Bookshelf Snooping - Kaitlyn K. Hall

1. Your childhood favouriteThe Little House on the Prairie series

2. Your current favouriteThe Wheel of Time series

3. Your top five authorsRobert Jordan, Terry Pratchett, Laurell K. Hamilton, Laurie Halse Anderson, Edgar Allen Poe

4. Book(s) you’re reading nowBetsy the Vampire Queen, A Grim Pact, From Where I Sit: Making my way with cerebral palsy

5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to readPretty much every required HS reading assignment I pretended to read, BS'd my way thru the work, then read later on on my own time and at my own pace. I pretty much did it to spite my teachers. I have issues with authority...

6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the coverI can honestly say that I don't think I've ever done that. I've bought new copies of books I've read or owned because they redid the cover art or and/or binding style, but I've never bought a book I've never read simply because I liked the cover.

7. Book you’re a champion forI get defensive about any books that go under fire. But the one I've gotten most riled up about has been The DaVinci Code. I love the book. It has amazing detail and thoughts, but IT IS A WORK OF FICTION. FICTION, people!!!

8. Book that changed your life3 of them. An Unquiet Mind, Speak, and The Book of Mormon.

9. Book you most want to read again for the first timeSpeak and An Unquiet Mind. Most definitely.

10. Book you turn to for comfortProbably my scriptures. Or Speak. Sometimes both.

Bookshelf Snooping - Brooklyn Ann

1. Your childhood favourite
The Bunnicula books

2. Your current favourite
IT by Stephen King (I've read it 11 times so far.)

3. Your top five authors
Oooh, that's a tough one. Only five? ::sigh:: Stephen King, Eloisa James, Virginia Henley, JR Ward, and Alexandra Ripley

4. Book(s) you’re reading now
11-22-63 and a friend's fantasy novel that's freakin' awesome.

5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read
Pretended? Besides the time a school photographer made me pose with an embarrassingly babyish book when I was 9, I've never "Pretended" to read a book. Either I keep reading or put it down. 

6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover
DESERT HEAT by Jamie De Bree, TIME OF THE TWINS by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and anything with a cat on it. 

7. Book you’re a champion for
PILLARS OF THE EARTH by Ken Follet. I think it's one of the greatest novels ever written.

8. Book that changed your life 
THE COLOR PURPLE by Alice Walker.

9. Book you most want to read again for the first time
THE LONG WALK by Richard Bachman.

10.Book you turn to for comfort
All of Judith McNaught's regency romances. 

11. Favourite line from a book 
Okay I gotta do a serious one and a funny one: Serious: "I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice." THE COLOR PURPLE Funny: "The best part of you ran down your father's leg." IT

Word Count Goal for 2012

I love word counts. Maybe because they look so neat and tidy on my spreadsheet, or maybe because they show visible progress on WIP. Maybe, also because they make it easier to set writing goals. 

Stories should not be driven by word count, of course. It is the story that matters, but for most of us regular folks, we need something to make us sit and write regularly and consistently enough to get that story out. For me, it's word  count goals. 

For 2012, I've decided to try an annual word count goal challenge. I'm hoping to write 250,000 words by 31st of December. 

The only condition is that this word count must be towards Book Projects. So blog posts, planning and outlining books, emails, letters, poetry - none of that counts. Just book projects. Reason for that is simple: I want to be a published author of books - so putting words towards that is what's going to achieve it. Not just words by themselves. 

I am not going to obsess over daily goals, or even monthly goals. I am going to focus on my books, and hopefully, that will get me there, because some writing periods are more intense than others. Still, 250K seems plausible. If you are interested, you can follow my progress through the word count progress bar at the right. 

What about you? How do you feel about word counts? Will you / do you have any word count goals for this year? 

Bookshelf Snooping - Juliet E. McKenna

Before I start, I should warn you that I find picking favourites in books pretty much impossible – in that if you ask me these same questions in a month’s time, you’re likely to get an entirely different set of answers, depending on mood, recollection, my current reading, work in progress and so on.

1. Your childhood favourite

Rosemary Sutcliffe – Warrior Scarlet

2. Your current favourite

Michael Connelly – The Fifth Witness – but only because this is the most recent by one of my favourite writers. As soon as one of the others has a new book out, chances are that’ll top the list.

3. Your top five authors

Kate Elliott, Val McDermid, Ellis Peters, Charles Stross, Kelley Armstrong, Joanne Harris, Robert Crais – oh, wait, I need to stop now, don’t I?

4. Book(s) you’re reading now

The Redeemed, M.R. Hall

5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read

A couple of self-published efforts forced onto me which I don’t propose to identify. I skimmed first and last chapters, which proved beyond all doubt why no agent or editor had taken them.

6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover

I don’t honestly think there is one. A cover might get me to pick a book up but if the first page doesn’t grab me, it goes back on the shelf.

7. Book you’re a champion for

Farthing, Jo Walton.

8. Book that changed your life

The Horse & His Boy; the first Narnia book I read for myself, opening up vast worlds of imagination for me.

9. Book you most want to read again for the first time

The Lord of the Rings.

10. Book you turn to for comfort

Pretty much anything by Terry Pratchett (who should be on that top five list as well)

11. Favourite line from a book

'You're wizards!' she screamed. 'Bloody well wizz! ' Eskarina Smith in ‘Equal Rites’. (Since that last answer has me thinking ‘Discworld’ Ask that one again and there’ll be a different answer every time.)

Bookshelf Snooping - Gareth L Powell

1. Your childhood favourite

I had many favourite books as a child. I was very fond of the Dragonfall 5 books by Brian Earnshaw, the Biggles books by Cpt WE Johns, Have Spacesuit Will Travel by Robert Heinlein, and Larry Niven's Ringworld Engineers. I also read 2000AD whenever I could, and I still have the 1979 2000AD annual on my bookshelves. However, the book I remember with most fondness is a book aimed at younger readers. The Bears Who Stayed Indoors by Susanna Gretz and Alison Sage, first published in 1971, is the story of four bears and their dog who, when forced by rain to stay indoors, play at being astronauts. As a young child (I'm thinking around 4 years old), I absolutely adored it. A quick search of Amazon shows that the book is still in print, and I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone with a little would-be astronaut in their life. 

2. Your current favourite

I have a different favourite book every week; but my all-time favourite will always be On The Road by Jack Kerouac. It's a vast, sprawling epic and a masterpiece of compelling narration, and I still rate it as my number one favourite book of all time. Every time I read it I see something new, and I'm struck again by the rhythm and poetry of the language, and the immediacy of Kerouac's descriptions. When he writes about sleeping on a hot car roof in the sticky jungle, and the soft rain of bugs falling on his skin, you're right there with him. I think Kerouac's a very misunderstood writer. People get caught up with the beatnik craziness, and they miss the sadness at the heart of the book: the unspeakable, inescapable loneliness of the American night.

3. Your top five authors

> Ernest Hemingway
> William Gibson
> M. John Harrison
> JG Ballard
> Philip K. Dick

4. Book(s) you’re reading now

I tend to read several books at once, and am currently in the midst of Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith, Gonzo by Jan Wenner and Corey Seymour, and Player One by Douglas Coupland.

5. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover 

I was fascinated by the covers to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. The first, Red Mars, showed spacesuited figures in a lifeless landscape of canyons and rock; the second, Green Mars, depicted an airship flying over the same terrain, except now there was snow in the valley and green shoots between the boulders; and the final cover had a coastal town, pine trees and a schooner sailing a blue inlet at the foot of a red mountain. The transformation was startling, and promised an epic tale unfolding over time - which I'm glad to say the books within delivered.

6. Book that changed your life

I think the book that most shaped my development as a writer has to be William Gibson's Burning Chrome. Until I read it, I was still immersed in the old school fiction of Niven, Clarke and Heinlein, with its unshakeable faith in a rational, technological and largely American future. Gibson showed me something else. His stories felt more immediate and real. They were gritty and dangerous, but the lowlife grifters that peopled them were more believeable than the traditional "scientist as hero" types I had been used to, and the stories were written in a hardboiled, pared-down argot that wasted not one word. It was a revelation and a masterclass all rolled into one.

7. Book you most want to read again for the first time

I loved Douglas Coupland's Generation X. I read it at university, in my early twenties, and it was like a postcard from the other side of the world saying: "Don't despair. We are here, and we understand how you feel." The three main characters shared the same aimless, post-cynical weltanschauung that I saw in the faces of my friends. It seemed to be the first book I'd ever read about *us*. I'd love to read it again for the first time, to feel that thrill of recognition; but also, now I am in my forties, I'm sure it would also have a new nostalgic element that just wasn't yet there two decades ago.

8. Book you turn to for comfort 

When I want the comfort of a familiar book, I often turn to Kerouac or Coupland. Other favourites include: "e" by Matt Beaumont, which is a hilarious book for anyone who's ever worked in a large coporation, especially in marketing and PR, as I have; Nova by Samuel Delany; The Stone Canal by Ken MacLeod; Gateway by Frederik Pohl; and Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. As my reading time is usually limited, I tend to go for short books. I love long epic trilogies, such as the aforementioned Mars books by Kim Stanley Robinson, but its hard to justify the time to go back and spend a couple of months re-reading them when I have so many new books clamouring for my attention.

9. Favourite line from a book

Not so much a line as a passage, I would like the final speech from Olaf Stapledon's Last And First Men read at my funeral. It's a masterful summation of human ambition and frailty, a view of mankind's place in the universe, and a calm acceptance of its eventual extinction. It begins: "Great are the stars, and man is of no account to them." and finishes, "It is very good to have been man. And so we may go forward together with laughter in our hearts, and peace, thankful for the past, and for our own courage. For we shall make after all a fair conclusion to this brief music that is man."

Bookshelf Snooping - José Kilbride

1. Your childhood favourite
I think The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier is probably one of my favourite childhood books, a more profoundly moving piece of children's fiction I have yet to read. Based on fact, it follows the journey of the Balicki children as they journey through war-time Europe searching for their family. Brilliant.

2. Your current favourite
This is a difficult one to answer as there are so many I really do love. I think my current one, of the moment anyway, is The Crippled God by Steven Erikson, final book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. A more fitting end to such a vast, sprawling, complex, intense, humorous and detailed series you will not find. Superb stuff. 

3. Your top five authors
I have so many to chose from, but if I have to…

Haruki Murakami
Steven Erikson
CJ Cherryh
Tanith Lee
China Mieville

All of them are intensely inventive, dark, humorous, with wonderfully realised characters and worlds. And for me they all explore the nature of humanity in ways that many others cannot quite match.

4. Book(s) you’re reading now
I always have some 40-odd books on the go at any one time. Current highlights are my re-reading of Gormenghast; plus EJ Newman’s From Dark Places, First among Sequels by Jasper Fforde, The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson, 1Q84 by Huraki Murakami, Roman Warfare by Adrian Goldsworthy and Japan Through the Looking Glass by Alan MacFarlane.

5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read
I don’t think I have ever done this, as I would get caught out. There are books I have pretended NOT to have read, despite having done so. And no, I am not going to tell you what they are.

6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover
I buy a lot of books for their covers, particularly science-fiction and fantasy novels from the 1960s, ‘70s and early ‘80s. I have a thing for the artwork of this era, which can be inspired, awful and eyebrow raising, often all at once..

7. Book you’re a champion for
The Napoleon of Notting Hill (GK Chesterton) is one of the greatest books I have ever read, and is one I would consider a must-read by anyone and everyone. Detailing the events of a futuristic London, the elected King of England plays a grand practical joke on his nation. His humorous vision inspires a young man to believe in his idea, not realising it is a joke, and thus a cascade of events takes place. It is a book about ideas, about faith and about the corruption of both. It is a brilliant, brilliant book.

8. Book that changed your life
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein, for better and for worse. This book very much inspired my love for fantasy and science fiction (the good), which precluded reading more widely at one point (the bad). It was vast, epic and heroic, despite the odds. All despite the weird Tom Bombadil bit, which I hate. Everything else was wondrous.

9. Book you most want to read again for the first time
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Thoroughly absorbing, incredibly inventive and wonderfully detailed, this book humbled and astounded me both as a reader and a writer. I wish I could read it again for that continuing sense of awe and that wonderment when it was finished.

10. Book you turn to for comfort 
Mortal World by Deborah Pope is a collection of poems that are simply sublime. I love poetry, and was profoundly impacted by this collection. Mortal World explores her Pope’s relationship with the world, her partner and her children, and it is gentle, heart-breaking, traumatic and up-lifting. It taught me much about emotion, about detailing those and the world around us with the simplicity of words. It is simply a superb collection of poems.

11. Favourite line from a book
I don’t really have one, so I am going to cheat and use the quote that China Mieville wrote in my signed copy of Embassytown:


“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug.” - Kipling

Bookshelf Snooping - Jamie Debree

1. Your childhood favourite

Hmm...that's a toss up between Trixie Belden, Sherlock Holmes and Jack London's dog/wolf stories. Loved them all. 

2. Your current favourite

Wow. These are harder than I thought they'd be! I can't choose just one. The Immortal Brotherhood series by Lisa Hendrix has be waiting rather impatiently for the next one, and that's paranormal romance (viking shifters - whew!). "Night of Wolves" (fantasy) by David Dalglish recently surprised me as really being quite fabulous (I don't read much fantasy), and this time of year my top pick for literary fiction is "Comfort and Joy", a short story by Craig Lancaster (new last year). Oh! And my favorite horror read this year was/is Cupid's Maze by Mark Souza. It's another short story, but amazing (and seriously freaky!). 

3. Your top five authors

Of all time? Restraining myself to fiction: Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Sir Arther Conan Doyle, Grace Livingston Hill, Issac Asimov. Well, today, anyways. I mean, there are so many....

As far as modern authors go...I suppose I'd pick: James Rollins, Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child (as a team), Michelle Davidson Argyle, Samantha Hunter & Vivian Arend. 

4. Book(s) you’re reading now

"The Donzerly Light" by Ryne Douglas Pearson (seriously intriguing and kinda freaky)

"A Walk in the Snark" by Rachel Thompson (okay, but not really my thing)

"The Big Sky, By and By" by Ed Kemmick (local journalist, true stories from Montana, fascinating people)

5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read

Half or more of the books I was assigned in college, fiction and non-fiction. Who has the time to read, study *and* work full time? I skimmed them all, and still managed to get decent grades... 

6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover

You're seriously going to make me admit this? Fine. 

"When You Dare" by Lori Foster is one - for the cover and the trailer. Because I adore half-naked men. Well, most men, actually, but...I should really just stop there....

To redeem myself, I also bought "Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance" by Sara Poole for the cover. I still haven't read it, but I love how it looks on my nightstand...and I do want to read it eventually - sounds really good (historical thriller).

7. Book you’re a champion for

"Society of the Mind" by Eric L. Harry. It's a hardcore cyber-thriller two inches thick, but buried in the freaky AI-based plot is a lot of deep philosophizing that will just blow you away. Or it did me, anyways.

8. Book that changed your life

Well that's a tough one. Books have been quite literally shaping my life since I could read...so maybe we'll go with the McGuffy Readers, which are some of the first books I read for actual "school time" when I was home schooled at an early age. I still have them around somewhere, and they are veritable smorgasboards of literature, poetry and bits of wisdom, all bound up in unassuming volumes. 

Cliche as it sounds, the Bible had a profound impact on me as well...both philosophically and as far as prose and story-telling goes. 

9. Book you most want to read again for the first time

"Gone with the Wind", perhaps. Or "Call of the Wild" by Jack London. I often re-read cheap romance novels, but I'd love to experience those two again as if reading for the first time. 

Then again, it wouldn't be the same experience now, would it? Would my adult perceptions hinder that first-time enthusiasm, I wonder? 

10. Book you turn to for comfort

Hmm...I think I mostly need escape more than comfort from books. When I'm stressed or need a serious mental break, I'll mainline romance novels - preferably Harlequin Blaze, one after the other for *days* on end. I think because the core of a romance novel is hope, and the promise that everything will work out okay in the end.  

11. Favourite line from a book

"Jo never, never would learn to be proper, for when he said that as they stood upon the steps, she just put both hands into his, whispering tenderly. "Not empty now," and stooping down, kissed her Friedrich under the umbrella." - Jo March, Little Women *sigh* 

Thanks Dolly - this was fun!