be any character in literature, who would you be (and why)?  I'd love to be Elinor Dashwood or Lucy Snowe.  I think I relate the most to those characters. 
15. Do you love Jane Austen or want to “dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone”? (Phrase borrowed from Mark Twain).
    1. Why? (for either answer)?  LOVE HER!  The wit, the strong female characters, the beautiful writing... what's not to love. 
    2. Favorite and/or least favorite Austen novel?  My favorites include Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility.  I hated Emma and Mansfield Park.
16. Your favorite season?  Late autumn
17. Do you prefer dawn or twilight?  twilight
18. Your favorite memory from childhood?  My mom reading to me. 
19. Some of your interests beyond books?  embroidery, baking, knitting and crochet, thrifting, owls, my children.
20. “Who is hands-down the best literary hero, in your opinion? Likewise, who is the best heroine?”   I think Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird and Lucy Snowe from Villette. 
21. What question do you wish I had asked? (Ask and answer it!):  Favorite poets?  Sylvia Plath, W B Yeats, Charles Simic, Anne Sexton, and Nick Flynn.