Booksquare

Where we expected white smoke, we got a black spot. Darn that Happy Booker for crushing our aspirations. We know she’s trying to figure out where we park the Booksquaremobile after we’re done fighting crime. It’s so hard being a blogger of mystery.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?

This is the spinach versus french fries question. You know what’s good for you, but, man, salty snacks. So very fun. However, in the interest of preserving the printed word for all eternity, we must choose To Kill A Mockingbird. It is our signature book. Plus we get something different out of it every time we read it.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Yes!!!

What? You want names? So personal. Let us just suggest that our first crush was the very brave Johnny Tremaine. We’ve always had a thing for tricorn hats.

The last book you bought was…?

Empire Falls by Richard Russo. We cannot speak highly enough about the prologue. We bought it halfway through the sentence, “You know this is the first time we’ve ever walked by a bookstore without buying something.”

The last book you read was…?

You know, that’s a really good question in a search of a really answer. We have none. The book was Getting Things Done by David Allen. The husband thought it would inspire a desk-cleaning frenzy. It did not.

What are you currently reading?

• Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein. Bookclub leftover that we’re embarrassed to admit we didn’t finish.
• Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov. Our choice for next month’s bookclub meeting — we are hoping to supplement with Reading Lolita in Tehran.
• Between Two Rivers, Nicholas Rinaldi. Started and set gently aside when we thought Lolita was due in April. Darn time change, always messing with our mind!.

Five books you would take to a desert island…

• To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee. See previous.
• Welcome To Temptation, Jennifer Crusie. Still makes us laugh after all these years.
• Idoru, William Gibson. Can’t say why, but this one really spoke to us.
• House of Mirth, Edith Wharton. Best book ever (though we admit to changing like the weather).
• Where The Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak. We suspect we’ll be befriending turtles, and we also suspect they like books with pictures.

If there is room, we might also try to sneak a book on raft-building or cooking with coconuts into our backpack.

Who are you passing this stick on to and why?

• Brenda Coulter. She’s smarter than we are. And we’re curious.
• The Reluctant. So is he.
• David Thayer. See above.