A to Z book survey

I saw The Perpetual Page-Turner's book survey on On The Shelf so decided to give it a go myself! I hope you guys join in too - being a writer I love to know the kind of books my followers read :-)

Also I have a Goodreads account - let's be friends there too!

Author you’ve read the most books from:

 

Haha this shows my age! R. L. Stine, who wrote amongst other things the Goosebumps series.

 

Best Sequel Ever:

 

Phantom by Susan Kay which is theoretically the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. I remember crying as I read the end.

Currently Reading:

 

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

Drink of Choice While Reading:

 

Cranberry and raspberry juice. I live off it.

E-reader or Physical Book?

 

Physical! I like touching and smelling the pages :D

Fictional Character You Probably Would Have Actually Dated In High School:

 

Back in secondary school I was madly in love with Anne Rice's vampire Armand (and maybe even more so Marius). Out of teenage characters I imagine I would have been horribly in love with Rafael from Alisa Kwitney and Joëlle Jones' Token and Utena from Chiho Saito and Be-PaPas' Revolutionary Girl Utena series. These days it's obviously The Riddler XD

Glad You Gave This Book A Chance:

 

kimmie66 by Aaron Alexovich

Hidden Gem Book:

 

Café Nervosa: The Connoisseurs Cookbook by Julie Fisher - café style recipes and excerpts of Frasier scripts all in one book! Heaven!

Important Moment in your Reading Life:

 

Wanting to be all grown-up and read one of the old books in my mum's bookshelf only for it to be Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. It provided me with a role model and a whole new level of imagination to culture.

Just Finished:

 

Well the last book I 'finished' was The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs however by 'finished' I mean got to the end of chapter two before deciding I really didn't enjoy a page of it and didn't want to inflict a single word more of it on myself.

Kinds of Books You Won’t Read:

 

I have an instant desire to run the other way from chick lit romance books however I appreciate that to some people (like my mum) they are great and if a book encourages a person to read who otherwise wouldn't then I'm more than happy for it to exist in the world! I also refuse to read anything which was once fanfiction and is now an 'original fiction' such as Fifty Shades of Grey and The Mortal Instruments series. I very much enjoy fanfiction but I think it is both a huge disservice to the original author and your readers if you take a fanfiction and change the names then call everything about it your own. If you are a good writer you should be able to come up with your own characters and scenarios with no problem.

Longest Book You’ve Read:

 

Ulysses by James Joyce.

Major book hangover because of:

 

Wet Moon by Ross Campbell - it feels like such a cool place to live - alternative heaven! Volume seven can't come soon enough (if it comes at all)!

Number of Bookcases You Own:

 

Four in my office and two downstairs.

One Book You Have Read Multiple Times:

 

Alice Through the Looking-Glass never gets old for me.

Preferred Place To Read:

 

In the bath. It has got to the point that I can only read Wet Moon books in the bath. Weirdly I can also only read Neverwhere in London...which is why it's taking me so long to finish it!

Quote that inspires you/gives you all the feels from a book you’ve read:

 

Grammar Nazi time...the correct word is quotation - easy way to remember it is "I quote a quotation" *hides* 

"We are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter" - Alan Ginsberg, Howl (part III) 

The moment I read that line it stuck with me. It spoke to me so much about that indestructible friendship that forms when you meet someone who has suffered as much as you have and has survived. Just being with someone who has survived makes you want to keep on surviving.

Reading Regret:

 

Can I say spending good money on The Soft Machine? Actually a bigger regret is that I buy books faster than I am able to read them.

Series You Started And Need To Finish(all books are out in series):

 

The Looking Glass Wars series by Frank Beddor. The Looking Glass Wars is by no means my favourite book however I feel I owe it to myself as such a big Alice fan to read the whole series and then maybe even the Hatter M graphic novels.

Three of your All-Time Favorite Books:

 

Oh no! Choices! Erm....Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, Wet Moon by Ross Campbell and Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston.

Unapologetic Fangirl For:

 

BATMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In particularl Paul Dini's various forays into Batman. He writes characters that are so often reduced to stereotypes (aka villains and females) with amazing depth and humanity. I absolutely applaud his numerous attempts at creating more female characters who actually are characters rather than arm candy for Bruce Wayne and eye candy for the male readers.

Very Excited For This Release More Than All The Others:

 

Oh gosh I don't know! I'm not very informed with new releases, I usually get tempted in by good reviews, pretty covers and recommendations.

Worst Bookish Habit:

 

I'm not sure how bad this is really but I'm a terribly slow reader. I can't skim read. I like every word to really sink so that the book becomes a memory rather than just a stack of paper. I guess also I get horribly freaked out when I lend someone a book and it comes back to me with the tiniest scuff or bend. It's my OCD.

X Marks The Spot: Start at the top left of your shelf and pick the 27th book:

 

I tell no lie - on the first bookshelf it was Impossible Spaces. On the other shelves in my study it is: Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, Walt Disney's Peter Pan and a 2002 Digimon Annual........

Your latest book purchase:

 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman.

ZZZ-snatcher book (last book that kept you up WAY late):

 

Hehe probably browsing the erotica samples on the iBooks store.