Kristy Bell is a recovering naval officer who fulfilled a lifelong dream by opening Minerva Books in Petersburg, Va., in May 2008. She lives in Petersburg with two neurotic cats and a dog named Harper Lee and is working on the book that will spark her worldwide tour and Oprah appearance.
On your nightstand now:
Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen with Ron Rapoport: Tim & Tom, and Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Favorite book when you were a child:
All the Little House books and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1964 edition. The books may have been 20 years out of date, but most of the information was new to rural Alabama!
Your top five authors:
In no particular order: Toni Morrison, Wallace Stegner, Isabel Allende, Philip Roth, John Irving.
Book you've faked reading:
Hopefully my bookselling license won't be revoked for saying this, but Crime and Punishment flat wore me out, and I may have done just the teeniest little bit of Cliffs Notes-aided skimming for the school assignments.
Book you are an evangelist for:
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini should be mandatory reading for anyone who wants or needs to understand the complexities of Afghan society. In fact, the current occupant of the White House might have done well to read it.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Not so much for the cover as the title: An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke. I was disappointed when the book didn't live up to what I thought was a very original premise. I lost patience with the hapless loser narrator about 40 pages in and never re-engaged.
Book that changed your life:
To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it for the first time when I was 20 and could think only, "Wow." It's a deceptively simple story, but what a fundamental grasp of human nature Harper Lee showed in it!
Favorite line from a book:
". . . so I figure if I'm bound to be a loony, then I'm bound to be a stompdown dadgum good one."--R. P. McMurphy in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Toni Morrison's Jazz.