Yay, a Friday Five I can really relate to:

1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc.)?

I like reading anything that is words on paper. I read novels, nonfiction, and magazines the most, but I also adore poetry.

2. What is your favorite novel?

Middlemarch, by George Eliot. Favorite non-novel (book of essays): A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold.

3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!)

It depends on my mood. I like a lot of Emily Dickinson's stuff. I find myself reciting poems by Hugo and Verlaine I had to memorize in high school French. I like a lot of the Psalms. It's too hard for me to pick a favorite.

4. What is one thing you've always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read?

Someday I plan to read Proust. I wish I had more time to read about history - ancient history really fascinates me but most of the books written on it are so dense that I find it hard to get through them (especially since I do most of my reading before bed)

5. What are you currently reading?

Almost done with "Rise to Rebellion" by Michael Shaara - it's a historical novel about the early days of the American Revolution. I like it, and I feel I'm learning from it, but it's very much a "guy book" IMHO - there's not a tremendous amount devoted to the relationships or the inner feelings of many of the characters.

I just started "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. It's about string theory. Who knew that the most fundamental particle that makes everything up is yarn? (lol; yes of course that's a facetious oversimplification). "The New Physics" is sort of a pet interest of mine.

and I'm reading The St. Fiacre Affair, a Maigret novel, by Georges Simenon. I love these - they're so spare, and yet they capture France so well.