a q&a thing
You’re getting this newsletter on a Monday instead of last Saturday because yet again, I completely forgot about it. Things are just insane right now, and I’m actually really depressed (one maybe good thing about being neurodivergent is I learned to mask very early in life) so there’s a possibility of me going on a hiatus at some point? Apologies to my three readers.
This is a Q&A thing that is in every issue of Shelf Awareness. I decided to do it for funsies.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
Well I don’t have a book to handsell! But if I did write one rn it’ll probably be about queer isolation and adulting as a millennial who’s grown up with “it gets better” messages and realising that for some people, it really doesn’t get better.
On your nightstand now:
Y’all can afford nightstands? Okay for real though, on the cardboard box next to my bed are:
Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice, which I am trying to reread but it’s difficult when the font is so tiny it gives me a headache. My older edition had more readable font but I lost it.
The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian by Lloyd Alexander, which I got halfway in while on holiday and now the holiday is over, I never seem to be in the right mood to continue.
Breaking the Magic Spell by Jack Zipes, which is fun for reading in the mornings and not so much at night, so I probably should move it back to my bag instead of my “night stand”.
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, the Cherry Tree farm books by Enid Blyton, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
And writing all these now makes me realise why I’m so into cottagecore aesthetics! Lol.
Your top five authors:
Alive ones: Megan Whalen Turner, Holly Black, TJ Klune, Alice Oseman, Seanan McGuire. Oh look, lots of fairies and wholesomeness.
Dead ones: Diana Wynne Jones, Ursula Le Guin… and I know there are more but I can’t remember right now.
Book you’ve faked reading:
I’m pretty sure I’ve inadvertently faked reading like dozens of books just because I know about them and can tell people about them when asked, at work.
Book you’re an evangelist for:
Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones, and Tam Lin by Pamela Dean.
Book you’ve bought for the cover:
So many YA books! Only about half of them lived up to the covers but I guess that’s fine, because the times when they do, they really do.
Book you hid from your parents:
I hid most books from my parents as a younger teen, especially since they expected me to still only read Enid Blyton etc. - when I’ve read Frankenstein and It at a much younger age, too! Most of the books I hid were romances because they thought I was too young for them, but the joke’s on them because I’m aro/ace.
Book that changed your life:
I’ve written about this many times already so I won’t elaborate, but - Girl Goddess #9 by Francesca Lia Block.
Favorite line from a book:
Ugh, there are so many! One of the last ones I wrote in my Hobonichi Weeks: “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” From The Shining by Stephen King.
Five books you’ll never part with:
Girl Goddess #9 by Francesca Lia Block
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
You might wonder why Tam Lin isn’t in here - well, I figure in a desert island scenario, ONE Tam Lin book should do, and I do want a DWJ book with me.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
There are so many, but the thing is, I don’t just want to read them again for the first time - I want to experience the exact same thing, which means being in the same situation as I was the first time I read them.
Reading The Neverending Story for the first time wouldn’t be the same if I wasn’t swapping the copy I was reading back and forth with my then-best friend so that we could both read it together. Reading Girl Goddess #9 for the first time wouldn’t be the same if I wasn’t so young and alienated and didn’t know that I was a mutant. Reading Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January wouldn’t be the same if I wasn’t as isolated physically from the world as I was mentally, deep in the third month of lockdown in an apartment by myself, reading while wishing to find a door out to another world.
It really is a case of the right books coming at the right time, isn’t it? So maybe instead, I wish for the right book for me to read now to find me, so that I can read it for the first time.
Stay safe and drink more water!