Thank goodness for Litlove’s meme because blogging has been hard for me this week. It’s not that I don’t want to blog or visit, but lately work has been super busy so that’s left me with less free time and energy. Plus, I’m starting to freak out as I’ve got family coming in town next week and then I’m on vacation. I can’t wait for vacation but I still have to prepare for it. It’s going to be crazy at Casa Bookgirl.

Anyway, this weekend I plan to choose my books for the reading challenges I’m joining so hopefully I’ll be sharing those soon. Have a wonderful weekend and on to the meme:

List some of your favourite words: clandestine, azure, moxie, bohemian, hullabaloo

What’s your favourite maxim or proverb? In Mexico we use proverbs a lot so I have several I like but this is my favorite as my mom is always saying it to me because I’m so much like my dad.
De tal palo, tal astilla (a chip off the old block)

What’s your favourite quotation? The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. ~ Henry Miller

What’s your favourite first line of a novel? We came on the winds of the carnival. A warm wind for February, laden with the hot greasy scents of frying pancakes and sausages and powdery-sweet waffles cooked on the hotplate right there by the roadside, with the confetti sleeting down collars and cuffs and rolling in the gutters like an idiot antidote to winter. From Chocolat by Joanne Harris (I know that’s two lines but I couldn’t resist adding the second).

Give an example of a piece of description that’s really pleased you in your reading lately: I really liked how Anita Brookner describes the Hotel Du Lac. It’s not just a description of the building but what the hotel signifies. “The Hotel du Lac (Famille Huber) was a stolid and dignified building, a house of repute, a traditional establishment, used to welcoming the prudent, the well-to-do, the retired, the self-effacing, the respected patrons of an earlier era of tourism…. In this way the hotel was known as a place which was unlikely to attract unfavourable attention, a place guaranteed to provide a restorative sojourn for those whom life had mistreated or merely fatigued.”

Which five writers do you particularly admire for their use of language? Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo Neruda, Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, and Sandra Cisneros

And are there writers whose style you really dislike? Cormac McCarthy, Martin Amis, and Alice Walker

What’s the key to really fine writing, in your opinion? Creating believable characters

I saw this Q&A on Dewey’s blog the other day and had to borrow it.

What are you reading right now? I’m still reading Don Quixote, obviously at a very slow pace as I’m only on page 140. My other book is Sacred Cows by Karen E. Olson which is my last book in the Summer Mystery Reading Challenge. I first found out about this book because Karen has been kind enough to stop by my blog and comment. Then I read Literary Feline’s review of her book and I just knew it was time for me to read it too.

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that? I honestly don’t know right now. It’ll depend what mood I’m in when I pick up my next book.

What magazines do you have in your bathroom right now? None. No space in the bathroom for magazines. Just stuff from Origins.

What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read? Hmm, how about those math word problems. Seriously I hated those.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone? Love in the Time of Cholera.

Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they? They do. I know several librarians and if I stop in at the library and they are there that means my visit is going to be a lengthy one as I have to chat with them for a while before I get to the books.

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all? I know I’ve recommended Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man to a lot of people but either they never read it or they do and think it’s awful and are too nice to tell me they hated it.

Do you read books while you eat? While you bathe? While you watch movies or TV? While you listen to music? While you’re on the computer? While you’re having sex? While you’re driving? Sometimes while I eat if I’m at work. I love to use my lunch hour for catching up on my reading. No to all the others.

When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits? No, but I do remember friends always asking me for recommendations when we had to do book reports. I was only too happy to push books by Judy Blume, Paul Zindel and S.E. Hinton.

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?
The Book Thief.