Meme me!

I saw this at A Work in Progress. Some of this was hard! Kudos to you, Danielle.

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews? I was going to say Eat, Pray, Love, but hey, already did that. I guess I'll have to agree with Danielle and say THE KITE RUNNER. I don't own a copy, but I just can't imagine having to beat through the hype at this point.

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be? Make it a girl's night out with slight time travel: Casey Han from FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES, Lily Bart from THE HOUSE OF MIRTH and Clare from THE TIME-TRAVELER'S WIFE. Bonus points if we saw Kitty from ANNA KARENINA across the bar and could make fun of her. This would be followed closely by Memoirists' Pub Crawl, in which Mark Salzman (of LOST IN PLACE), Bill Bryson (of NEITHER HERE NOR THERE), Jen Lancaster and Karyn Bosnak and I would get drunk and tell stories. The pub crawl would actually have to last about 10 years because all of these people have hilarious stories to tell, I'm sure.

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): You are told you can't die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realize it's past time to die. What book would you expect to get you a nice grave? I don't know that I've ever read the most boring novel on the planet. I would wager it's one of those 5000-page Robert Jordan books (none of which I have read, so if you think they're not boring, by all means let me know!) They just look huge and daunting and Let's Add 30 New Characters Per Chapter and so on.

Come on, we've all been there. What book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you've read, when in fact you've been nowhere near it? I'm getting better at not doing this, but I have a few ideas from my student days. I am going to go back and read all those books... I swear...

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book you really thought you had read only to realize when you read a review about it/go to "reread" it that you haven't? Which book? I don't think this has ever happened to me. More likely, I'll see a book in a bookstore, pick it up and read a bit only to realize I already read it before. This is because I am forgetful, and because design departments often do an awesome job of picking new covers for their books.

You're interviewing for the post of Official Book Adviser to some VIP (who's not a big reader). What's the first book you'd recommend and why? (If you feel like you have to know the person, go ahead and personalize the VIP). When I read this question I assumed they meant a political VIP. Since I live in New York City, let's say it's Mayor Bloomberg. I would recommend he read the most memorable book about poverty in New York City I have ever read, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's RANDOM FAMILY. I think the Mayor, like Dennis Quaid playing the president in that terrible movie "American Dreamz," would become totally engrossed in it and hopefully assign his policy advisors to right the wrongs exposed.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with? I feel lucky because I already have pretty good reading comprehension in Spanish, but I wish my comprehension in French was better. It's just such a beautiful language to read aloud.

A mischievous fairy comes and says you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick? Why is this fairy mischievous? Don't most of us do this already? I would pick ANNA KARENINA, and I don't particularly care if it's pretentious because I've read it three times and it's one of my favorite novels to get completely lost in. And I just realized I have no idea where my copy is, so I'm going to figure that out so I can read it again.

I know the book blogging community, and all its challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What's one "bookish" thing you discovered from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art - anything)? This is going to sound mightily cheesy, but I enjoy the sense that other people hoard & treasure books like I do. Certainly I have friends in real life who do this, but knowing that strangers on the Internet do as well warms my heart a bit.

The good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she's granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leather bound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favorite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead - let your imagination run free. It would look like the library in the castle in "Beauty and the Beast." Yes, the Disney one. Only it would have a coffee shop around the corner where everything is free (and where they had occasional pub quizzes). As for the books themselves, I would say a judicious mix of trade paperbacks and mass-market editions of my most favorites (which I would also own in hardcover as well; I love the way hardcovers look but they're hard to manipulate).