I steer clear of books with ugly covers. And ones that are touted as 'sweeping,'_ 'tender' or 'universal.' But to the real question of what's inside: I avoid books that seem to conservatively follow stale formulas. I don't read for plot, a story 'about' this or that.

I like Baudelaire's sentences quite a lot. I read and re-read him very often.

I don't believe that intelligence can be reduced to a number, frankly. But I can see how doing exactly that produces a useful sorting mechanism in our society in order to separate children into categories of promising and doomed. The tests seem arbitrary and without real scientific value and yet have lasting consequences.

I got all my politics and culture and my sense of the great wide world of adults from 'Mad Magazine.' But all other comic books literally gave me a headache.

I know a little bit about motorcycles and motorcycle riding.

One is sometimes meant to reassure the reader that she's qualified to write about a certain topic.