jlh | I should be in the damn shower, but I'm doing a meme instead

Hardback or Paperback? Paperbacks are snugglier. I also hate the covers on hardbacks and always take them off.

Highlight or Underline? Only in schoolbooks. I highlight history, etc, but underline literature.

Lewis or Tolkien? Neither.

E.B. White or A.A. Milne? White, because he lived in Maine.

T.S. Eliot or e.e. cummings? cummings all the way.

Stephen King or Dean Koontz? King, because he is also a Mainer.

Barnes & Noble or Borders? Borders, because they have a better manga section (not in the teen books, thanks) and an actual erotica section.

Waldenbooks or B. Dalton? I grew up with Waldenbooks, but while I like Borders and will use B&N for the public space and the bathrooms, I'd rather a private bookstore.

Fantasy or Science Fiction? Fantasy, but really mystery. (See S. King's review of GoF.)

Horror or Suspense? Neither.

Bookmark or Dogear? Bookmark. I have a ton of 'em.

Hemingway or Faulkner? Hemingway. Faulkner is really, really, really looooong. (Okay, maybe that was just Light in August, but still.)

Fitzgerald or Steinbeck? Fitzgerald is one of my top five writers, ever.

Homer or Plato? Plato. Hate those epithets.

Geoffrey Chaucer or Edmund Spenser? Chaucer. He's bawdy.

Pen or Pencil? Depends. Pencil if I'm scratching out things, pen if I want to keep my notes as pencil fades and rubs off.

Looseleaf or Notepad? Notepad.

Alphabetize: By Author or By Title? My books are not alphabetized because I don't really have that many of them here. They are grouped by category.

Dustjacket: Take it off and leave it safely at home.

Novella or Epic? Epic, unless you are Fitzgerald.

John Grisham or Scott Turow? Um, they made some good movies from Grisham? but I haven't read either.

J.K. Rowling or Lemony Snicket? JKR. I hate Snicket; I hate Dahl mostly; I hate tortured kids books. They upset me.

John Irving or John Updike? I don't really love either of them. Irving is fine so far as he goes but he can be a bit twee. I started reading Rabbit, Run about ten years ago and thought, you, sir, are an egotistical moron. That said, I really enjoyed Memories of the Ford Administration, but perhaps because it was a lovely mix of history and fiction.

Fiction or Non-fiction? both!

Historical Biography or Historical Romance? Sort of both. I'm a historian and I love biographies, but a close friend writes great historical romances, so I read her books.

A Few Pages per Sitting or Finish at Least a Chapter? I do subway reading, so a few pages.

Short Story or Creative Non-fiction Essay? Essay. I hate short stories, and I love essays.

"It was a dark and stormy night" or "Once upon a time"? Once upon a time.

Buy or Borrow? Buy. Books are friends. but I like borrowing, too.

Book Reviews or Word of Mouth? I like reading book reviews, when they are well written, but I don't rely on them to tell me what to read. That's more word of mouth. I think of book reviews as really another form of essay.