literary junkies - june update

1. What are you reading? Tell us about it!

I just started Part 2 of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, and let me just say, this book is insane.  I can't exactly say that I like it - the main characters are not good people - but it's written in such an interesting way that I feel like I owe it to myself to read the whole thing.

2. Library or bookstore?

My mom taught me to love the library at an early age, signing me up for the summer reading program at our local branch every year and taking me to get new books every week since the school library didn't let me get as many as I wanted!  In my childhood hometown, our library has gone through three different buildings in my lifetime, getting bigger and bigger with each upgrade.  In my new town, we have a really nice downtown library that Mr. Q and I both belong to, but I'm super spoiled to be a YA lover who works in a middle school - my classroom is right beside the library and the secretary lets me know when a new book I'll like has arrived!

3. What book(s) have you read and re-read several times?

I've read all of the Harry Potter books and all of Jane Austen's novels several times, I read Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth in both high school and college, and I've read The Outsiders about 46 times now since I teach it as a class novel!

4. What is the first book that made you fall in love with reading?

Oddly enough I can still remember the first book I was able to decode as a toddler - it was a Little Golden Book about Donald Duck and his nephews.  I don't remember why I liked it so much, but my parents had read it to me so many times that I memorized the text, then started to match the words I knew to the letters on the page.  I was super proud of myself and wanted to "read" the book to everyone I saw.  The first books I remember loving in elementary school were the Henry and Mudge series - I used to pretend that I was Henry and my dog was Mudge, and I'd reenact their adventures.

5. Who's your favorite author? Tell us so we can binge-read!

This is a crazy hard question!  If it's binge-reading you're in the mood for, I consider Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series the literary equivalent of Pringles.  In terms of an author who I actually want to be real life friends with, YA fantasy author Maggie Stiefvater has an amazing way with words (I use her book The Scorpio Races to teach my students about figurative language) and is very kind in person - I met her at an English teacher's conference. My favorite book of hers is The Raven Boys.