On your nightstand now:
The problem with the nightstand is that there's far too much clutter there, so now I use my Kindle instead. So, on the current home screen, I have Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku, The Program by Stephen White and a bunch of free samples to which I can no longer ascribe a motive for downloading, but will read anyway.
Favorite book when you were a child:
So many, so many, since I read several books a week as a child but the one to which I most often return as an adult is The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.
Your top five authors:
Terry Brooks, Elizabeth George, Dorothy Allison, Erik Larson, Ann Rule. The fact that they are all dear friends means nothing!
Book you've faked reading:
Too many to count and plenty that I read but wish I'd faked. Top of the actual faked list: anything by Faulkner. Top of the wish list: anything by Hemingway.
Book you are an evangelist for:
Harry Potter and -- (Fill in the blank with the entire series.) I started reading J.K. Rowling to find out what all the fuss was about and found out on the first page. The fact that she kept me and millions of others enthralled through the entire saga is nothing short of miraculous, as is her ability to describe characters both physically and psychologically through two words: their names. No one has done it since Dickens, and I suspect it will be at least another century before anyone does it again.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Chop Shop by K. Braidhill. How many times do you spot a book in an airport that turns out to be an account of the very peculiar goings-on at the funeral home that disposed of all four of your grandparents, possibly in ways the family never imagined?
Book that changed your life:
Suffer the Children by John Saul, for obvious reasons.
Favorite line from a book:
"Truth is like candy: too much can make you sick."--A Fairy Tale by S. Steinberg
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Whatever book that was the first P.G. Wodehouse I ever read. These days, of course, the problem is that I too often pick up a book and start reading it, only to realize halfway through that it's not the first time I've read it.
