The Quizmasters would not be thwarted by my closing my MySpace account

I received an odd email this weekend; it had a near frantic quality to it. It read, "What happened to your myspace account?" "Did I say something to piss you off?" "Why are you no longer on my friends list?" "Do this quiz!"

In order: I cancelled my MySpace account about 7 months ago. My canceling the account had nothing to do with you; I just lost interest so when I had to list all my email addresses and web pages for an employment background check, I just decided to close the account. I'm no longer on your friends list because I closed my account. I'll do the quiz because it's about books but don't take it as any encouragement to start emailing me quizzes with questions about who I've made out with and upon whom I currently have a crush.

What are your favorite books?

1. One book that changed your life:
"The Paragon" by John Knowles; it's a little weak in the rereading but it was very important to me in high school

2. One book that you've read more than once:
"The Drifters" by James A. Michener

3. One book you'd read in one day:
Lots. I read when I fly to distract me from the fact that I'm 30,000 miles off the ground

4. One book that made you laugh:
"Indecision" by Benjamin Kunkel

5. One book that made you cry [or feel really sad]:
"Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi and "Five Past Midnight in Bhopal" by Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro

6. One book that you wish you had written:
"Franny and Zooey" by JD Salinger

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
"The Informers" by Bret Easton Ellis

8. Author's career you most admire:
Saul Bellow

9. Author's life you most admire:
Martha Gellhorn (except for all the affairs with married men)

10. Which is the most overrated literary classic:
"Finnegans Wake" by James Joyce

11. The last book you finished reading:
On the subway - "Memories of my Melancholy Whores" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
At home - "Lord Vishnu's Love Handles" by Will Clarke

12. One book you're currently reading:
"Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn" by Caroline Moorehead

13. Books you've been meaning to read:
"A Thousand Suns" by Dominique Lapierre and "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" by Marisha Pessl

14. Books you recommend to friends:
Nonfiction - "All the Shah's Men" by Stephen Kinzer
Fiction - "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell

15. Best book recommendation someone recently gave you:
PJ, a summer intern at my office, recommended I read "Time and Again" by Jack Finney, when we were on a tour of the Bronx and I said that I wish I could have seen New York during the 20s, 40s and 60s

16. Literary character you would most like to have as a friend:
Salinger's Glass children or Phineas, aka "Finny," from "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles

17. Last book you received as a gift:
My friend Amy sent me "Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner and "Tokyo Cancelled" by Rana Dasgupta for my last birthday

18. Last book you gave as a gift:
"Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire" by Chalmers Johnson

19. Last book someone read to you:
I remember my friend Steven reading me an article out of The Economist but I don't remember anyone reading to me from a book

20. Now tag five people:
Don't need to, I'm posting it to my blog instead