Lisa's tagged me for the Book Meme, and after writing down all my answers, then realizing (oops!) that I'd just rewritten all the same ones I used last time I did this meme, here's my updated, this-year-only version!

1. One book that changed your life
Last time I mentioned that Emma Bull's War for the Oaks and Terri Windling's The Wood Wife were the two books that seduced me into fantasy at different stages of my life. (Actually, that's how I answered this question this time round, too, till I checked back with the old entry and realized I was repeating myself!) This time...

Jane Eyre. Reading it when I was a kid blew me away, started my lifelong addiction to 19th-century novels, and is probably one of the biggest reasons why I write historical novels now. (Discovering Elizabeth Peters's wonderful Amelia Peabody series, five years later, just reinforced this trend!)

2. One book you have read more than once
I bought Caroline Stevermer & Patricia Wrede's The Grand Tour seven months ago and have already re-read it twice. So much fun! Regency travel! Magic! Opera! Tiaras! What's not to love?

3. One book you would want on a desert island

Something fat and rewarding. Probably a nineteenth-century novel...er...Middlemarch? Or maybe I would want something lighter and funnier, to counter the depression of being marooned. I'm going to switch back to my standard answer, which is anything by Jane Austen (or better yet, a big fat volume of her Collected Works).

4. One book that made you laugh
Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It's the only reason I no longer mind having been pressured into watching The Omen back in college - because it's made the book even funnier. But the best thing about the book is that it's hilarious even if you don't know the movie it's parodying.

5. One book that made you cry
The Time-Traveller's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. As I was coming to the end of it, reading in bed one night, I told Patrick, "Uh-oh, I feel a really tragic ending coming on."

"Maybe you'd better put it away until tomorrow morning, then, and read something lighter now," he suggested.

"Mmm...." I said.

Ten minutes later I started sobbing convulsively and threw myself into his arms for comfort.

He sighed and patted my back. "You read the ending, didn't you?" he said.

Yup.

6. One book you wish had been written
I wish Doris Egan had finished her SF series as Jane Emerson before being seduced away to Hollywood and television writing. Sigh.

7. One book you wish had never had been written
The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right, by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider. During my junior year of college, this was the most popular book on campus (and this was even at Oberlin! a famously left-wing campus! unbelievable), and it filled me with seething rage. I hate this book so much.

I finally managed to let out my rage with my one and only science fiction story, "Behind the Rules", which was published last year in a UK mag. (But if anyone ever wants to read this story, please email me for an electronic copy instead of buying a print copy of the magazine, OK? The formatting was so screwed-up in the magazine layout that the story is actually nearly impossible to read. The curse of The Rules continues...)

8. One book you are currently reading
The French Revolution, by Christopher Hibbert. Patrick, being a wonderful husband, went out to Waterstones yesterday and bought this one for me, and I'm enjoying it a lot.

9. One book you have been meaning to read
Tantalize, by Cynthia Leitich Smith. It looks like so much fun and exactly my kind of novel. If only it would finally arrive in the mail! (Finger-tapping impatiently...)

I'm not going to tag anybody this time round...but I'd love to read more answers from other people! (And if anyone wants to do this meme, please take this as a universal tag.)