Blog Talkers: What book is on your nightstand now? Tell us about it, post a blurb. If you're reading it, do you like it? If you haven't started, what are your expectations? Would you recommend it to a good friend? What type of stories do you like to read the most often? Why?

I'm reading the last in the The Circle trilogy by Nora Roberts, her vampire paranormal fiction try. The writing is ok but I find her books kind of drag on and then have a few good spots, just enough to keep you going to the end. But, overall I wouldn't add her as one of my favourites.

I don't keep books on my nightstand. I always have the book I'm reading crammed into my purse for any moment I manage to get away for a coffee after work and before catching the bus for home/ work.

My favourite reading is something science fiction. I really like stories about the end of the world/ civilization and how people manage to regroup and survive a huge change to their lifestyle and the planet itself. I read one (which I can't remember the title or author now) about having a biochemical in the air which caused all oil based products, like plastic, gas, etc, to break down and dissolve. That made an interesting story, had a huge impact on everyday life and the planet too.

I also read paranormal fiction. Also known as the vampire stuff. I resisted all the vampire stuff for a few years as it become more and more popular. I finally started reading it cause the writers I like were writing it. I still am not a vampire groupie but I like the aspect of it being another culture, underground and yet existing with the everyday. I think the book I have most liked lately as just a story idea was Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. It was also an underground culture, existing on the fringes of our own. Mainly I like anything written well, not violent and gross, which is about something really creative which show a change in the day to day existence, an option not considered in the everyday normal stuff.

Do you recycle your books once you have read and finished with them? I tend to keep most of my non-fiction books but I take all the fiction to a used/ second hand bookstore. I exchange them for new books (new to me). It’s also a really great way to find older books by an author you have just discovered. I’m often lucky and can pick up all the old books for half or less of what I would have paid in the bookstore, if I could find them all in a new bookstore. Stores selling new books can’t commit a lot of shelf space to the older books which won’t sell as well as whatever is the latest.

I also like recycling the books cause there are a lot of trees in those pages. It’s great if I’m not the only one to use that book. I wonder how many readers a book gets sometimes. I tried Book Crossing but no one has ever reported a book I shipped out with the BookCrossing information on it. I have pretty much given up on it. Besides, the second hand stores didn’t really care for the books I had written the BookCrossing tag into.

What do you do with books once you’ve read them? My Mother likes to read them, sleep with them, bathe with them. In the end the books are really dog eared. I’ve rescued a few before she throws them away but she likes to be the last one to read each book. Even though she knows it’s not the best choice as far as the environment and that she could get new books by exchanging them, she just likes to do it her way. I didn’t try too hard to reform her, what can you really do with your Mother?

When you get one of those good book in a cozy nook with the perfect smooth coffee and a little bit of something sweet and decadent, what kind of coffee and decadence are you having? For me its a chocolate swirl cheesecake or in ice cream its vanilla storm, or gold medal ribbon or a DQ chocolate dipped cone. Coffee changes for me. When I was a young adult going to the Second Cup in the Scarborough Town Centre I would always get a mocha coffee. That was when they made it with a mocha bean, they don't seem to have that any more. Now I like the Ethiopian or French vanilla from the Timothy's coffee place in the Newmarket, Upper Canada Mall. When I'm in the US its hard to find a good coffee. Barnes and Nobles is the only mega bookstore near us so I drag my husband there every month or so. Coffee just hasn't fully caught on in the US. At least that's what I have come to conclude.

The best thing I like to do on a laid back weekend day is browse around one of those mega bookstores, take the odd bit of notes in my notebook and dawdle over a good coffee. In Canada, Chapters is my favourite store. In the US I like Borders best but they don't have an outlet close enough. I'm hoping one will suddenly spring up.

Oddly enough, one thing I have not done is get a piece of cheesecake or anything like that when I'm in the bookstore. Either I'm being figure conscious or I just want to spare the books getting anything messy on them. Probably some of each. Its such a nice way to spend an hour or two I'd hate for the stores to change their way of doing things and stop people from browsing with their coffee. I have seen some pretty messed up books in the sale racks. Not just a little crumb or a tiny spill of coffee. Some of the books have been very badly damaged. I bought one for 75% off, it was about making rustic furniture. It was a treat for me to be able to buy the book. I wouldn't have if it had been full price. But I doubt the book's writer or the bookstore would feel pleased about it. Its a shame people aren't more careful.

I'm not an angel or some perfect puritan type. I think I'm stretching the rules when I make notes of the odd URL from the books and magazines I skim. I don't usually walk out without buying something, I tend to know what I want to get when I go in there. But, its not exactly ethical to take the information from the books I'm not buying. Still, I reason that the URLs themselves are public knowledge and public property. I don't think the book's writer can copyright the URL, just their review of the site and the rest of the book or magazine article's content. So, I go ahead, feeling at least a little guilty.

Chances are I will be a book store employee in my next life. I'll spend eight hours a day putting books away and being pleasant to people who have just dumped a cup of coffee on the rustic furniture book, originally selling at $50. At least I'll have an employee discount, though I'll have spent my pay cheque before I leave the store.