Books

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Reprinted from My Facebook Profile Note

A high school friend invited me to post my answers to these questions:

1) What author do you own the most books by?
It's a tie among Amos Oz, E. Lynn Harris and A.M. Homes.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I think I have two copies of *The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay*

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
No.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Flannery O'Connor's Hulga in "Good Country People."

5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children)?
"Hiawatha."

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
*A Wrinkle in Time*

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
*Watchmen*

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Reading it now, I have a feeling: Jonathan Lethem's *Motherless Brooklyn*

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
James Stephens' *The Crock of Gold*.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Alison Bechdel for *Fun Home*

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
*Hey, Dollface!* by Deborah Hautzig

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
*I and Thou* by Martin Buber

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
It was a daydream; I was reading *Orlando* during a really foggy string of days during college and I affiliated with the protagonist, unnervingly so

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
All of E. Lynn Harris', but they're so much fun.

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
*Night* by Elie Wiesel.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
Does seeing "Romeo & Juliet" in modern-dress during the Disco era count?

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Indians.

18) Roth or Updike?
Vonnegut.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Margaret Cho.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Isaac Bashevis Singer.

21) Austen or Eliot?
Dorothy Parker.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Most of the Classics.

23) What is your favorite novel?
*A Confederacy of Dunces*

24) Play?
"'night, Mother"

25) Poem?
Anything by Adrienne Rich or Sharon Olds or Susannah Sheffer

26) Essay?
A number of my own, on my blog.

27) Short story?
Any by Flannery O'Connor, but especially "Good Country People"

28) Work of nonfiction?
*Truth & Beauty: A Friendship*

29) Who is your favorite writer?
Flannery O'Connor

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
It's not for me to judge.

31) What is your desert island book?
*Babyji* and my synagogue's siddur

32) And... what are you reading right now?
Louis Begley's book on Kafka along with *Motherless Brooklyn,* depending on my mood.