50 Questions Every Serious Reader Should Answer

The books I'd keep, recommend, reread, and gladly forget.

When we introduce ourselves to someone new, we often ask where they’re from or what they do for a living—but if you really want to get to know someone, ask them about the books that have stayed with them the longest.

What’s their favorite novel? Which book made them cry the most? Which one disappointed them? Which character felt uncannily familiar?

The answers to these questions tell a far richer story than a simple list of favorite books ever could—so today, I’ve put together a list of fifty questions that every serious reader should answer—as well as my personal responses.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you might not be surprised at some of my answers (yes, there’s an absurd amount of Dostoyevsky), but there are also many favorites I haven’t yet had the chance to discuss on Pens and Poison.

So if you really want to get to know me, look no further than my new literary questionnaire.

I’ve left a blank questionnaire template at the bottom of my answers so that you can fill out your own version in the comments. I’d love to get to know my readers, and I have a feeling that your list will tell me a lot more about you than you realize :)

Without further ado, here are the 50 questions that every serious reader should answer—and my personal responses.

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50 Questions for Every Serious Reader (Liza’s Version)

1. Favorite book
The Brothers Karamazov — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

2. Second-favorite book
Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

3. Third-favorite book
White Nights — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

4. Favorite book that’s not by Dostoyevsky, ffs
The Sound and the Fury — William Faulkner

5. Least favorite book
Normal People — Sally Rooney

6. Second-least favorite book
Beloved — Toni Morrison

7. Book that made me cry the most
White Nights — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

8. Book that made me laugh the most
Three Men in a Boat — Jerome K. Jerome

9. Most underrated novel
Beware of Pity — Stefan Zweig

10. Most overrated novel
The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret Atwood

11. Book I wish everyone would read
The World of Yesterday — Stefan Zweig

12. Book I wish I’d read sooner
The Unbearable Lightness of Being — Milan Kundera

13. Book that changed the way I think
The Screwtape Letters — C. S. Lewis

14. Most beautiful prose I’ve ever read
Pale Fire — Vladimir Nabokov

15. Favorite opening sentence
From a little after two oclock until almost sundown of the long still hot weary dead September afternoon they sat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because her father had called it that—a dim hot airless room with the blinds all closed and fastened for forty-three summers because when she was a girl someone had believed that light and moving air carried heat and that dark was always cooler, and which (as the sun shone fuller and fuller on that side of the house) became latticed with yellow slashes full of dust motes which Quentin thought of as being flecks of the dead old dried paint itself blown inward from the scaling blinds as wind might have blown them.

(Absalom, Absalom! — William Faulkner)

16. Favorite ending
Nausea — Jean-Paul Sartre

17. Favorite literary character
Aloysius (Brideshead Revisited — Evelyn Waugh)

18. Literary character I relate to most
Natasha Rostova (War and Peace — Leo Tolstoy)

19. Favorite literary villain
Augustus Melmotte (The Way We Live Now — Anthony Trollope)

20. Favorite author
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

21. Favorite living author
Dostoyevsky—he lives in my heart.

22. Book I return to again and again
Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

23. The book I’d save if I could keep only one
The Iliad — Homer

24. The book I’d recommend to someone who wants to fall in love with literature
Middlemarch — George Eliot

25. Book I’ve reread the most
The Catcher in the Rye — J. D. Salinger

26. Favorite novella
Chess Story — Stefan Zweig

27. Favorite short story
A Rose for Emily — William Faulkner

28. Saddest ending
Tess of the d’Urbervilles — Thomas Hardy

29. Happiest ending
Jane Eyre — Charlotte Brontë

30. Favorite play
Hamlet — William Shakespeare

31. Favorite poem
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock — T.S. Eliot

32. Favorite opening chapter
East of Eden — John Steinbeck

33. Favorite closing chapter
Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

34. Favorite literary friendship
Raskolnikov and Razhumikhin (Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

35. Favorite literary romance
Amelia and Dobbin (Vanity Fair — William Makepeace Thackeray)

36. Most unforgettable scene in literature
Phoebe on the merry-go-round in Central Park (The Catcher in the Rye — J.D. Salinger)

37. Best narrator
Nick Carraway (The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald)

38. Book I wish had a sequel
None of them—sequels are usually bad.

39. Book that intimidated me the most
The Holy Bible

40. Hardest book I’ve ever finished
The Phenomenology of Spirit — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

41. Book that surprised me the most
Romeo and Juliet — William Shakespeare

42. Book that disappointed me the most
Never Let Me Go — Kazuo Ishiguro

43. Book I recommend most often
Anna Karenina — Leo Tolstoy

44. Book I wish more people knew about
The Childhood of a Leader — Jean-Paul Sartre

45. Book I wish I could read again for the first time
The Master and Margarita — Mikhail Bulgakov

46. Book that made me fall in love with reading
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone — J.K. Rowling

47. Book that deserves to be taught in every school
Basic Economics — Thomas Sowell

48. The greatest novel ever written
The Brothers Karamazov — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

49. The most beautiful sentence I’ve ever read

For the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

(Dover Beach — Matthew Arnold)

50. One final recommendation that hasn’t been mentioned yet
The Magic Mountain — Thomas Mann

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Now—onto you!

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50 Questions For Every Serious Reader (For You to Answer)

1. Favorite book

2. Second-favorite book

3. Third-favorite book

4. Favorite book that’s not by your favorite author

5. Least favorite book

6. Second-least favorite book

7. Book that made you cry the most

8. Book that made you laugh the most

9. Most underrated novel

10. Most overrated novel

11. Book you wish everyone would read

12. Book you wish you’d read sooner

13. Book that changed the way you think

14. Most beautiful prose you’ve ever read

15. Favorite opening sentence

16. Favorite ending

17. Favorite literary character

18. Literary character you relate to most

19. Favorite literary villain

20. Favorite author

21. Favorite living author

22. Book you return to again and again

23. The book you’d save if you could keep only one

24. The book you’d recommend to someone who wants to fall in love with literature

25. Book you’ve reread the most

26. Favorite novella

27. Favorite short story

28. Saddest ending

29. Happiest ending

30. Favorite play

31. Favorite poem

32. Favorite opening chapter

33. Favorite closing chapter

34. Favorite literary friendship

35. Favorite literary romance

36. Most unforgettable scene in literature

37. Best narrator

38. Book you wish had a sequel

39. Book that intimidated you the most

40. Hardest book you’ve ever finished

41. Book that surprised you the most

42. Book that disappointed you the most

43. Book you recommend most often

44. Book you wish more people knew about

45. Book you wish you could read again for the first time

46. Book that made you fall in love with reading

47. Book that deserves to be taught in every school

48. The greatest novel ever written

49. The most beautiful sentence you’ve ever read

50. One final recommendation that hasn’t been mentioned yet

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That was fun! Don’t forget to leave me your lists in the comments!

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