teach me the art of war

Snagged from osprey_archer, because who can resist a good book meme?

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

Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire has a badass cover. I assume it'll prove to be yet another tedious canon-rehashing moneygrab, but that very Star Wars typical style of unsubtle symbolism always gets me somehow.

2. Pride, challenging books I've finished.

Oh, this one has me stumped! I've read plenty of books that I guess could be considered challenging in terms of length/prose/vocab - Dostoevsky, Joyce (though I've never attempted Finnegan's Wake or Ulysses) and some of the earlier Gothic literature all spring to mind - but I only ever really read for pleasure; if I'm enjoying something then it doesn't feel hard, and if I'm not enjoying it, I just give it up and pick something else. I did read a bunch of untranslated Latin and Greek during undergrad, including the whole first book of the Iliad, which definitely qualified as a challenge. But I didn't read the whole Iliad in Greek, so that feels like a cheat answer.

I also wouldn't call The Lord of the Rings unduly challenging for an adult reader, but it probably counted as a pretty big challenge when I finished it (and memorised big chunks of the poetry, and forced my parents and grandparents to attend tedious recitations thereof) at age eight. I was a weird kid.

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

SO MANY. I go through long, regular phases where new stories feel too hard and I just want to wallow in things I already know I'll enjoy because I've enjoyed them before. Just the other day I finished a reread of Star Wars: Bloodline, and a bit before that I did Pride and Prejudice. I tend to revisit my favourite SFF series a lot in dribs and drabs: Murderbot, the Imperial Radch, Tolkien, Narnia and Harry Potter (the latter not so much these days) are a few I've reread often enough to have largely committed to memory.

I also read Spot Bakes A Cake roughly ten times a day at the moment, but that's not by preference and probably not what the creator of this meme had in mind.

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

...also SO MANY. I think the award probably has to go to Madame Bovary, which was assigned reading back in one of my Year Eleven English classes and the only book in my whole educational career for which I ever resorted to Cliffnotes. Fuck, I hated that book. But ever since then I've been meaning to go back and finish it, to wipe the red stain of that youthful defeat (and semi-fraudulent essay) off my ledger.

5. Greed, books I own multiple editions of.

I have three editions of Shakespeare's collected works. My favourite is quite delicate, won as a prize by my mum in school and printed on Bible-thin paper; the second, not too much less nice, belonged to my father-in-law I believe; the third is a rather tatty lump of a book that I picked up cheap at a secondhand store for the sake of owning a Shakespeare I actually feel safe reading. Speaking of Bibles, I also own three of those: my pretty little clothbound NRSV for regular reading, my big chunky NIV Study Bible, and a copy of the New Testament in the original Koine Greek.

I have two collected Blinky Bills floating around, one paperback sized and one larger with bigger pictures for the kids. As a household we also have a few duplicated marital assets: both my husband and I were gifted copies of (the exact same edition of) The Lord of the Rings by our respective fathers, and we both have our childhood copies of Harry Potter. I think husband also has a second copy of The Silmarillion floating around in his office somewhere, though I'm not sure why, because he hasn't read it any wouldn't like it.

6. Wrath, books I despised.

osprey_archer reminded me that I hate His Dark Materials. Not for any handwringing religious reasons - I just found the whole thing about children being severed from their daemons too upsetting, even as a kid without the massive child cruelty squick I nurse today. And I think I've always been a hard sell on multiverses; from memory, the characters were going through some kind of portal into modern England around the time I gave up. It all felt like a disappointing mirror version of C.S. Lewis.

7. Envy, books I want to live in.

I'd love to live in the Tolkienverse, provided I could be incarnated as a Hobbit and stay put in the Shire eating cheese while my biggers and betters did all the adventuring.

Having just finished The Incandescent by Emily Tesh, I kind of wouldn't mind living in her magical reality. I loved how structured and academic the system of magic was, and that anyone could in theory learn it regardless of natural aptitude.

dr_zook gave me the letter B. Drop me a comment to get a letter of your own!

Something I hate: Bad breath. I can only enjoy reading sleepy morning sex scenes if I pretend that both characters separately woke up to pee about an hour before and brushed their teeth while they were at it.

Something I love: Bookshops. Take me to the bookshop, I can be trusted at the bookshop, ignore the pile of unread books on my shelf that’s not important I need more books I need to go to the bookshop. My pre-baby career was in editing and publishing, but the year’s “break” I took to work as a bookseller was the only job I’ve ever truly enjoyed and the only one I can stand the thought of going back to.

Somewhere I have been: Um...Bowral, NSW. (I’m not particularly well travelled tbh lol.) I stayed with some friends in the converted stable of a magnificent Victorian manor, and we played croquet on the back lawn and took walks in the sprawling grounds and it was like something out of a novel.

Somewhere I would like to go: Berlin! But it is a very long and expensive flight from here. :(

Someone I know: My sister-in-law’s partner’s name starts with a ‘B’. He is something like twenty years older than her and has made her a grandma in her forties, which is a little unusual, but I honestly really like the guy. He’s very kind to my kids and has been a huge stabilising influence in SIL’s life. They’re both super into fitness and their life seems to mostly revolve around parkruns.

Best movie: Oh, easy. Backstroke of the West! How many other films can claim such a profound and lasting impact on our modern cultural landscape? :D