On your nightstand now:
Why We're All Romans by Carl J. Richard; Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History's Most Notorious Women by Elizabeth Kerri Mahon' Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini (ARC); and The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault. When I was a teen, I devoured all her superb historical fiction about the ancient world.
Your top five authors:
This changes on a regular (sometimes hourly) basis, but at this moment, I'd say Suzanne Collins, Steven Saylor, John Green, Plutarch and Sarah Dunant.
Book you've faked reading:
I try not to fake anything because I just know I'm going to get caught out and embarrass myself. However, I have been known to fake-smile-knowingly when Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities comes up.
Book you are an evangelist for:
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. I've loved this book since I first read it in college. I named my first dog Zora Neale! There is something magical about Hurston's ability to capture the rhythms of colloquial speech and distill it into pure poetry.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Ha! That would be just about every YA book I own.
Book that changed your life:
I couldn't pick just one. In college, it was Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Years later, it was Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon. And most recently, it's been John Green's Looking for Alaska.
Favorite line(s) from a book:
"She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see." --Their Eyes Were Watching God
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
West with the Night by Beryl Markham. Gorgeous, gorgeous writing.