Books, Books, Books
I took this meme from Lemming's Progress' blog
1. Total Number of Books I've Owned: I have no idea. If you count all of the children’s books my parents bought for me it would be well over 1,000. As for now, I own four full bookcases and I have several stored in boxes.
2. Last Book I Bought: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (the guy who wrote The Virgin Suicides). Why? Well, because I am in a book discussion group and this is what we’re reading. A group of us at work agreed some time ago to tackle the Random House List of top 100 English language books of the 20th century. Well, we got bored along the way and decided to read a “modern classic”. Middlesex won a Pulitzer, so it was nominated. It’s a very interesting book and probably the best book I’ve read where the lead character was a hermaphrodite.
3. Last Book I Read: Hmmm, ok well, I must be honest. It was The Da Vinci Code. I picked it up at my uncle’s house a couple weeks ago and finished it later that night. It was very interesting but also very poorly written. I think I could write better dialogue than Dan Brown. Well, ok, I could write it just as poorly.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me:
A. The People’s History of the United States –by Howard Zinn – This is the one book that every American should read. It gives an honest portrayal of American history and one that we’re not taught by the mythmakers in school. I think if this were required reading at the high school level, we’d have a lot less jingoism in this country, which would be a very good thing.
B. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger It’s still my all time favorite book, a lament on the loss of the innocence of youth and the nervous breakdown caused by impending adulthood.
C. Breakfast of Champions -- Kurt Vonnegut Ok, so I cheated. I choose two books one author. The first book is an explanation of our modern American (particularly Midwestern) lifestyle by an omniscient narrator to apparent alien to our planet. It’s only when we step outside of pattern and tradition and look at our lives through a fresh perspective, do we realize how absurd our lives really can be.
Slaughterhouse 5 -- Kurt Vonnegut Vonnegut survived the senseless and horrific Dresden bombings as a prisoner of war and then succeeded in writing one of the best anti-war novels of all time.
D. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald Simply put, this is the greatest American novel.
E. The Other America – Michael Harrington I found this book on my parent’ s bookshelf when I was 12 years old. Even though the book was over twenty years old at the time, I still saw the other America all around me. This book definitely shaped my worldview.
5. Tag 5 people and have them do this on their blog:
Any and all who would like to answer.
1. Total Number of Books I've Owned: I have no idea. If you count all of the children’s books my parents bought for me it would be well over 1,000. As for now, I own four full bookcases and I have several stored in boxes.
2. Last Book I Bought: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (the guy who wrote The Virgin Suicides). Why? Well, because I am in a book discussion group and this is what we’re reading. A group of us at work agreed some time ago to tackle the Random House List of top 100 English language books of the 20th century. Well, we got bored along the way and decided to read a “modern classic”. Middlesex won a Pulitzer, so it was nominated. It’s a very interesting book and probably the best book I’ve read where the lead character was a hermaphrodite.
3. Last Book I Read: Hmmm, ok well, I must be honest. It was The Da Vinci Code. I picked it up at my uncle’s house a couple weeks ago and finished it later that night. It was very interesting but also very poorly written. I think I could write better dialogue than Dan Brown. Well, ok, I could write it just as poorly.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me:
A. The People’s History of the United States –by Howard Zinn – This is the one book that every American should read. It gives an honest portrayal of American history and one that we’re not taught by the mythmakers in school. I think if this were required reading at the high school level, we’d have a lot less jingoism in this country, which would be a very good thing.
B. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger It’s still my all time favorite book, a lament on the loss of the innocence of youth and the nervous breakdown caused by impending adulthood.
C. Breakfast of Champions -- Kurt Vonnegut Ok, so I cheated. I choose two books one author. The first book is an explanation of our modern American (particularly Midwestern) lifestyle by an omniscient narrator to apparent alien to our planet. It’s only when we step outside of pattern and tradition and look at our lives through a fresh perspective, do we realize how absurd our lives really can be.
Slaughterhouse 5 -- Kurt Vonnegut Vonnegut survived the senseless and horrific Dresden bombings as a prisoner of war and then succeeded in writing one of the best anti-war novels of all time.
D. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald Simply put, this is the greatest American novel.
E. The Other America – Michael Harrington I found this book on my parent’ s bookshelf when I was 12 years old. Even though the book was over twenty years old at the time, I still saw the other America all around me. This book definitely shaped my worldview.
5. Tag 5 people and have them do this on their blog:
Any and all who would like to answer.
posted by torporindy at 5/19/2005
3 Comments:
Love Zinn. Have you read his memoirs? Very brilliant.
Glad you picked up this meme - I'd have tagged you,
but didn't know if you would be interested in such things.
No problem. I like doing such things.
I like Zinn, but I haven't checked out his memoirs. I love how he keeps The People's History... current. He already has an edition which includes 9/11, the Iraq War, etc.
Thanks for your contribution, Chased. To answer your question, probably not, but I don't know. For me, I love America more when her warts are not exposed.
I own 100 years of solitude, but I've never finished it. I guess I am not into magical realism. Perhaps I should give it another try.
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