Awards, facts and random Q&A
11 May 2014
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Facts and other random trivia, Keri Blakinger, Liebster Award
Keri over at IV League has nominated me for a Liebster Award. I’m going to keep this short and sweet and I’m also going to cheat a little bit (so it could be I end up being disqualified!) Further info here.
11 Facts:
- I’m married with three children
- I’m the youngest of three with a brother and a sister
- I have a dog called Dude – after The Dude in the Big Lebowski
- I don’t drive – gasp!
- I like to cook but not to bake – to much weighing and measuring and not enough improvisation
- I could be in the Olympics if they had a medal for sleeping, I have to have at least 8 hours and think nothing of sleeping 10!! I’m worse than a surly teenager
- I’m a book freak
- My preferred books are fantasy, sci fi, and historical
- I prefer wine to beer
- I drink coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon
- I love to travel, trips planned this year: Amsterdam, Sicily and Paris.
11 Questions:
1. To borrow a question from the ones I was asked, what phrase/motto describes your life? Always look on the bright side of life. I’m a glass half full type of person – I think my cheerfulness can sometimes be infuriating to others but what you gonna do?
2. What’s your favorite book that you’ve read in the past year? So far this year (and there have been a lot of good ones so far) The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore, only just read this and really enjoyed it beyond all my expectations.
3. Which of the magical powers or objects in Harry Potter do you most wish you could have? – I’d like the watch/time spinner, however, as you’ve already picked that I think I’ll go with the cloak that gives invisibility then I can sneak about – actually, maybe not, not sure I want to sneak about – i wouldn’t mind one of those little basins of water where you can look back at memories – I think I’d prefer a tardis but I’ve just swapped series there!
4. If you could talk to one famous dead person, who would it be and why? JRRTolkien – it would be folly not to. I have questions – lots of questions.
5. What is your favorite old movie? By old, I mean at least pre-1970. Rebecca, (by Daphne DuMaurier) old B&W with Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. I love that film, I also love the book to be honest and have read it a number of times.
6. What advice would you give yourself if you could travel back in time? (It’s up to you how far back you need to travel to give yourself the advice you want.) Do NOT read 50 Shades of Grey! That’s a few hours of my life that I’ll never get back! Seriously, I don’t know. I guess I could tell myself to study harder when I was younger but pretty much I’m a fairly content type of person so I’m not sure I’d change anything really.
7. What is your biggest pet peeve? Public transport – which I use a lot because I don’t drive. It’s basically the pits. For example, there’s no such thing as missing one bus on my route – there’s usually three all together (because buses are like cattle and travel in herds – in fact we need to coin a phrase for them – like a pack of lions, a swarm of bees, a bevvy of buses), and of course once you’ve missed three buses you know you’re now in for a long wait. Plus, bus drivers who don’t have peripheral vision! And people who sit next to you, invade your space and insist on telling you their life story – even though you’re clearly trying to read!
8. What were (or are) your imaginary friends’ names? I don’t have any imaginary friends. I feel like I’ve missed out now! I do talk to my dog though – which I get some very strange looks for when we’re out on walks.
9. What are the nicknames you’ve been saddled with over the years? The most recent one is OW (which stands for old woman) – by my very romantic husband (this because I’m actually three years older than he is – toy boy!!)
10. What was your favorite fairy tale/Disney movie growing up? Beauty and the Beast. I love the story and the film and quite a lot of the retellings of this.
11. What was the last song you listened to? Home by Fiona Bevan and Adam Glover. (The reason; I met Adam at a friend’s party and he’s a lovely person with a wonderful voice and incredibly charismatic. Plus I think this is a beautiful song. Check it out below:
And now for the cheating. I’m not going to nominate 11 people!! How bad is that. I’m going to leave this open so if you’d like to post a review giving 11 facts about yourself and answer the 11 questions provided by Keri and leave me a link then I’d love to know what your answers are. And, the reason that I’m cheating is not because I’m too lazy to go and choose 11 lovely blogs (and how very dare you for even thinking that) but is (1) how could I possibly choose (2) I want to give everyone the chance to do the facts and Q&A (3) I know how busy you all are so don’t want you to feel you have to take part and (4) who am I kidding – I’m just too lazy to go and look everyone up!! Okay, I admit it.
Thanks Keri – I love answering random questions like this and it was great of you to think of me – hope you don’t mind my cheating – rules are made for breaking after all.
Liebster and five things about me
Okay, thanks to the Geeky Book Snob for nominating me for this award – of course it’s always lovely to have some attention!!
Now, being a bit of a lazy so and so I haven’t put in all the research, mainly because it’s already been done for me of course and there’s no point in reinventing the wheel now is there? Click on this link to find out more.
I’ve decided to mostly follow the rules for this. In other words 5 things about me, answer five questions and come up with 5 questions – but, I’m only nominating one person for the award – for a variety of reasons. Firstly, so many of you that I follow don’t count for this award because you have a big readership and this is all about the tiny blogger folks who have just started – so, it’s your own fault for being so damn good. Secondly, if I only nominate one blogger – just think how special they’ll feel??? Thirdly, I’m a bit of a billy and so there’s only so many people to choose from! And, (d) I mentioned above I’m a lazy so and so.
Moving on:
5 Things about me
- I talk to my computer! This is not a good thing. People in work think I’m a maniac and I’m constantly being asked ‘sorry, did you just ask me something’. No, I’m talking to the bloody PC you idiot! Doesn’t everyone do that? No? Really. Okay, maybe I’ll have to stop that bad habit.
- I love cooking – not baking – cooking and I’m always looking for new things to make. Plus, I’m my own biggest critic! Don’t get me wrong – I love baked goods but just don’t seem able to make them. I suppose baking is a bit too strict for my kitchen habits. When I’m cooking, nothings going to go too badly wrong if I miss an ingredient I don’t like or add a little extra of something or just plain decide to ad lib – do that in cooking and you’ve just got a mess, things are flat when they’re not supposed to be, dry when they’re supposed to be moist, raw in the middle or rock solid instead of light and fluffy!
- You won’t believe this one – I don’t drive. And what I mean by that is I’ve never learned! I know. Okay. Get over it. I seem to manage alright. It makes me do a bit more walking than I otherwise would and big bonus – I am NEVER the designated driver at parties – so yay for the extra glass of wine (or two)! The downside to this is that I rely A LOT on public transport – I use buses to get to work and believe me this is a weird experience! Never, ever, make eye contact! Just read your book and mind your beeswax!
- My family call me the ‘dog woman’, which personally I think is a little over the top. Okay, I do like dogs – more to the point they seem to like me. For the purpose of clarity – this doesn’t mean that I don’t like cats!! I’m a bit soft when it comes to most of the animal kingdom.
- I totally develop crushes on some of the characters I read about – latest and longest lasting being Jean Tannen (and btw Mr Lynch, pretty please can we have RoT soon? P.S. please don’t feel the need to get overly creative about killing any more major characters off!)
The questions I’ve been asked:
- Who would you want to have dinner with most in the world? This is actually a really tough question! I mean, should I choose somebody fictional – but then how could I have dinner with them? Should I just pick somebody really interesting or be really fickle and pick somebody who’s a bit of a hottie! I think I would choose an author – I mean you could ask them things about your favourite book – or, if you just needed to know the answer to something – e.g. Patrick Rothfuss – book No.3??? Okay, I haven’t chosen yet so I’m going to have dinner with Scott Lynch and be on his case about the next book!
- What is your favourite word? Library
- If you could choose 5 songs that would be the songs to the soundtrack of your life, what would they be? What is with these difficult questions – okay, 5 stages methinks, Forest by the Cure – I was a bit of a punk back in the day, Teardrops by Womak – just because I love that song, Blue Monday – because its just so fitting – they are blue, Mondays I mean (the weekend is over and you have to get up for work!), Walking on Sunshine by KC – because that song just never fails to make me happy and also I’m a pretty optimistic person, Lifetime Love by Joyce Sims (stolen that off my husband! – the final song he chose was the soundtrack to Zelda – that tells it’s own story!)
- What is the word you hate the most? I’m going to go for a phrase instead of a word – ‘No disrespect intended’ or ‘Don’t take this wrong, but’ I mean, basically, pretty much if a sentence starts like that you know that there’s going to be some disrespect or offence following closely on it’s heels.
- If you could choose your own name, what would it be? Rebecca – but I think that’s just because I love that book.
Finally, I’m going to nominate Bookypony – I like reading all the classical book reviews on there – brings back good memories. If you choose to take part feel free to adapt the rules (I did). And, I would like answers to the same 5 questions that I gave answers to – because I like to compare!
Thanks Geekybooksnob
Books and travelling with Lynn 