A Bookish Survey...

1. Best literary festival/book fair experience?
Nothing can beat the Sunnymead Elementary book fairs they'd hold in the back corner of the re-vamped library. I can't remember if there were Goosebumps books, but I seem to remember every book fair being sponsored by Scholastic, so there must have been. I just remember being so excited and wanting to buy every single book there was.

2. How do you organize your bookshelves?
My room is overrun with books and cds, so I have one row of shelves for larger books, organized by height and width, then a row across my dresser for smaller books organized by however-they-fit-best.

3. Ever managed to get one of your favorite authors' autographs?
I just recently got John Waters to autograph one of his books. I've never been much for autographs, the only other one I ever really wanted was Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill. I had her sign a pair of white sunglasses.

4. If you said No to the previous question, which of your favorite authors do you want an autograph from?
I didn't say no, but, I'd LOVE to meet R.L. Stine, I bet he'd write something spooky. Most authors I'd like to meet are long dead so the autograph question is moot.

5. Ever visited the residence/museum of a famous author?
No, not that I can remember, maybe back in middle school times. I saw the documentary "Dreams with Sharp Teeth" about Harlan Ellison and he had an amazing house. It had a name, but I can't remember it, I love when houses have names, like Fallingwater. But that's not really what we're talking about.

6. If you said Yes to the previous question, what was it like?
Awe-inspiring? Dull? Disappointing? Enlightening?
Harlan's house was super intricate with little hide-aways and hallways, I always wanted a crazy house like that, or that place in California, I also forget what it's called but there's a bunch of doors to nowhere and hallways to nothing. I'd love to see Danielle Steel's house, I'm very intrigued by her, not her books, just her. She's like a weird, Stephen King for aging ladies.

7. Has popular culture ever influenced your reading choices?
Umm, I guess in some ways, but certainly not in an Oprah Book Club way. I mainly read older fiction, current non-fiction, bios and teen/kids mystery books.

8. More generally, how do you choose what to read?
I just keep my eyes and ears open to everything, it's the same way I hear about music, except I don't listen to any independent radio stations that talk about books. I'm a pop culture sponge and every now-and-then I find something I'm interested in. When browsing at the bookstore interesting titles are key to finding something new. Lots of blind luck in my search for books, it's more exciting that way.

9. What does being a bookworm mean to you?
Someone who is always reading. I know a couple, I'm not one though, I'm a musicworm, if there is such a thing. It's also a villain from the original Batman TV series.

10. How many book series, whether fictional or non-fictional, do you own? What are your favorites?
I have all the original series Goosebumps, I used to have most of the Robert Cormier teen books, but they disappeared. I'd like to have all the bound editions of The Onion, right now I only have one. I think I have all of John Waters books, maybe missing one. I have a fairly random book collecting style, so it's a bit all over the place. I'll typically buy anything on these topics: The French as a people, music crit, 60's/70's design/fashion, The Cold War, 60's melodrama mysteries, instruction books or pamphlets for kids/teens on dating, fictional deep sea monsters, SPACE. Or anything by these authors: John Updike, Salinger, Neal Pollack, Wilde, Kafka, Ellison (his stuff is hard to find), Poe, Vonnegut, Lester Bangs, etc...