All this talk of books...should we do a survey m'dears, to garner the reading tastes of our find little group? We could even get some kind of thing on the go at some point where we read the same thing and then compare notes. I don't even want to think about the logistics of that. It's 3am. On with the show!

Please name your top three authors and your reasons for choosing them, if you would oblige (because asking for only one would just be unfair).

Your top three books?

Any books that you really loved when you were a bit younger?

The best thing you've read in 2008 is...?

What does reading do for you? What do you like about it, why do you indulge in it?

I'll have a go at answering but considering the time it took for me to articulate the questions properly I do not anticipate this going all too well. Fag break and will then get back to it.

Okay. Allez-y.

My top three authors, consistently, are Margaret Atwood, Douglas Coupland and Louis de Bernieres. I love Atwood for her astoundingly beautiful turn of phrase and for the way she can make the ordinary extraordinary with just sentences with stories like Cat's Eye and The Blind Assassin. Her metaphors ring like the most wonderful bells you've ever heard in The Handmaids Tale and Oryx and Crake, and in all her books she lets her imagination out in such inspiring ways. A chauvanist dystopia ringing with the Bible in The Handmaid, a warning about how we toy with love and nature in Oryx and Crake...books like The Blind Assassin can seem so simple if you don't pay attention to her clues. A true master.

I love Douglas Coupland for his ability to take the world as we see it, and tells us just what that means. He can turn three people living in the desert into an engaging essay about where humanity is going; use the story of four teenagers and their dead friend to warn us against complacency; explain beauty to us with a story of anonymity; always with a rapier wit and such an accessible voice. He's never stuffy, never uptight, always speaks to you like you know him. Yes, JPod sucked balls. But he can be forgiven for books like Generation X, All Families Are Psychotic, Eleanor Rigby, Girlfriend in a Coma...every time I read one of his books it instantly becomes my favourite of his novels.

And Louis de Bernieres I love for his imagination. Stories with a vague political allegory told in the voice of Saki with more imagination and lustre than that man had time to create. History made human. The same cutting cynicism coupled with boundlessly happy images. A city full of huge, magical black panthers and a priest who says the Bible, by logic, is one of Satan's lies and therefore should be discarded, while the rebels press in from the jungle? Yes please. Always with the same humour and the achingly intelligent, witty turn of phrase that makes me think of Saki. The sheer emotion he projects, without ever having to resort to horrible, flowery and needlessly flamboyent prose. So GOOD.

My three favourite books are 1984 by George Orwell, Generation X by Douglas Coupland, and The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood. Honourable mentions to The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman and Captain Corelli's Mandolin by de Bernieres; also, the entire Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, anything by Terry Pratchett, Crime and Punishment and Mr Sherlock Holmes. I love them all for various reasons; but individual imagination, humour, voice and metaphor are things I always love to read.

As a kid, I loved Blyton. I think I read every Famous Five novel. As I got a bit older, I really loved Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy; I read them when I was about 13-14, I think. They were my transition between younger books and older literature, and for that I love them. I have always detested Harry Potter.

Best read of 08 has been Crime and Punishment, which I finished in January. Joyce's Ulysses comes a close second.

I love readinf because it makes my brain wake up. Without it, I start to kind of wilt mentally. I consume books when I have time to do so, and even when I don't. I don't know how many I've read or have picked up in the charity shops. Without reading my conversation and ability to hold a train of thought take a sharp turn downwards.



Well. I felt like talking about books. Sorry if it makes little to no sense. Bedtime now. Night night loves.