CJ over at My Year of Reading Seriously did this meme, which she snagged elsewhere, as one does. I liked it, so I’m snagging it as well. If YOU want to play along (and I encourage this), the questions are listed without answers interspersed below the fold.

Hardcover or paperback? Why?
Hardcovers last longer; paperbacks are easier to tuck in a purse, but my favorite size and shape is the trade paperback because they’re lighter than the first, and not as thick as a standard paperback – I have small hands, so this is an issue.

If I were to own a book shop I would call it…
You know, I’ve never named a book shop, only a coffee shop. Ex Libris would be one option though it might seem a little too toney. Maybe just Stacks.

My favorite quote from a book (name it) is…
Oh, this changes, often, but for the moment: I’d gotten better lately at simply refusing to let my imagination run away with me. Maybe it had something to do with being a sociopath; if so, let’s hear it for dementia. From Narcissus in Chains by Laurell K. Hamilton.

The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be…
Madeleine L’Engle or Mark Twain.

If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except from the SAS survival guide, it would be…
Oh, I want to pick something lofty like The Complete Shakespeare, but the reality is that I’d bring along The Eight by Katherine Neville, and not just because it’s 825 pages long, either.

I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that
…would allow me to read in the tub – actually READ, not listen to an audio book – without any chance of the book getting wet.

The smell of an old book reminds me of…
Poking around old bookshops in the Haight on a rainy day, and then curling up in front of a fireplace with espresso, quilt, and dog, to read.

If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be…
I wanted to be Harriet from Harriet the Spy when I was little, and then Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables when I was older. I like the Anita Blake series, but I wouldn’t want to BE Anita – it’s exhausting. The lead character from Madeleine L’Engle’s Certain Women appeals to me even though her name escapes me, or the researcher in the Pink Carnation series. It all changes depending on my mood and the weather and what I’ve read recently.

The most overestimated book of all time is…
The DaVinci Code. It was a nice couple hours of entertaining reading, but folks, it was just a novel, and similar stories have been told far more artfully (*cough*Foucault’s Pendulum*cough*).

I hate it when a book…
Ends prematurely. When you’ve been sucked into the story and you’re invested in the characters, and then it just sort of fizzles out. It’s so disappointing.

Just the questions:
Hardcover or paperback? Why?
If I were to own a book shop I would call it…
My favorite quote from a book (name it) is…
The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be…
If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except from the SAS survival guide, it would be…
I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that
The smell of an old book reminds me of…
If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be…
The most overestimated book of all time is…
I hate it when a book…