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1. What author do you own the most books by?
Neil Gaiman (17, including comic collections); Douglas Coupland is 2nd place (8)

3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Absolutely not. I abhor that silly rule. I rather think that increases, rather than decreases, my literary geek pedigree.

4. a. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Well, it wouldn’t be a secret. That said…holy crap, I really don’t know. All the literary characters I like are too seriously messed up to be dating material.

b. What fictional character would you most like to be?
M. Drapier (Swift, The Drapier Letters)

c. What fictional character do you think most resembles you?
Richard Mayhew from Neverwhere and most of Douglas Coupland’s male leads

5. What book have you read the most times in your life?
Stephen King, On Writing. I’ve read it at every stage of my writing and reading development, and I find something new each time.

6. What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Probably some crappy Star Trek novel. Can’t say I remember.

7. What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

8. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Douglas Coupland, Life After God. And from the explicitly religious category, Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis.

9. If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Both of no. 8, and for writers, Stephen King, On Writing.

10. Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
Oh, this is the question where we’re all supposed to say someone we like who we know has no chance. I’ll stick with Douglas Coupland, though I’m not sure he’s made enough of an international impact to earn it (no, I’m sure he hasn’t). If I’m being somewhat more serious, then Salman Rushdie or Philip Roth, though I’ve read nothing of either.

11. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
John Milton, Paradise Lost (think a Robert-Zemeckis-esque epic, eg, Beowulf)

12. What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
I’m actually open to any of my favorites being made into movies. They almost always make crappy movies, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing them.

13. Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I forget my dreams soon after having them.

14. What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
I consider Harry Potter, all of them, pretty lowbrow. But not nearly as lowbrow as the Torchwood books that I’ve either just completed (The Twilight Streets) or am reading right now (Almost Perfect).

15. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence

16. What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
I haven’t seen any of the obscure ones.

17. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Russians, from what little I know of either

18. Roth or Updike?
Neither, yet.

19. David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
David Sedaris

20. Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Milton. Shakespeare=maybe the greatest literary genius of all time, but not the greatest poet. Chaucer=the greatest poet before Milton. 

21. Austen or Eliot?
Austen, though this isn’t entirely fair, as I haven’t read Eliot yet.

22. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Poetry and drama, in general. Also, since I love novels, it’s pretty embarassing that I’ve read only parts of Don Quixote and none of Ulysses. And finally, there are huge swaths of the Hebrew Bible I haven’t read, and parts of the New Testament that I’ve read but cannot recall with any precision.

23. What is your favorite novel?
For a few years now, it’s been American Gods by Neil Gaiman, but he’s receding into the background as I read more and more Douglas Coupland. My favorite from Coupland is Life After God, followed closely by Microserfs and The Gum Thief. 

25. Poem?
Long or epic poem is Paradise Lost and Milton’s Volume of 1673 (Paradise Regain’d and Samson Agonistes). Short poem is Swift, Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift.

26. Essay?
Maybe essays should be added to the list of gaps, as well–I tend to avoid Emerson and Thoreau and Freud and most of the great essayists. If I may be permitted to go all literary fancy-pants on my readers, I’ll first cite 2 PMLA articles that have deeply influenced my thinking: “The Ethics and Practice of Lemony Snicket: Adolescence and Generation X” by Laura Langbauer and “Confronting Religious Violence: Milton’s Samson Agonistes” by Feisal G. Mohamed. Absolutely anything by the iMonk, Michael Spencer, ranks among my favorites. The general and story introductions in Harlan Ellison’s (ed.) Dangerous Visions are astounding, and I recommend them (more so than the stories they precede) to any serious fan of sf. But to pick absolutely one? The only candidate that’s even in the stratosphere is Toni Morrison’s Nobel lecture.