Honest Scrap

Well, Sarah over at Sarah’s Books tagged me to do this meme. It didn’t start off as specifically book related, but Sarah changed it to a book one and wanted a book related response from me too, so here goes.

a. ‘The Honest Scrap Blogger Award’ must be shared.
b. The recipient has to tell 10 (true) things about themselves that no one else knows
c. The recipient has to pass on the award to 10 more bloggers.
d. Those 10 bloggers should link back to the blog that awarded them

1. As a child, after I had been put to bed I would get up and sit on the landing and read. If I heard my parents come out of the living room I would dash back to bed. To this day, I have no idea if they know that is what I used to do.

2. I really, really dislike the defacing of books in any way. Be that bending the corner of the page, writing in it, highlighting words, underlining words or even damaging the spine through normal usage. Sometimes I want to tell people on the tube how badly they are treating their books.

3. However, once I did have a library book in my bag and a pen leaked on it. They asked if it was me who had done it and I said “no”…

4. I like to have a target number of pages in mind to read each day. It gives me a sense of achievement to reach or achieve the target. I find if I don’t have a target in mind I sometimes drift my way through a book and can take far longer to get to the end of it. There is no consequence for “failure” though.

5. For years and years and years I hated anything that could be described as “classic literature”. It reminded me too much of school and being forced to read books. I have started to overcome this aversion (I think this is illustrated by me reading War and Peace about a year ago), but I still take some persuading.

6. I have a printout of the books listed in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and can often been find wandering around various libraries looking for books on the list to read.

7. I find that the 1001 book list has really expanded by taste in books and has helped me to discover brilliant authors that I would never even have considered otherwise (Paul Auster and John Wyndham to name but two).

8. I often see people on the tube reading books and want to ask them what they think about it. But this isn’t allowed in London, so I have to restrain myself.

9. You are strongly advised never to lend me a book. I have a distinct aversion to returning them to their true owner. Once I have a book in my hands (apart from ones from the library) somehow I struggle to return them. If I really like a book I have borrowed from the library then I will go and buy a copy. Perhaps people who lend me books should threaten me with overdue fines to make sure that I return them.

10. My mum and I sometimes talk about writing a book. The plot often seems to revolve around killing my (fictional, of course) father and burying him under the patio. Perhaps we haven’t written it yet because we feel that we need to have more first hand knowledge before writing it…

I am rubbish at tagging people, but do give it a go if you would like to because I would really like to read your answers (if you don’t have a blog yourself feel free to leave it in the comments here).