Tag: Classic Books, Tea, and Sandwiches

This is what happens when you're lazy. Your tags pile up like crazy and the nice people who tagged you probably think you're ignoring their niceness. Bad Victoria.  So I have four tags to do, but I'll be good and put them in separate posts.  Also, I uh... *cough*...I will not be following any rules.  At all.  On any of them.  (Well, aside from answering the questions, of course.)  Sorry.  Don't execute me, please.

First from Elizabeth at The Endless Road:

1. I have heard it said that some people  don't want to read classics because they are too long. Yet some of these same people read Harry Potter(and those are not short books). Do you think is really the length of the book, or something else? 
No, I do not think that it's the length of the book at all.  I think it's the level and style of the writing.  I have never read Harry Potter, and never mean to, but I've come across excerpts and I've seen the writing level.  It's not that hard.  (Not bashing - the books were written for kids, so they can be excused for being easy reading.)  Classics, on the other hand, often have advanced vocabularies, as well as unfamiliar colloquialisms and antiquated styles.  They're usually not action-oriented, and sometimes they have a sleep-inducing amount of description.  (Yes, Dickens, I am looking at you.)

2. If you could pick a dead author to talk to who would it be: Jane Austen, one of the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain, or Thomas Hardy? 
Jane Austen, hands down.  She seems like she must have been such a funny lady.  I've never read Hardy, I have a healthy dislike of Mark Twain, and the Brontes scare me.


3. Do you have a favorite board game? 
Hmm....not that I can think of.  I like Battleship, but that's not really a board game.  Do checkers count?  I like that.

4. Who is your favorite actor? And what is your favorite character they have played? 
I like Richard Armitage and David Tennant.  Richard Armitage's best role was, of course, Mr. Thornton in North & South, and David Tennant...he was brilliant as the Doctor, and I also really liked his rendition of Hamlet.

 5. Do you think being a fan of Jane Austen is becoming/is a fad?   
Among certain groups, perhaps.  To be honest, I don't know.  I don't care, if it makes more people read worthwhile books.

 6. We all pick out names that we like that we say we will name our children. What are some of yours? 
Um...I don't think I've ever done that, so I'll make something up now.  Let's see...well, if I had children, they'd all be named after saints.  I should like one daughter to be Rose, another Imelda, maybe Catherine as well.  For boys, Paul and William and maybe Thomas.  There, that wasn't too hard.

 7. Would you call yourself a morning person?
DEFINITELY NOT.  No way.  Don't get me wrong, I love the early, peaceful sorts of mornings, but those are few and far between and soon over.  In normal life, I'm basically miserable until two in the afternoon.

 8. Tea or Coffee? 
 Tea.  There was a time when I would have said "both," (see here to know what I'm like when I drink coffee), but now coffee makes me inexplicably sick, so I just drink tea.  Anyway, tea is more refined and British-y and, let's face it, it tastes better.  So I'm not too bummed out about not being able to drink coffee - unless my mom starts making puppydog faces at me when she needs a coffee-drinking companion again.  Who know that drinking coffee was a social activity, right?

 
 9. Have you come across a book where you liked the movie version better?
 Nobody kill me for saying this, but when I first saw Prince Caspian I decided that I liked it better than the book. *cringes*  I know, blasphemy.  Allow me to say, however, that I no longer hold this heretical position, and I can proudly say that I have never harbored such thoughts in regard to any other movie.

10. What is your favorite place to read a book? 
Well, the best place ever is the novices' recreation room at St. Joseph's Novitiate, but at home, the best is lying on my bed with the windows open (not during the winter) with a snack of some sort.  I have a terrible habit of eating and reading at the same time.

11. Do you have a food that you don't like, but everyone else does? 
Do you know, I don't believe that there is a food in existence that isn't disliked by someone.  In general, though....I am a bit particular, but I don't think I have any extraordinary dislikes. Ooh, but I don't like condiments on sandwiches and I have to have the cheese melted.  I guess that's a bit odd.