No.612: The A Tag

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Today is the first installment of a fun new series and I hope you’ll chime in with your answers too!  I stumbled upon this “tag” on Youtube where the creator asked a handful of questions for every letter of the alphabet.  (This is the original source of the tag.)  I thought I’d answer them here on the blog.  Here are the questions for letter A:

A is for America. What do you consider the Great American Novel?

Full disclosure: I had to look up what constitutes a Great American Novel.  According to Wikipedia, it is “a canonical novel that is thought to embody the essence of America, generally written by an American and dealing in some way with the question of America’s national character.”  What a difficult challenge!  How do you condense such a diverse country with only one book?  I found this website with 25 choices and here are a handful that I’ve read:
+ The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
+ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
+ Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
+ The Call of the Wild by Jack London
+ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
+ O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
+ My Antonia by Willa Cather

A is for arc. Which character in literature has the most interesting character arc?

Another really hard question!  I can’t come up with a good answer for this one…do you have any ideas?

A is for Australia. What was the last book you read by an Australian author.

It’s been a few years since I’ve read an Australian book, but here are few I’ve enjoyed:
+ The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
+ The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
+ The Dry by Jane Harper
+ What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

A is for Austen. What do you plan to read for #JaneAustenJuly?

Obviously, I’m answering these questions in January, but I would love to incorporate an Austen book into my reading sometime this year.  Maybe Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility?

A is for automobile. What is your favorite literary automobile?

Hmm, this is a tricky one.  Right now, the kids and I are reading Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming as our school read aloud and really enjoying it.  I also browsed around for some automobile-themed books and found Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City.  Sounds interesting!

A is for anonymous. What is your favorite book or poem published anonymously.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book published anonymously!  I did a little research and one of the books I own is written by Elena Ferrante, who happens to be a pseudonymous Italian novelist.  Who knew?

A is for autobiography. What was the last autobiography you read?

I have not read an autobiography in so long, so does a memoir count?  The two last memoirs I read: Sounds Like Titanic by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman and Ambulance Girl: How I Saved Myself By Becoming an EMT by Jane Stern.

A is for audiobooks. Do you consider listening to an audiobook as “reading”?

I do consider audiobooks “reading” – whatever gets you thinking and learning is fine to me!  For me personally, I do not use audiobooks because I am definitely not an auditory learner and easily get distracted while listening.  I need to read with my eyeballs to really understand and remember.

What about you?  How would you answer these questions?