A mildly belated intro:
1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?
If we're talking physical book, I'm not sure. My copies of V:TM books, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Dorothy Parker's Not Much Fun and Sylvia Path's Ariel are the sames ones I had in high school, but I'm trying to remember if I still have any of the books that I had as a child.
If we're counting things that I have rebought and thus owned a copy of since I was young, then it would be The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Charms, Spells, & Formulas, MacBeth, The Name of the Rose, and assorted Holmes books.
2. What is your current read, your last read, and the book you’ll read next?
I always have about 1 fiction and one non-fiction going.
Fiction: I just finished Johannes Cabal the Necromancer and loved it. I'm currently mid-way through The White Company (Doyle is my fav author) and next . . . maybe some more Doyle? Brigadier Gerald perhaps.
Non-Fiction: I finished The Air Loom Gang recently and found that the info (about early treatment for mental health and some espionage thrown in too) was bogged down by the writing. Right now I'm reading The Science of Sherlock Holmes which is rather basic for someone with a good background in 19th century science, but many of the case studies are new to me. Next, I'm not sure. Maybe London: a Biography.
3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
Most of the mainstream fantasy & horror new classics. I don't necessarily hate them, but I've been uninterested in Anne Rice, Laurel K Hamilton, Suki Stackhouse, Poppy Z Bright, Anne McCafferty, the Kushiel books, etc... Twilight I actually hate.
4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?
There are a lot of classics and reference books that I may not ever read cover to cover, but I at least read bits of everything I pick up. There are some books that I have in foreign languages that I may never actually read without translation. For example, I have a copy of the Book of Mormon in Greek, for the purpose of sheer randomness, but can't read it even if I ever wanted to.
5. Which book are you saving for "retirement?"
None. Not even the one that I am very slowly writing.
6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?
I don't want to get the ending early.
7. Acknowledgments: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
Very interesting and politic.
8. Which book character would you switch places with?
Not off hand. I can imagine myself added to most of the fictional worlds, but I'm not sure that there's a specific character in whose place I'd wish to be.
9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
Most of them do. I think of a time reading them, or a person with whom I've discussed it.
10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
I once read a thriller novel that I found abandoned in a dorm lobby and them returned it to the windowsill where I found it.
One that answers both this question and the next is a Bible that I found in a hotel room in San Antonio. It wasn't a Gideon, though there was one of those in the drawer too. It was stamped all over with "do not remove from chapel" so I gave it to my then best friend, the intellectual & irreverent, danfishback.
11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?
I gave a very pretty illustrated copy of The Wizard of Oz to an elementary school best friend that was moving away.
12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and my V:tM books were with me during my itinerant phase, I brought Frommer's Guide to the UK, and I usually have a blank book, a puzzle book, and a book to read in my bag at any given time.
13. Any "required reading" you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?
Most of it. I really disliked how literature was taught in high school, as they found ways to make excellent books unbearable. The Great Gatsby comes to mind.
14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?
Dorothy Parker's obituary cut from a newspaper. I kept that.
15. Used or brand new?
Cheap! Besides, used books have histories of their own that makes them more interesting.
16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
Both, depending on the book. Honestly, my favourite stuff of his is the less popular works (or non-horror in the case of Rita Hayworth & the Shawshank Redemption). Word Processor of the Gods may be my very favourite short story, but I also quite like Popsey and The House on Maple Street. His fantasy novel, The Eyes of the Dragon, is at least as good as any other fantasy novel written in the late 20th century. He has other short stories where even if I don't love the whole thing there are ideas or scenes that I find incredibly memorable; I want a typewriter full of fornits, and I navigate like Mrs. Todd. A lot of his mainstream horror, particularly his recent (last couple of decades) works, I find fall flat.
17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
Maybe Stardust, actually. Fairy Tales involve people that simple do things because it is their role, not because they have much clear personality or motive, so I liked knowing who people were in the film version. It made me care.
Oh, and Lot No. 249. The short story is simple good vs evil horror. The film adaptation for Tales from the Darkside: the Movie put a fantastic Poe-esque spin on the characters and their motives resulting in a deliciously evil scholar's revenge.
18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
Where the Wild Things Are. I felt so cheated that I cried. In the book, Max goes off to play in his imagination because he's in trouble back home, but misses his family, and upon returning, discovers that even though he was in trouble, they still loved him. In the film, he discovered that Wild Things are screwed up and depressing, so there is no escape from reality in the world of imagination. Every thing sucks because that's what caring about people does to a social dynamic.
19. Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?
I don't think so.
20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?
My dear friend and fellow neo-vic geekette, heleneotroy.