1. Why do you blog?
I fell into blogging by accident. I didn’t even know what blogs were really when my sister gave me a subscription to Typepad as a gift. At first I didn’t have a clue what to write and it was a bit depressing as no one ever seemed to visit or leave comments. But over the year and a half that I have been blogging mine has evolved into a book blog primarily. What I love about it now is the exchange about books with other readers and writers. I feel like I learn things every day and my reading has evolved along with my blog.
2. Which author and/or book has most influenced you?
This is a hard question and I am not sure I can limit it to only one book or author. I read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road in my early twenties and I have always sort of marked this as a big turning point in my reading. I had just graduated from college and lived a year in Austria. When I came home, I found this book somehow. All of a sudden my mind was opened up to a different kind of literature. All of a sudden I felt like I was reading books for “grownups” - not that I hadn’t been before, but there was something about this book that changed my perception of life and how I wanted to live. Of course having just come home from living abroad on my own probably started that process. I also just read George Eliot’s Middlemarch, and I feel like this was a bit of a turning point again - once again to the type of books I am now reading.
3. Which three blogs do you most visit?
I am not sure I can narrow it down to only three quite honestly. I try to go through my blogroll every day (or close to it) as each blog has something different to offer, and I appreciate each blogger’s views and opinions. If there has been a particularly interesting discussion going on somewhere I may make a point of going there first, but otherwise I like to read them all.
4. Why do you read fiction?
I read fiction for a lot of reasons. I want to be entertained, and to be transported to another time and place. I want to learn new things. I want to hear in my head particularly beautiful prose. I want to lose myself, or maybe I want to find myself.
5. What makes you laugh?
I feel like I don’t laugh enough. The last time a book really made me laugh was when I was reading Haven Kimmel’s A Girl Named Zippy. She writes with this sort of deadpan humor. I could really relate to her stories and I could see my childhood in some of the same situations as she got herself into.
Danielle Torres blogs at A Work In Progress, which can be found here: http://www.danitorres.typepad.com
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Sep 14th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
from On The Road to Middlemarch, a remarkable literary journey. Is this more pattern or random selection?
Sep 14th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
hey you probably know this but thought I’d tel you just in case: there is a followup to the Zippy book. and she’s also written two books of fiction that I thought were wonderful although I don’t remember laughing a lot during them.
Sep 14th, 2006 at 6:26 pm
oh duh - sorry - i just figured out you were asking someone else the questions so i guess that is more a comment for her.
Sep 14th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
The Narrator–On the Road was more than ten years ago, and Middlemarch was not too long ago, so it has been sort of a long wandering road! Mostly it was by chance, but now I am trying to be more thoughtful about my choices (in the end I feel like it is still somewhat haphazard though).
Carolyn–I have heard about her other nonfiction, which I want to read eventually. I have also heard good things about her novels–particularly The Solace of Leaving Early. It is just a matter of fitting them in!