The book meme

Now that I've started, I can't stop!

1. Hardcover or paperback, and why?
Paperback, because hardcovers are a pain to keep open with one hand and they generally don't fit into my bag to carry around with me. Unless I carry a backpack.

2. If I were to own a book shop I would call it…
Prose Zone. (Too right it's twee! Back off.)

3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is…
I am unable to choose just one, so:
You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your mind and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming - Terry Pratchett, A hat full of sky
A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. - Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind. - Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man (So I'm a little Pratchett-obsessed. So what?)
The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for. - Louis L'Amour, Ride the Dark Trail

4. The author (alive or diseased) with whom I'd love to have lunch would be…
Dean Koontz, because he is whip-smart, funny and engaging and, if conversation flagged, we could simply turn to the topic of dogs. Failing that, Louis L'Amour, 'cos he lived most of the experiences in his books, and he lived through some of the most interesting times tehw orld has ever known. And he died with a collection of over 20 000 books. A man after my own heart.

5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except from the SAS survival guide, it would be…
Only one? Seriously? Good grief. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, or Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen. Hey, don't look at me like that! No one said they had to be *useful*! Hmm, if only all Louis L'Amour's survival tips were contained in just one book ...

6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that…
Downloads the full text of a book straight into my brain, so that I could enjoy it at any time, whether or not I had the book near me - such as when I'm driving. Oh, it's called "memory"? My bad.

7. The smell of an old book reminds me of…
Sometimes, Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, Cherry Ames and my Marguerite Henry books. Other times, what I was doing when I was reading a particular book, like watching Evil Dead, knitting and smoking while reading Dean Koontz' Tick-Tock. I'm a multi-tasker. 

8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be…
Granny Weatherwax, in any of Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" books. Damn, she's scary. Or Deliverance Payne, from Dean Koontz' Tick Tock - she communicated with her dead father via the radio, her dog was an alien, she never needed to sleep and she was a race-car driver and an expert marksman. What's not to like?

9. The most overestimated book of all times is…
Wuthering Heights. What a yawn-fest, honestly. Oh, you were expecting a critique? Don't waste my time.

10. I hate it when a book…
Is pretentious. All lowercase? No quotation marks? First-person only, with no speech? Droning on and on about the human condition, psychological blah-blah, being uber-hip, hot and happening and filled with nihilism? Zzzz...

--
English doesn't borrow from other languages, it follows them down dark alleys and beats them up and searches their pockets for loose grammar.