Gacked from bookwormsarah .

1) The worst reading experience that you have ever had?
I made myself read the much lauded Lord of the Rings during the summer vac when I was 20. I was bored out of my brain and  very glad when the time came to finally put it down. Now I shake my head in disbelief that I made myself do that. Today, I'd have discarded it after a couple of chapters. Life's too short and that book's too long! (I gave up on the movie once Strider came into it.)

2) The best reading experience you have ever had?
Nothing has ever bettered reading and loving Five Go To Smuggler's Top, aged about 7, I think, at primary school. It began a lifelong love of crime fiction and George was an early feminist icon!

3) Which book has affected or influenced you the most so far?
Well, my favourite school stories (the Chalet School, Malory Towers and St Clare's and, later, Kingscote) must have had the most impact because I still collect girls' own books, wrote a murder-mystery novel set in the school-story world, and am now writing my own school stories.  But Germaine Greer's writing (1970s, not her more recent stuff) influenced my teenage feminism.

4) Have you ever read a book that you got really scared of?
Yes, when I was 16 I read a book called Devil Daddy by John Blackburn. I can't remember anything about it now other than that there was a character called Tania Levin in it. But it scared me so much the night I read it that I couldn't turn the light off.

5) What do you use as a bookmark?
Proper bookmarks.

6) When do you usually read? At home, work, while cooking, in the morning, noon, afternoon, before you go to bed...?
School holidays and weekends are when I do most of my reading. During term time, I'm busy book editing in the day and then ferrying my son to after-school sports, then getting dinner, getting him to bed, then I usually flop down with a glass of wine and a dvd. But weekends and school holidays are more relaxing (I usually don't work then) so I have time to read. 

7) Do you remember the first book that you read?.
Excluding good old Peter and Jane, the first 'proper' book I read was They Found a Cave by Nan Chauncy. I was at primary school in England and this was the first 'real' book I was allowed to borrow from the classroom library when I'd finished with Peter and Jane. The book was by a Tasmanian writer and set in Tasmania. Tasmania meant nothing to me then, but twenty years or so on I met my now husband in Tasmania, while I was backpacking and he (an Aussie) was on holiday.

8) Which do you prefer - paperback or hardcover?
Paperback. Except for old books, where I prefer hardback.

9) What are you currently reading? What page are you on?
Home Run by John Nichol and Tony Rennell. I'm on p. 366 (of 469).

10) Do you ever leave "a mark" (deliberate and/or not deliberate) in your books? For example, write in them, underline quotes, coffeemarks or food crumbs and etc.
No. As a student I underlined things, but now I don't.

11) Does the title, amount of pages and the cover affect you when you are considering a specific book?
The title is the thing that catches my eye, and then I read the back cover blurb and the first page or so. If the first few paras suck me in, I'm hooked. The amount of pages is irrelevant, as is the cover.

12) Do you ever browse through [to the last pages in order find out the ending?]
I usually have a quick peek up to four pages ahead of where I'm up to. Then get angry with myself because I find a spoiler!

13) Has knowing the ending of a book (example, through spoilers or a movie) ever made you decide whether you will read the book or not?
No. A book's not about the ending, it's about the journey. I'd even read a murder mystery where I knew the ending.

14) Is there a book that you have read more than five times?
The Go-Between by LP Hartley would be the only one, I think - it was an A-level text, and I like to re-read it during a very hot summer. Which is most summers here. I love that book.

15) Have you ever been in an accident where the book was the cause? (for example, almost getting hit by a car when reading while walking, or having stacks of books falling on you from a bookshelf...)
Not that I recall.

16) Do you sell/give away your books or do you keep them, even though you don't like one of them?
I generally keep my books, including the ones I don't like. Which is stupid, really, because they take up valuable shelf space.

17) Do you have some kind of book system, where you write down what you are reading, have bought, will read, will buy and etc?
I have a notebook where I list the books I read. I'm doing it on LJ too now.