Books are good. Let's not make our educational system look any more pitiful by forgetting how to read a paper novel. There's some god stuff and some not so good stuff for sale these days. My tastes in reading material sometimes learn towards the strange, but it's not like I'm forcing it on you. You're free to leave. Go on, leave!

Stiil here? Great. Below I've listed and rambled about some of my favorite books and authors. And even more below that, I will talk a bit about some of my other intellectual interests. You won't be disappointed. Unless you are, in which case we do not offer a money back guarantee.

Christopher Golden
Author of many, many great genre books. His novels based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer are the best out there, probably because he's a fan of the show and is an avid watcher. He currently has a series of original novels titled Body of Evidence, and is working on The Ferryman, which will be out in May 2002. I am proud to be a member of his Wicked Street team.

Laurell K. Hamilton
I was exposed to her Anita Blake series by my good friend, Phil, several years ago. I wasn't sure I would like it, but wow. How can you go wrong with vampires, werewolves, and a vampire hunter? Hamilton is also working on a fey series with a main character name Merry Gentry. Unfortunately, I think Merry spilled over into the Anitaverse, so the 10th Blake book, "Narcissus in Chains" came out a bit like a bad car wreck. Even so, I eagerly await the next book.

Laura Zigman
Okay, so her books aren't going to win any literary awards, but I still love Animal Husbandry. It's the story of a bitter, lonely woman who has bad relationships and... ends up a lonely woman, but no longer quite as bitter. The movie "Someone Like You" was based off the book, but they rewrote the original ending to make it more audiance-friendly. Pfft. Hollywood.

Mythology
I have always loved Greek and Egyptian mythology. They always had the best characters and gods, as well as the most twisted, crazy stories. For awhile, anything that I had place a label on was named after a mythological character. Yes, I watched Hercules and Xena like all the other fantasy nuts, but after watching an episode I would go and look up the "god of the week" and find out what the real story was. Naturally, my love of mythology led to...

Latin
Yes, the dead language. I am still trying to teach myself basic Latin. It's not going too well, but I'm still trying. I can piece together tiny phrases (most likely inaccurately) as long as I have a comprehensive dictionary, but that's about it.

Japanese
I watch too much anime. That's it. There's no other reason I am so determined to learn another language for which I have no practical use. I have picked up some basic words and phrases for hours and hours of anime, j-pop, and j-rock, but the basic grammar structure escapes me.

Elvish and Tengwar
Lord of the Rings. Haven't read the book, but Tolkien was a mad genius and the move rocked. It's almost predictable that I would become one of the hardcore language fans. I'm currently trying to teach myself Sindarin and tengwar. Fun, fun stuff. Very pretty language.