my life in books – the orang-utan librarian

Here’s another amazing tag I was tagged to do by River Moose Reads! Lucia @ Reading with Lucia created this tag, so shout out to her too! This looks like loads of fun so I’ just gonna get started!!

SOULMATE

Okay, I have a few for this, so I’m gonna list them in order of how I’d pick them:

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5. Baz from Carry On cos, you know, he’s awesome, though I kind of want him to be with the person he’s with in that (*no spoilers*), so he’s more of an honorary pick

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4. Valek from Poison Study, cos he was basically the reason I kept going back for more of that series, long after I’d tired of it.

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3. Then next choice is Sirius Black from Harry Potter cos I always had a crush on him as a child.

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2. Second in line is Mr Knightley from Emma. Because he’s just such a beautiful person (*ahem character, sure, I know he’s not real… sort of…)

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1. But my top, top pick would have to be Prince Myshkin from The Idiot because I cannot say how many times I squealed over his character when I first read that book. For all the reasons why I love his character so much, check out my review here. So yeah, final answer: Prince Myshkin would be my OTP. (Is that right to use that in this context? I’ve never been good at using acronyms)

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2. HOW YOU’LL MEET

Well I’ll travel back in time, to the 1800s (naturally). And I’ll meet him in Switzerland, before all the events of the book, we’ll fall in love, he won’t go back to Russia and none of the terrible things that happen to him in the book will happen. It will be the perfect love story- mostly because we’ll have averted all of the calamities that could’ve befallen him if he’d gone through everything that happens in the book. (Also, I’ll explain to him what epilepsy is, and take back some modern medicine and books about it, so he won’t keep thinking of himself as an “Idiot”)

WHERE YOU’LL LIVE

Middle Earth- in Mirkwood. Not very idyllic, but hey, at least it’ll be exciting. I’m not crazy about the pics from the movie, so here’s a generic pic of a forest:

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JOB

Ermm I haven’t thought that far ahead. How about an author like in Inkspell- you know the kind that can bring stories to life/write people into them. (Okay, if you didn’t know, that’s the premise of the book and it’s pretty damn awesome). We could go on adventures and it’d be epic.

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FINAL STORY-CREATE A STORY TO FILL THE GAPS IN YOUR STORY (HOW MANY KIDS YOU’LL HAVE IF ANY, HOW YOU DIE, ETC. YOU CAN STILL REFERENCE BOOKS FOR THIS PART):

Okay, so I feel like I answered that in my last question. Myshkin and I would go adventuring, while occasionally going back to our permanent residence in Mirkword to “relax”. And of course, Myshkin’s an absolute darling, so he’d be lovely- as long as he doesn’t fall in love with any bitchy women or anything. Or get tangled up in plots and need constant rescuing from his own generosity. So yeah, we could have kids, but we could also get eaten by a spider, or by Orcs, or by Smaug- if Myshkin decides he ought to be nice to them… Hmm… maybe he wasn’t the best choice for this… Ah well. It could’ve been worse- at least I picked a hero- if I’d been asked for any fictional character, I’d have felt duty bound to pick Loki, just cos he’s completely nuts. And that probably would’ve wound up being a disaster. (Incidentally I once played that “predict your life” game MASH back when I was obsessed with Loki, and I got that I would marry Loki, live in Mirkwood and would work in a paperclip factory- so of course that’s what’s actually going to happen)

Okay, that was loads of fun! I tag:

Ayunda @ Tea and Paperbacks

Creatyve Books

Books at Dawn

Books and Messy Buns

Jaclyn Hughes @ Dancing Books

Bibliophile @ Book Adventures

And anyone else who wants to do it!

If you’ve already done it, let me know in the comment section and send me a link to your post- I’d be happy to read your answers! 🙂

Yay another tag! Thank you so much to Marwhal Reads for tagging me! And this is good timing for me cos it’s gonna be a hard week to do any blogging- I’m moving and starting a new job- all in one week! (All I need is to get divorced for a full hat trick of stress- although I’d need to get married first to achieve that last one).

FIND A BOOK FOR EACH OF YOUR INITIALS:

Well I’m Orangutan Librarian on here, so my initials are OL. So two books for that are:

COUNT YOUR AGE ALONG YOUR BOOK SHELF: WHAT BOOK IS IT?

Ok, so I have no bookshelves to speak of, what with moving and all, so I’ll just count books in boxes… And 23 books along is The Darkest Part of the Forest– which I have yet to read. Kind of wondering if that is supposed to be symbolic of my age in some way? I mean, does that mean being 23 is a scary fairy tale or something? I feel like it should.

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PICK A BOOK SET IN YOUR CITY/STATE/COUNTRY:

I live in London so I could choose so many things! Let’s go with Bleak House cos the opening is so great and atmospheric:

“London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.”

Also, anyone seen the TV show- it’s amazing!

PICK A BOOK THAT REPRESENTS A DESTINATION YOU WOULD LIKE TO TRAVEL TO?

Gosh there are so many. I remember always wanting to see places in Eva Ibbotson’s books. I think Star of Kazan (and possibly a few others) was set in Vienna and I’ve always wanted to go there because of that.

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PICK A BOOK THAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE COLOUR:

I don’t really have a favourite colour, but I’ve always thought the Iron Fey series was pretty colours (until they went and changed it on my kindle- grr)

WHICH BOOK DO YOU HAVE THE FONDEST MEMORY OF?

I’m gonna go with Heidi, cos I’m feeling really nostalgic. But Harry Potter gets an honorary mention, cos it was the first big book I ever read (I was 7, bless)

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WHICH BOOK DID YOU HAVE THE MOST DIFFICULTY READING?

Hmm I’ve had similar questions before, so though this may not be the most difficult, I think I did have a hard time with Anna Karenina– not because it isn’t good, but because the first and last parts dragged. The same could also be said for some parts of Les Miserables if I’m honest.

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WHICH BOOK IN YOUR TBR PILE WILL YOU GIVE YOU THE BIGGEST SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT?

I want to say War and Peace– but I’d be lying if I ever thought I’d get round to reading *that*. It’s way too intimidating. So I’ll go with North and South instead, because I actually really want to finish this book, and somehow have never managed to get round to it. Even though I was supposed to read this at uni *hangs head in shame*

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AND THAT’S THAT. I NOMINATE: