An early 20th Century Russian anarchist, The Man From St. Petersburg by Ken Follett.

I didn't know what the book was about before starting it. My first thought when learning the title character was an anti-establishment anarchist was to think - "Hmm, those were dangerous and terribly misguided movements and attitudes that fortunately waned and left Planet Earth decades and decades ago". After not much more reading, I realized Nope, still around and they're right under our noses.

A beekeeper in The Honey Bus. I'm reading The Latecomer now, but so far no real occupations of the main characters. They are student, which I would gladly be.

I would be a thirteen year old girl in 1780 clearing the Kentucky wilderness, and planting a first corn crop.

I'm reading children's books these days. This one was Tree of Freedom by Rebecca Caudill, 1947.

Lucky me! A reader for a publishing house! "The Readers Room" by Antoine Laurain.

Detective. Works for me.

Reading the last book in the Cazalet Chronicles--Oh, I don't want it to end! No real main character since everyone in the entire family gets their chance, but the men are in the family firm--rare hardwoods sourced from around the world. One of the main male characters has married into the family and he is an artist.

Oh dear, I'd be dead...killed in a car accident as a teen and watching what happens to everyone else who survived it. In an Instant

I'm botching the building of the Panama canal. I'm reading The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough.

A lawyer fighting for the rights of unjustly imprisoned people. Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson

An author who stole the plot of his best-selling book from a student in his writing course.

The Plot by Korelitz.

A wizard! I'm re-reading The Lord of the Rings.

A female detective in ancient Rome, named Albia, in the latest Lindsey Davis book "Desperate Undertakings". Cool!

A landlord. Book: Property Management Kit. I was wondering how one Property manager did such a good job of vetting renters, while many others didn't. It's pretty much what I thought. :0)

Lady's maid to an English countess. It was a memoir of a woman who entered 'service' at the end of the era -- just before WWII broke out. Her house was fairly progressive for the time, providing heat and electricity for the servants as well as the family. Still a strange concept for this American, that some people by virtue of their birth were considered "our betters".

The current book I'm reading has a chapter about each character, 6 characters. No main one.

So I would be a criminologist.......I read Jeffrey Deaver's The Chair last week, featuring Lincoln Rhyme a brilliant paraplegic criminologist.

I'm a stand up comedian and have my own TV talk show. The last book

I read (finished...I always have 2 or 3 in progress) was "Born A Crime", by

Trevor Noah.

Riding a mule delivering books to people in rural Kentucky.

(Book Woman’s Daughter.)

Retired detective in Scotland, working a cold case. The only problem is this man drinks a heck of a lot of alcohol and rarely eats, yet still functions.

Paleoanthropologist, from First Steps (How upright walking made us human) by Jeremy DeSilva. This, of course, is nonfiction, and so the author is the only character, unless you count extinct human species.

I can only say hats off to all of you who have had time to read ;) I've bought books this year, they are stacked and waiting. Those few days where I've picked one up and planned to quietly read, I've found I can't concentrate - me who has always read to the point I would stay up way too late to finish 'just one more chapter'. Maybe when the fall rains begin here ;)

A stressed out interior designer who is on a doctor- ordered two week vacation in Ireland.

I would be a murdering housewife, as I killed the woman whom my husband had been cheating with and I got away with it. The Wife by A. Burke

A young school teacher. I just finished "I Adopted My Mom at the Bus Station" by Savannah Hendriks.

Rusty

I enjoy reading (& re-reading) juvenile fiction too - I'd be a little girl living on a ranch in TX in the 1930s, rebelling against the restrictions of being 'feminine', and wanting to grow up to be a rancher like her dad (Lois Lenski's regional series)

I am an ex-Army drifter with no fixed abode and no regular employment. And unusually proficient in hand to hand combat. Most of the time my "occupation" is trying to right injustice.

Better Off Dead, Lee and Andrew Child,

sleeping

I last finished Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris, so I would be a comedy writer who travels extensively to give readings. I would be good with that!

Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch in her memoir Lessons From the Edge

Sephia what a great thread!

Except I would be a poor coal miner in Wales during the reign of Queen Victoria - just like my great grandfather.

”How Green Was My Valley.”

A police officer investigating a cold case.

Investigator and occasional spy, and also the wife of Sherlock Holmes. (I think that would be sufficiently difficult, worthy of being called a "job"

(I'm on book 13 in the excellent series of Mary Russel and Sherlock Holmes)

"I can only say hats off to all of you who have had time to read ;) I've bought books this year, they are stacked and waiting."

I recommend audiobooks - a different experience, but quite wonderful. I listen in the car, or sometimes in the house while doing chores.

A 19th century woman with ambitions to become a surgeon but facing discrimination from all sides.

The Surgeon's Daughter by Audrey Blake

The first book of the series is The Girl in His Shadow!

Killing orks, goblins, and trolls.

I echo the audiobook recommendation, it's exclusively how I "read". I only listen when I'm alone, because unlike a print edition (whether a physical or a Kindle-like one) where you can scan back visually with your eyes if interrupted by someone you may be with, it's a bit less convenient to accomplish the same thing by rewinding. Walking alone, exercising, driving in a car alone, all are suitable times to listen.

One thing I realized when I started with audiobooks was that it made me a much better and more attentive listener. When listening to a book, you need to focus on what you're hearing and avoid allowing your attention to drift, otherwise you lose your place. As contrasted with podcasts, radio, the like, when listening to which your mind can wander and little is lost.

Do I have to have finished? My last books were short stories but I am reading The Little Paris Bookshop so I could be a book store owner. Yeah.

I'm a mobster. I'm reading "Dynasty on the Hudson" by my old high school classmate David Catalfamo.

I'm reading The Love of My Life, by Rosie Walsh. The female lead character is a biologist specializing in marine life that dwell at water's edge, emerging at low tide. When I read that, I knew I would have loved that job.

Detective in LA. I’m reading the Harry Bosch series.

I have to add to mine, a reader for a publishing house, IN PARIS. And I would SPEAK REAL FRENCH, not the half-forgotten high school-college-with-hints-of-Swiss French.