I got this book survey from Literaticat, whose LiveJournal is subtitled "What the Tuxedo Cats Saw" -- which just slays me, being the utter adoring maidservant to two tuxedo cats myself. Anyway, I'm a sucker for a survey and this one makes you try to be DEEP -- but I just answered with the first things that came into my head.

1. What is the first book you remember reading?

Where Did You Come From? a sex-explanation book for the preschool set. I must have been four.

2. What is your favorite book?

Pride and Prejudice. (You'd never guess it's hysterically funny and achingly romantic from the prissy cover, but it is.)

3. Who is your favorite author?

Jane Austen, PG Wodehouse.

4. Pick up the nearest book (magazine or any available printed material will do). Turn to page 24 (or the closest to it). Go to the 7th line. What is it?

"The prince had put an extra-high polish on his eyepiece and was all set to begin dancing for his doughnuts." -- from Wine, Women & Words by old time theater empresario and one-time husband of comedienne Fanny Brice, Billy Rose. The book, weirdly, is illustrated by Salvador Dali.

5. If you could be any character in literature, who would you be?

I'd like to be Mary Poppins.

6. Name ten novelists who come to your mind right off the bat as folks you love to read--no snobbery permitted:

1. P.G. Wodehouse
2. John Irving
3. Michael Chabon
4. Jane Austen
5. Charlotte Bronte
6. Charles Dickens
7. Cynthia Heimel
8. Ruth Krauss
9. David Sedaris
10. JK Rowling

Krauss wrote picture books and Heimel and Sedaris write humorous essays, so my list is faulty. So sue me. These are the writers I like!

7. Name three poets that come to mind that matter to you, no "grad seminar mugging" permitted:

I am shockingly unmoved by poetry. The only poet I have read for my own enjoyment in the last five years is Ogden Nash.

8. What three non-fiction books made a deep impression on you?

1. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf
2. Into Thin Air, by John Krakauer
3. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich

9. What three science fiction authors intrigue you this moment?

Hm. I am not much of a SF reader. Can I answer for teen fiction?
In that case:
Lara Zeises -- because I just read the excerpt of her new book, Anyone But You, on her website
Joseph Weisberg -- because I heard him read and the story just knocked me out
Melvin Burgess, because he's so intriguing and fearless, and I haven't read Doing It yet.

10. What is the last mystery novel you read?

N is for Noose, by Sue Grafton (actually, I listened to it on audio; but I figure that counts). I prefer Grafton on audio -- the suspense is greater somehow.