John Malek, insurance executive, Board member of Vital Signs Ministries, and charter member of the Notting Hill Napoleons book club, is the latest to answer the “Twelve Tantalizing Questions for our Bookish Friends” we posed awhile ago. They are very interesting answers too. Check 'em out.1) List ten of your favorite books in five minutes.
Children of Men (P.D. James)
Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)
Our Mutual Friend (Charles Dickens)
A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
Tragedy of the Korosko (Arthur Conan Doyle)
Toilers of the Sea (Victor Hugo)
Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien)
The Space Trilogy (C.S.Lewis)
2) What’s the last really good book you read?
Riders of the Purple Sage (Zane Grey)
3) Do you finish every book you start?
No
4) Do you re-read books? Do you re-read any books more than once or twice? Like what?
Yes, classics
5) Are there any authors whose work you have read completely? Or almost completely? Who?
Doyle, Dickens, Lewis, Tolkien
6) Do you prefer fiction or nonfiction? Why?
Yes
7) Do you recommend books? If you do, give an example or two.
Yes, Nevil Shute and John Buchan
8) Do you read books that are more than one hundred years old?
Books that were written over 100 years ago, but not made 100 years ago, they would fall apart in my hands! -:)
9) What’s more important to you: the way a book is written or what the book is about?
Good subject but bad writing is painful, but a bad subject, regardless of the writing style is pointless, so to me they are of equal importance.
10) Have you ever written a fan letter to an author?
Nyet
11) Do you keep track of the books you read?
No
12) Okay, take a look at the list you made at the beginning. Any changes you’d like to make?
Probably, but I like the list well enough. Of course this is a list based on fiction books and the Bible is not fiction but that book is a given and that is not on my list. There are also a list of very impactful non-fiction theological type books that have had huge impacts on my life, but those are for another day and another survey!
The other entries in this series are here and here.
