Gratuitous Llama Literary Meme-age

From Lintenfiniel Jen, a nice way to get back into the groove:

1. A book that made you cry:
Rascal by Sterling North when I was a kid. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy when I was in high school (if that was the one with the dead bird). Moab Is My Washpot by Stephen Fry. A remarkable autobiography of Fry's extremely screwed up early years and his subsequent effort, after he finally hit bottom, to get his life back together.

2. A book that scared you: I really don't read scary books.

3. A book that made you laugh: Yikes, their name is Legion. I'll put in a plug here for My Life And Hard Times by James Thurber.

4. A book that disgusted you: The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso. Pretentious? Moi?

5. A book you loved in elementary school: Carrier War In The Pacific, an American Heritage Junior Library volume. By the time I was in 5th grade, I pretty much had the thing memorized.

6. A book you loved in middle school: L'Morte D'Arthur by Thomas Malory. That was my romantic period.

7. A book you loved in high school: Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers by Tom Wolfe, when I switched from romanticism to cynicism.

8. A book you loved in college: Paradise Lost by John Milton. The course I took on this was terrific.

9. A book that challenged your identity or your faith: I get those challenges on a more or less constant basis. I read to escape much of that.

10. A series that you love: The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, the Aubrey/Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian, the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser, the Narnia Chronicles of C.S. Lewis.

11. Your favorite horror book: Don't read 'em.

12. Your favorite science-fiction book: Don't read 'em much. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams.

13. Your favorite fantasy book: Again, don't read 'em except for Tolkien.

14. Your favorite mystery book: Ya know, I've tried hard to get into mysteries but they just don't stick. I've read Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. My favorite Sherlock Holmes story is "The Musgrave Ritual" but that's because of my Jacobin prejudices, not because I enjoyed figuring out the mystery bits.

15. Your favorite biography: Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves. Yes, I know it's an autobiography, but that's close enough.

16. Your favorite coming-of-age book: Can't think of one.

17. Your favorite book not on this list: Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honor trilogy.