Books are why we work...

See, housing costs money, and you need a house to keep your books in so that they don't get wet or blow around too much. If it weren't for books you wouldn't need a house and could just live under a bridge someplace, which is a lot cheaper and would therefore allow you to retire now.

In an homage to the spirit of books, I'll take up this meme from Phlegmmie via RobertaX:

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?
I avoid lots of probably perfectly good modern fiction because it bores me to tears. Like I've said elsewhere on this blog: "Look, if I want to read about failed relationships, career problems, family struggles, and substance abuse, I'll write a friggin' diary. The characters in the books I like to read have problems, too, but they usually solve them with laser beams or tactical nuclear warheads. I read these books because I wish I could solve my problems that way, too. This is called "escapism", and is why most folks seek entertainment in the first place." I just can't find interest in tales of finding a boyfriend or fixing a flat tire when there are books about rescuing a boyfriend from the Valley of the Trolls or fixing a busted stardrive out there to be read.

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?
I've actually pondered this one before. I'd like an evening of dinner and drinks with two of my favorite fictional bad boys, Dr. Lecter and Lestat, as they were before their respective authors ruined them. (After Silence of the Lambs and Queen of the Damned, respectively, both these characters were put in, to use Dr. Lecter's brilliant phrase, "moral dignity pants".) The third character's a toughie, because I've always envisioned just the two. Let's occupy the open place setting with... Hmm... Perhaps Woodrow Wilson Smith? He ought to have quite a fund of good stories.

You are told you can't die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it's past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?
While The Fountainhead is a strong contender for "Most Efficient Conversion of Wood Pulp to Sominex", I am forced here to admit that I have a beautiful hardbound copy of Don Quixote given me by a friend of my father's back in... oh... ninth grade? The bookmark has advanced all of perhaps seventy-five pages in the intervening twenty-five years. At an average clip of three pages per year, I'll be dust and bones long before I'm finished.

Come on, we've all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you've read, when in fact you've been nowhere near it?
I'm pretty honest when it comes to what I've read and what I haven't. Tower of ego that I am, I'm not worried about people thinking less of me for not having read something.

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to 'reread' it that you haven't? Which book?
Y'know, this has never happened to me. The closest approach was when I re-read Anthem a couple of years ago for the first time since the eighth grade. It was not at all the story I remembered. Which was a pleasant surprise, actually, because I remembered it being positively awful and as dull as watching paint dry.

You've been appointed Book Advisor to a VIP (who's not a big reader). What's the first book you'd recommend and why? (if you feel like you'd have to know the person, go ahead of personalise the VIP.
If my VIP has not actually sat down and read 1984, he's about to.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?
Latin. Definitely. I want to read Tacitus and Caesar and Cicero and Polybius and the rest in the original. It pains me, when reading older works in history (and especially military history), to come across a quotation in Latin or Greek that is left untranslated, because it reminds me how woefully uneducated I am.

A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?
Hah! Don't throw me in that briar patch! The list of books I already re-read at least once a year is long enough that if it gets much longer, I won't have time to read new books. LOTR is the ceremonial one, though. I've made it a point to re-read it once a year since I was about twelve.

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What's one bookish thing you 'discovered' from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?
Were it not for my imaginary friends on teh intarw3bz, I never would have discovered Terry Pratchett and his wonder-full Discworld. Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she's granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.
Y'know, I was going to do something elaborate here when I realized that I'm looking at a wall of boxes twenty-five feet long by four feet high by two feet deep. If I can find someplace to park them that has a sheltered porch with a comfortable chair, a place to set a beer, and a good friend or two who can enjoy an afternoon spent in the companionable silence of reading, I'm golden. "A good read, a bottle of Ruination, and thou. O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"