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revenge of the book meme

or…
The book meme rides again

Garnet sent this on to me. A good game, I hadn’t really thought about how bookish I was and how much I still am. I don’t indulge like I used to…meaning pulling allnighters to devour them beginning to end in long gulps.

I remember finishing Jurassic Park in something like 32 hours straight because I was afraid if I closed the book, someone would get eaten while I wasn’t looking. This, from the woman who was scared by Sean of the Dead. (My suspension of disbelief is really really good).

Total number of books I???ve owned:
I have no idea whatsoever. I think probably upwards of two hundred that I’ve owned, given away, and recycled.

Last book I bought:
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver.
“Her body moved with the frankness that comes from solitary habits…” I like Kingsolver. A lot.

Last book I read:
Lila by Robert Persig and The Butlerian Jihad and A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (in tandem). Actually, I’m still working on them.

Lila moves in starts and stops. Written by Persig, the same fellow who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the book is similar in its structure of narrative interspersed with philosophy. Not really light reading as it makes one stop and think. Often.

The Butlerian Jihad carries on the Dune tradition. Written by Frank Herber’s son, Brian, along with Kevin Anderson, the story predates Muad Dib by ten thousand years. Same soap opera-ish multi-threaded character developments as the other books. The series continues to be a good ride.

And Bryson makes the sciences compelling and fun. I highly recommend this one.

Five books that mean a lot to me:
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
“The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we…”One of my favorite books of all time, Kundera never fails to shift my perception of the ordinary. A moment becomes a springboard for a treatise on the infinite, or the definition of kitsch, or…it’s all good. Forget the movie. The meat isn’t so much in the narrative as the interstices.

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.
“Wendy???s mother had a kiss at the corner of her mouth that she could never get. Do we all? Is there something no matter how hard someone tries, they???ll never get.” Beautifully written. A reminder that children can be both callous and joyous.

The House of Spirits by Isabelle Allende
In Allende’s work, the fantastic and mystical are regular parts of the world.

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Like Allende, or maybe Allende like Marque, there is a sense of the inate magicalness of living. Ghosts don’t fade away, they remain a part of the story, and a part of ones’ lives.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Various storylines from different time progress simultaneously. Great language. And prominent use of filipinos. Never has learning about cryptography been so enjoyable.

Five people I???m sending this meme to:
This is the hard part. I think to Ver, because I’d like to see what a writer reads.

To my sister, Elaine, because she has a voracious literary appetite.

To my buds Deb and Liz (in her copious free time).

And…Brint, because he likes to see his name and the increased traffic to his site whenever I do this.

Posted 06/14/2005
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