Shameless Self-Promotion

I am shamelessly tagging myself for this meme (which I always think of as a Me Me!) courtesy of Reading is my Superpower who I enjoy reading.

A book that made you cry: Sula by Toni Morrison - bawled my eyes out in an ice cream store in Pittsburgh.

A book that scared you: The Magus I guess freaked me out would be more accurate. Although it may have been the 16th century castle in Bruges that I read it in. It was haunted.

A book that made you laugh: To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis.

A book that disgusted you: One of my neuroanatomy textbooks had a section on the part of the brain connected with vomiting (area postrema) and it made me gag - does that count? Interestingly, this part of the brain is one of the few that is permeable to toxins. It is responsible for inducing vomiting in humans but in animals like rats, which are scavengers, and cannot vomit, it is responsible for associating certain tastes with danger. This kind of learning is accomplished in just a single trial (if the rat is lucky enough to survive being poisoned). It accomplishes conditioned taste aversion in humans too, which is the reason you can't eat the food you get sick on for years. Was that too much information?

A book you loved in elementary school: From The Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I still dream of spending a whole glorious night in the Metropolitan Museum without being caught.

A book you loved in middle school: The Hardy Boys Detective Handbook - I never had enough of it.

A book you loved in high school: All the President's Men and everything by Agatha Christie.

A book you hated in high school: I can't believe it's true but, A Catcher in the Rye.

A book you loved in college: Franny and Zooey.

A book that challenged your identity: Brideshead Revisited, and I'm just watching the BBC adaptation again - one of the best things ever made for television.

A series that you love: His Dark Materials trilogy.

Your favorite horror book: I don't like being scared, but I remember Something Wicked This Way Comes, being a good kind of scare, romantic with the smell of autumn in it.

Your favorite science fiction book: Maybe this is more horror or psychological thriller but The Man Who Turned into Himself is pretty great.

Your favorite fantasy: Memory and Dream is pretty great and de Lint's voice is a singular one. Also, I admit it, I'm a Harry Potter fan.

Your favorite mystery: I love the early Arturo Perez-Reverte stuff, especially The Flanders Panel and The Club Dumas.

Your favorite biography: Oh my god - one? You have to understand, I love biographies. and I get so into them that I have to check whether and how the person dies at the end if I'm getting into it so that I don't have to end my reading experience with their death: Personal History about and by the remarkable Katharine Graham, Joe Papp, John Adams, and two less conventional ones Rodinsky's Room - a great read - and Sir John Gielgud: A Life in Letters.

Your favorite “coming of age” book: Shadow of a Man. I love May Sarton's writing and ate up the romance of this novel about coming of age when I was coming of age.

Your favorite classic: The Waves

Your favorite romance book: Maurice.

Your favorite book not on this list: The Goldbug Variations just amazing, but it's dense, give it time!

Long-time bloggers probably hate being dinged the way I hate getting promises of much luck and fortune coming through emailing 9 people some ridiculous piece of drek so, I'll leave this to any reader so moved.

Actually, I lied, I'm ammending this post one day later and dinging two bloggers for this meme. Memes are silly however, they're one way to get acquainted and I'm new to the blogging world and want to meet my community. Also, I want to mix up my worlds - my life mixes arts and sciences - so, I hope you take this in the spirit I intend it - I read you regularly and enjoy your blogs a lot: Jake at Pure Pedantry and Jonah at Frontal Cortex, consider yourselves dinged (dung?) ...but no pressure if you'd rather not.