It's all about meme!

Via just about everyone comes a book meme!

What was the last book you bought?
That would be Peacock Pie, by Walter de la Mare; Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; and English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, by C S Lewis. (That last is an online purchase, so it's not coming for a few days).

Name a book you have read more than once
Lots: Lucky Jim, Pride and Prejudice, The Final Programme, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and others.

Has a book ever fundamentally changed the way you see life?
No. I'm pretty sceptical about the ability of books to 'change' your life anyway, even more so than Tim - I tend to forget the details of what I read pretty quickly so that a day or two after I read a persuasive book, I'm unable to recall the arguments that persuaded me in the first place! I think generally the change happens the other way around - a person's outlook on life, or way of behaving, gradually changes as they get older, and a book, if it is persuasive enough, will help a person to articulate, describe, or understand these personal changes.

That being said, Pavlov's Cat lists several such books that have changed the way she saw life, and has good reasons for each of them.

How do you choose a book? eg by cover design and summary, recommendations or reviews?
By obsession. My current obsessions are C S Lewis, and previous ones have included S J Perelman and Brian Aldiss.

Sometimes the cover helps as well.

Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction?
Both. Which is to say neither. Why should I choose between the two? I like it when fictional characters argue with me as if they were presenting an essay they'd written, and I like it when non-fiction writers use fictional methods. Both types of writing have virtues; I love the flights of creative imagination in fiction; and in non-fiction, an original insight or a clever line of reasoning falls on my ear and my mind like a melody 'sweetly sung in tune.' Why distinguish between the two?

What's more important in a novel - beautiful writing or a gripping plot?
Sometimes one of the things that makes writing beautiful is a gripping plot. That being said, if you just throw a couple of jokes in from time to time you've pretty much got me hooked.

Most loved/memorable character
No idea. Jack Gudgeon in Here's Luck is pretty entertaining.

Which book or books can be found on your nightstand at the moment?
News from Nowhere, by William Morris; Peacock Pie, by Walter de la Mare; Tom Brown's Schooldays, by Thomas Hughes; and a copy of Andromeda Spaceways.

I'm touched that you even think that I have a nightstand. It's more of a stack, really...

What was the last book that you read?
That Hideous Strength, by C S Lewis. Fabulous satire about a made-up bureaucratic/fascist organisation called NICE in the England of the 1950s. Things don't really get cracking until Merlin rises up out of his swampy grave and shows the bureaucrats what-for!

Have you ever given up on a book halfway in?
Sure, and sometimes I start reading a book halfway in, too. You can do that sort of stuff with poetry and short stories. It's more difficult (though not impossible) with novels and long essays.

Done!