What are your top 5 favorite books of this year?
These didn’t all come out this year, I don’t think, but that’s when I read them:
Do you have any pets and if so what are they and what are their names?
I don’t! I grew up with cats and dogs, but at this point I’m too allergic to the former and not home enough for the latter. I’m looking for the magical pet that basically takes care of itself, cuddles with me, and doesn’t make me sneeze. I’m pretty sure “stuffed animal” is the answer.
What is your favorite type of food to eat at the beach?
Ooh. It used to be cheese and crackers, because I love how the cheese half-melts in the heat. But I can’t eat cheese anymore. So this summer it was corn chips and guacamole, which is also delicious.
If you were stranded on an island and you could chose five thing to be dropped off to you (not including a cell phone, or transportation) and you had shelter and food – what would it be?
I would choose any way of communicating with the outside world. Even if it doesn’t help me get off the island, I’d want my laptop and a satellite hookup. And a battery crank. If I were stranded on the island with a group of people I liked, then I would chill a little about the communication and ask for: sunscreen, really good cookies, a copy of Rise Up Singing for entertaining ourselves around the campfire, notebooks, and pens.
If you could meet one author, who would it be and why?
I’ve been fortunate enough to get to meet most of my favorite authors! Being a YA blogger and librarian in a major city is a pretty great gig, author-meeting-wise. So I’ll have to pick
H. M. Hoover, with whose children’s sci-fi novels I was obsessed when I was a kid. I read her books over and over and used to dream about meeting her. Wikipedia says she’s still alive, at 76, so it could still happen!
If you had the option to be teleported into one of your favorite books, what would it be and why?
Most of my favorite books are not at all places I’d want to live. I mean, who wants to live in Panem? But Green Gables sounds nice, as does
Mary Russell‘s turn-of-the-century England.
What are your top 5 favorite movies?
Heavenly Creatures
Office Space
I Capture the Castle
all 7 seasons of Buffy (does that count as a movie?)
all 5 seasons of Friday Night Lights (ditto)I am much more a TV person than a movie person.
What is the most interesting title of a book you have seen?
Fun question! My friend, who is an editor, posts her favorites on Facebook regularly, but I’m drawing a blank. I’ll admit to being a sucker for Ally Carter’s punny Gallagher Girls titles: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy, Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover, etc. Louise Rennison also wins at titles: Startled by His Furry Shorts, Love Is a Many Trousered Thing, etc.
What is the weirdest food you have ever eaten?
Reindeer. Or alligator. Both were made into sausage (in Alaska and New Orleans, respectively), so they pretty much just tasted like sausage. I’m also pretty sure I’ve eaten all kinds of odd things at dim sum, but I didn’t know what I was eating, so who knows?
If you could do 5 really expensive things or own 5 really expensive items what would they be?
A house in my (urban, very pricey) hometown of Somerville, MA — a couple of bedrooms, a nice big kitchen, walking distance to the subway, but with enough sunny yard space for a mini-farm. That’s so expensive it probably eats up my other 4 expensive things, but while we’re dreaming I’d like: to endow a college scholarship for students at the GED school where I tutor, a New Zealand vacation, a nice big gift certificate to one of my favorite fancy restaurants, and… it’s boring, but I’d want to finish paying for the expensive thing I already did: grad school.
If you could live your entire life on a beach by the ocean in the Caribbean being served food or live in a mansion with tons of books, which one would you choose?
The mansion. I’m all set with just spending a few days a year at the beach, really. And in the mansion I could probably cook my own food, which would make me a lot happier!
What is currently on your iPod?
Lots of episodes of This American Life that I need to catch up on.
