A book that made you cry: The Kite Runner is my favourite made-me-cry book so far. I tend to avoid books that might make me cry, which unfortunately probably means I’m missing a lot of excellent reads.

A book that scared you: I was just thinking about this the other day. Anything by John Bellairs, who is the only horror novelist whose work I’ve ever enjoyed.

A book that made you laugh: Anything by Terry Pratchett. That man is a comic genius.

A book that disgusted you: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Racism, yuck.

A book you loved in elementary school: Anything Nancy Drew, particularly the old hardcovers. In grade 6 three of my friends and I had a Nancy Drew club. We even kept track of which ones we’d read.

A book you loved in middle school: Pride and Prejudice. First read it when I was thirteen, and it’s been my favourite book ever since.

A book you loved in high school: What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin. I already loved her book of short stories, English Lessons and Other Stories, and I’d read the novel once but hadn’t really fallen in love with it when I decided to compare it to Brave New World using feminist theory and post-colonial theory for my big grade 13 English essay. I read it twice more in the course of completing that assignment, and that’s when it became one of my favourite books.

A book you hated in high school: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Racism, yuck.

We had to read it for grade 13 English, and I’m not exactly sorry we read it, since it was a necessary prelude to the awesomeness that is Things Fall Apart. But Heart of Darkness was such a pain to read: it’s short, but so gratingly awful that it seemed much, much longer. I don’t know why I found this book so much more offencive than others; after all, both the Sherlock Holmes and the Father Brown stories can be quite disgustingly racist, and although the instances of it make me uncomfortable, it doesn’t stop the books from being some of my favourite mysteries.

I also hated E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News, but since I only read the first 50 pages or so, I can’t really count it.

A book you loved in college: The Caesars (or The Twelve Caesars) by Suetonius. My god, is it ever funny.

A book that challenged your identity: You know, I can’t really think of any, perhaps partly because I’m not entirely sure what the question is asking.

A series that you love: Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, which is not at all my favourite series, but it is my guilty pleasure. I continue to read it despite the fact that it is going rapidly downhill in terms of plot, and was already in hell in terms of grammar and punctuation. Seriously, has the woman (or her editor) never heard of the semi-colon?

Your favourite horror book: I don’t really read horror, although I guess Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere qualifies. Fantastic book.

Your favourite science fiction book: Something from Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga. Either Mirror Dance or A Civil Campaign, probably.

Your favourite fantasy: The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay. Or if that’s too much on the historical side of historical fantasy, Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry: The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire, and The Darkest Road.

Your favourite mystery: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, by Laurie R. King. Not only is it my favourite mystery novel, it’s also the first book in my favourite mystery series. None of the others are quite as good as the first, although O, Jerusalem comes very close.

Your favourite biography: I don’t read biographies, although I do remember enjoying one about Helen Keller when I was very young.

Your favourite “coming of age” book: The Only Alien on the Planet by Kristen D. Randle. I don’t know that it’s exactly a “coming-of-age” book, but it’s my favourite YA novel. I suppose The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm fits the criteria better, and I love it just as much.

Your favourite classic: Pride and Prejudice, no question. Jane Eyre, Persuasion, and Mansfield Park are also good.

Your favourite romance book: Pride and Prejudice, no question.

Your favourite book not on this list: Robertson Davies’s Deptford trilogy: Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders.

If you feel like doing it, consider yourself tagged, and please leave a link to your response in the comments so I can read it. I love reading memes like this.