I'm Heather, and I'm... a book snob.

No, I'm not talking one of those with tooled leather covers and gilt edges. Those look nice on a shelf but aren't always the most convenient for actual reading. Which is what I do with books--what you're supposed to do with books.
It's the contents I'm concerned with. Don't give me abridged versions, condensed revisions, or brief synapses. I'm a grown-up. Give me the real thing.
Examples: I've read Les Misérables--all 1500 pages or so--in both French and English. I read Gone with the Wind back in college. I've read Dracula, Frankenstein, and Phantom of the Opera since the kids were born--only one of which have I seen the movie. Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, The Jungle Book too. Anna Karenina and The Three Musketeers are on the shelf for 2007. I've got The Last of the Mohicans on my list, though I was told years back it was boring. I don't know if that was the high-school kid talking or if it really is.
When a friend told me her husband had received The Count of Monte Cristo for Christmas, I asked which one. "The big one, about six hundred pages."
"No, you got the wuss version. The real one is almost 1500. But so worth it!"
I'm getting better, though. At least it was in English.
This friend was so proud that she'd read a book--Picture of Dorian Gray--before I had. That doesn't happen much.
I have a weakness, though. Every now and then, all of that intellectual growth and multisyllabic prose gets to me and I need to burp my head, as it were. That's where the embarrassment lay.
I also like--deep breath--trashy romance novels.
I'm not exaggerating when I say "trashy," either. Sometimes I feel a little guilty that trees died to print them. My most recent one involved a psycho ex-cheerleader and supposed Bigfoot sightings. Which, upon further reflection, makes it no less realistic than most of the others I've read, just more obvious about it.

I guess what I'm saying with this is, just because someone has read all of the smart stuff doesn't mean they spend all their time with it. They just might have some Virginia Henley or Joanna Lindsey in the pile with Wilde, Dumas, or Dickens.