My favorite book:
Has a female character who is in excruciating pain, every minute of every damn day. There is also a man in a well. Do you know what it is?
[Brockman's note: Readers are welcome to help me cheat by writing to brockman@powells.com.]

The last book I threw at the wall was:
101 Ways to Resist Gouging Out Your Eyes While Tom Cruise Expounds the Merits of Scientology

The last good book I threw at someone's head was:
I don't know if I've ever thrown a book at someone's head. Clearly I'm missing out on something.

Did that person deserve to have a book thrown at his/her head?
Admittedly no. But putting them in a burlap bag and throwing them in the river would have taken too long.

Did said book cause any damage to the target's head?
Nah. His ego's too big. It's like a protective kevlar shell.

Do you regret throwing that book at the target's head?
No; she'd do the same for me.

If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?
The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

And I'm especially fond of this one, which wasn't on the original questionnaire:

Describe yourself in one word.
Unable to follow instructions.

Thanks to all for the emails. I must confess, I'm slightly weak-kneed and trembly-chinned at the moment, awed and overwhelmed as I am to have so many unrepentantly vicious and creatively snarktastic readers. Just don't ever come to my house or I'm calling the police on the lot of you.

"We were famous and underworked," began the manuscript. "We never lacked for kibble. At least those of us who read had something to look forward to after closing. Most of us liked most everyone, a few of us despaired of specific employees, one or two store cats in Portland loved everybody and everything, even the dark winter weeks drowned in rain. Those who did were shunned for months at a time, through the whole of our long wet season, when a chummy reminder that showers make flowers 'and worms and tasty bugs and so forth' — shut it! — could drive splinters into our scalp. Grant us our cabin fever! Paws off the hallowed gripes that mark our days."

Bear comes to the end of the passage and looks up from the page. Fup pretends she isn't waiting for his response. As if, lo, she's entirely forgotten that he's reading her memoir.

"Just a first draft," she reminds him.

"A bit derivative of Ferris, wouldn't you say?"

Fup corrects him: "The French would call it an homage. Read on."