In this post: Booking Through Thursday and Thursday Thirteen
Amy asks:
Name a book you love in a genre you normally don’t care for. What made you decide to read it? Did it make you want to try more in that genre?
Harry Potter, and I ended up reading all seven books in the series. Broomsticks and cauldrons, wands and potions, what in the name of Merlin’s beard are they?…. I recall my own snigger at these things; look up my book shelf where the books are lovingly piled, and think of telling the sister-in-law how she influenced me to read HP.
Because I’m sure she has no idea what she’s done. She was holding a wineglass in one hand and HP2 in the other over a meal during one family get-together. The cover I saw was of Harry dangling from the flying car above the Yorkshire Moors. I wouldn’t have been curious if she was a ninth grader, but she’s a medical doctor. Okay, she’s a globe trotter too so maybe it was a book she did not finish from some trans-atlantic flight, but what business would a decent dermatologist have with petrificus totalus or wingardium leviosa?
That got my nostrils on the magical pages of HP for long, delightful hours and almost tempted me to steal a chapter or two at work. Curiosity could have killed the cat.
Bookish Sarah asks an interesting assortment of questions:
What genre do you avoid reading and why?
Erotica and dark fantasy (some call it a sub-genre) – I don’t last long in these genres. I get bored easily and then I go particular with money value.
Thursday Thirteen: I write like…
A haiku poet invited me to join his haiku meme. I went strolling around his site, and found a charmingly interesting widget that says he writes like Charles Dickens. There was a link so I hopped over there, and as I’m no writer, you could imagine what fun I got out of checking
“which famous writer I write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes word choice and writing style and compares them with those of the famous writers.”
Here we go —
1. As I’m someone who still loves having traditional books around, I say that’s the spirit! ~ E-books v. printed books, and whether a Kindle loaded with a thousand books would weigh heavier than one with only a hundred books.
2 Utmost love most pure / divinely capable of / crimson sacrifice ~ Love at Calvary (an Easter haiku)
3 In Hua Hin Hills visitors can tour vineyards in a way you normally can’t in Burgundy or Tuscany: riding on an elephant. Vineyards of Thailand
William Gibson
I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!
4. Built in world war two / the Spanish house stood / along the road /
Capiz shells made up its windows… / Out came “yakan, yaweh…” ~ Casa Embrujada, a free verse written for Halloween
5 It miffed my mother who was worried it was senility progressing… she sways her hips to imaginary music. ~ Waltzing Rosario, about my waltz-loving Grandma
6. I’ll pass those up…. My money is getting spent on time-tested quality entertainment – ballet and opera. ~ on Lady Gaga’s Bad Bangkok Romance
7 Those nights of Wuthering Heights chain-smoking til 3 a.m…. and as enigmatic as Enigma. ~ reminiscing Mea Culpa
8 Just when I was about to send it over, I realized that if I were offered a place, the very topic I built a case on would send me back to Thailand for data-gathering. ~ Austenuating Jane Austen
9 “A quality haiku. Just the right amount of zest” says a published UK novelist/poet of my first attempt at a meme called Haiku Heights. ~ Pirouette
10 He congratulated her for passing some national exam. They bumped into each other at the luncheon that followed… ~ Christmas without you
11 “Austenuating a fire in my head” – an old tagline
Robert Louis Stevenson
I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!
12 If it’s made by Shangri-la and no other I’d actually eat it. This one looks like a throat clogger. I won’t take the risk. ~ on being shown a hideous fruit cake and asked if I would eat it
13 It is a truth universally acknowledged that a blogger in possession of a Jane Austen addiction must be in want of more Jane Austen adaptations. Now isn’t this obvious?
HAPPY THURSDAY MY FRIENDS 🙂
Stasia Desiderata 
I’ve also read the full set of Harry Potter and Dan Brown books and also Sydney Sheldon.
I agree that dark fantasy is very unappealing to me…here’ sMY THURSDAY MEMES POST
Wow, you write like some great authors! I am definitely doing this right now! I also avoid erotica because it usually just doesn’t interest me XD Thanks for sharing!
My BTT
Juli @ Universe in Words
Oh, I like this “I write like…”site. Thanks for sharing.
http://otherworlddiner.blogspot.com/2012/08/thirteenor-fourteen-summer-reads.html
I don’t like horror or science fiction.
http://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2012/08/booking-through-thursday_9.html
Some times it’s good to try something new.
http://thecharacterconnection.blogspot.com/2012/08/booking-through-thursday.html
Loved your throat clogger.
Have a great Thursday!
http://harrietandfriends.com/2012/08/13-things-i-did-in-nyc-last-week/
Ah Harriet, you remember. Those were the good, old blogging days 🙂
i am into book reading too, i have accumulated several balikbayan boxes full of books and still continue to buy books i find worth reading, my youngest son is also a bookworm like me, maybe the reason why we have poor eyesight ahaha
im thrilled! you must have had a library full of great books/authors with you. and i really admire at how you write.
HP is my absolute favorite + at the rate i am going, will soon be my little man’s fave, too! 🙂 there is really something special about the way JK Rowling wrote her book, it’s as if i can almost smell the Hogwart’s air whenever I have my nose burrowed in one of her pages!
I love this widget thing, but didn’t you notice the result changes each time you put another writing sample? not that consistent, I guess!
And that’s what makes the fun element to it hard to miss 🙂