Because this stuff is just fun...

I get this book e-mail called Shelf Awareness. It's newsy and fun, and gives you a lot of info for free. Author appearances, new books, some industry dirt, bestseller lists, you get the idea. I was reading my daily issue and noticed that it seems that our "tell us what you know about your friends" e-mails have now transcended the business; they had some fun ones that I thought would be fun to post here. Copy and forward or post where you may. (BTW - these are my answers, not some big publishing muckety-muck.)

On nightstand now:

Winkie by Clifford Chase, Queen of this Realm by Jean Plaidy, and the new issue of Self magazine. Oh, and an old issue of Family Circle Easy Knitting - I'm working on a sweater.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Grover and the Monster at the End of the Book. No substitutes.

Top five authors:

I like Christopher Moore a lot lately, Anne Rice pre-"Lasher", J.R.R. Tolkien, Aristophanes (no, I'm not just saying that to look brainy - you read Lysistrata and tell me you don't almost hemorrhage because you're laughing so hard) and since I just read his second book and loved it, Brian Sloane.

Book you've "faked" reading:

Pride and Prejudice and The Old Man and the Sea.

Book you are an "evangelist" for:

I would give out free copies of Brian Sloane's upcoming "Tale of Two Summers" to spread the word about it, because it's really funny.

Book you've bought for the cover:

I think most of us buy books for the covers, don't we? But I'll say the latest "24" paperback because Keifer's on the cover. :-)

Book that changed your life:

Days and Memory by Charlotte Delbo blew me away. I read it for a Comparative Lit class on Women & War, taught by a woman who came to America as a refugee child from France during WWII. Her series of recollections from people who survived WWII are unbelievable, especially "Kalavrita of 1,000 Antigones," where the women of a small Greek town remember the day the Nazis came, locked them in a church and wiped out all the men and elderly in the village. When one woman describes how the town clock stopped that day and how no one ever changed it, so the clock to this day shows the hour that the Nazis came, I was numb. Unbelievable.

Favorite line from a book:

I'll go the geek route here - "Nassssty little hobbitsessss!"

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte.