The books of my life

I read this one at Superfast reader's blog so I thought I'd post it here since my main blog has enough memes/quizzes on the front page at present.

A book that made you cry: Quite a few of them actually, I'm a big wuss. One was Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry. As any fan of Kay knows his books can give quite the emotional wallop.

A book that scared you: You mean frightened? :D I remember reading The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty in boarding school and feeling the shivers. I showed one of my friends a particularly horrible scene while in the bus on a school trip. (Believe me you don't want the details.)

The Importance of Being Earnest (Dover Thrift Editions)

A book that made you laugh: Any play by Oscar Wilde.

A book that disgusted you: Some parts of Moravagine by Cendrars were fairly revolting. A misogynistic character with an enthusiastic flair for violence does not a pretty scene make.

A book you loved in elementary school: A poetry collection that I "acquired" from the class library. It gave me first Ogden Nash, Tennyson, Noyes, Whitman and countless more.

A book you loved in middle school: We don't have middle schools in Jamaica, having inherited a British school system. Prep school (private primary aka elementary) ends at grade 6, high school starts at grade 7. There are "all-age" primary schools where the grades go up to 8 but that's for particular reasons (that I won't go into here).

To Kill a Mockingbird (New Windmill)

A book you loved in high school: To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it in grade 8 with one of the best English teachers in the world and have read it about two times since. I forever associate it with bright days in class, sitting at the front with her on the desk reading lines in a booming voice, her hands moving, every word and gesture radiating enthusiasm.

A book you hated in high school: Samuel Selvon's A Brighter Sun: the most boring book on the planet. Woo, was reading and analysing that book line by line, torture. It's the only fiction book that I read in high school and disliked. The only one.

A book you loved in college: Swann's Way by Marcel Proust, translated by Lydia Davis. The reading experience. helped to clarify and realise my entire aesthetic and artistic philosophy. I've still only read the first two though, because the second translation wasn't as good as the first. (Damn Penguin for giving each book to different translators. :( )

A book that challenged your identity: My identity? Can't think of any.

A series that you love: Do quartets count? They'll have to so that I can mention Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori. There's some good writing on those pages.

Your favorite horror book: I don't have one at the moment. I've read Stephen King but the only books of his that have stayed with him are the first four in his Dark Tower series and none of them rank as a "favourite". I've never read any of Edgar Allen Poe's fiction, only his poetry. Can't think of any other horror writers off the bat who aren't pop writers.

Your favorite science fiction book: I don't read science fiction.

The Silmarillion

Your favorite fantasy: The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Your favorite mystery: I don't read much mystery either.

Your favorite biography: Ditto on the biographies. The only one I ever complete was Nelson Mandela's when I was a teenanger and while memory tells me I enjoyed it, can't count it as a "favourite". These days the only biographies I'd be interested in are those of writers and, generally speaking, I prefer to read the works that made such figures great, rather than stories about whether their Mommy loved them and if they liked to ride bicycles in the countryside.

Your favorite “coming of age” book: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. It's the best book in the universe.

Your favorite classic: This is tough. Today I'm going to say The Iliad by Homer, translated by Richmond Lattimore. Tomorrow it could be Pere Goriot by Balzac, translated by Marion Ayton Crawford. You never know.

Your favorite romance book: This is tough, I've read a lot of romance. Today I'm going with By Possession by Madeline Hunter. Tomorrow it could be Born in Fire by Nora Roberts. (It could be a lot of Nora Roberts books.)

Your favorite book not on this list: Kingdoms of Elfin by Sylvia Townsend Warner. I mention this book a lot but you don't understand: this is the best, most absurd, amusing, chilling, highly entertaining collection of fairy tales you will ever read. Some of the stories from this collection were published in the New Yorker, something I find hard to believe because they're so extraordinary.

If you feel like doing it, consider yourself tagged, and please leave a link to your response in the comments so I can read it.