Today is the day dedicated to (you guessed it!) interviews. Please welcome Andrea, the Little Red Reviewer, to my blog! Andrea is a fellow foodie with a great attitude and REALLY great taste in fantasy novels. Her blog is mostly dedicated to sci-fi, fantasy, graphic novels and manga. She used to run read.eat.rinse.repeat, but has since switched directions. Go check out Little Red Reviewer for more of Andrea!
Who are some of your favorite authors?
Scott Lynch, China Meiville, Neal Gaiman, Cory Doctorow, Robin Hobb, Sheri S Tepper, Steven Brust, Stephen Lawhead, Patrick Rothfuss. I like weird, I like off kilter, I like melancholy.
Are there any genres that you refuse to read?
Refuse, no. Avoid? Yes. I tend to avoid self-help books and paranormal romance…but that doesn't mean I haven't read any enjoyed a few of them.
Do you have any hidden (or not-so-hidden) superpowers?
I always know the right thing to say. And the right moment to say it… to make you snort beer out your nose.
I don’t collect cookbooks the way I do fiction, but I do have a couple of go-to picks. Do you have a favorite cookbook?
My favorite cookbook is Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food. It's split up into parts of the world where Jews ended up and adopted many of the local food customs. The chapters on India and North Africa are my favorites, and the photos of Jewish families from around the world are wonderful. I plan to take to the Sunday School class I teach just to show the kids the photos. It's gotten to the point where if I see Claudia Roden's name on a cookbook (ethnic or not), I buy it.
What’s the best book you've read in the last month?
As much as I loved Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb, I think "book of the month" needs to go to For the Win by Cory Doctorow.
If you could invite literary characters to a dinner party, who would be at the table, and what would you serve?
Oooh, I like this question! It's like planning my fantasy party! Food would be a middle eastern feast - stuffed grape leaves, kibbeh, grilled lamb, rice salads, stuffed dates, baklava, warm pita, pickles, lots of hummus. My dinner guests would include Locke Lamora, Kvothe, George Koizumi and Caroline, Ed and Alphonse Elric, Vlad Taltos, Howl (cheat: I want the movie version!) Jon Snow, FitzChivalry, and Uther Doul. Yikes, that's quite the group of melancholies! We better have a case or two of good wine! And poor Caroline, she'd just be totally freaked out the whole time, but somehow I think George and Doul would get along famously.
Also…Locke Lamora and I need to have a private dinner. Involving sushi.
If you were trapped on a desert island, which books would you not take with you?
Who Moved My Cheese would totally be staying home, along with Shardik by Richard Adams. Richard Adams, I love you, but did you really have to torture me with Shardik? Yes, I know that was the point, but really?? The Chronicles of Thomas Covenent would probably stay home too.
What does your TBR pile look like right now?
It looks much like an exploding volcano. But with less boiling magma and more books.
One of the things I love about blogging is that I can recommend books to total strangers and not feel awkward or shy about it. Have you ever recommended a book to a stranger in real life?
I like going to garage sales and estate sales, and one moment you're digging through boxes and boxes of old books with a complete stranger, then next thing you're talking books and making recommendations…she said she liked Stephen King but was looking for something a little weirder, so I recommended Neil Gaiman, and then she asked if I'd read any Catholic Lesbian fiction (nothing against that genre, it just caught me completely off guard), and I quickly said umm no I'm Jewish. I still talk to complete strangers at estate sales while we're digging through the book boxes.
If you had to own a cow, what color would you choose?
Chocolate milk comes from brown cows, right? So yeah, brown.
Alright, last question, so be sure to press all your favorite things on me. Give me one book I absolutely have to read, one book blog I have to visit, and one fashion trend I have to avoid at all costs.
China Mieville's The Scar, Elitist Book Reviews, and skinny jeans *shudder*.
[photo found here]
Thanks for having me, and thanks for the great questions…especially the dinner party one!
Thank YOU, Andrea! Did you see how cool she is? She likes Neil Gaiman! And China Mieville! And FOOD! So obviously we were meant to be friends. Yay! If you want to check out Andrea's interview of ME, go HERE. You know you want to...
