Meme of Read Death
Wherein I am hit with the plague (by Patrick).
Total number of books owned:
Last summer, I flushed many of my books down the -- er, I mean, cleaned house and gave away hundreds of my books to street people for subsequent resale. I'm probably at about 300 books at the moment, but I'm feeling the urge to clean out some more. I should note that a couple of months ago I wanted to refer to something I knew was in a particular book, went to get the book, and discovered it was one of the books that I'd sent packing. This was annoying, and considering the number of books I gave away I'm surprised it's only happened once. I guess I culled well.
Last book bought:
Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson. I'm one of those guys who likes his SF peopled with people. Wilson is almost always reliable in this regard. Not quite finished with this one, but I like it a lot. Elements of V*nn* B*nt*'s Flight: A Quantum Novel. No, just kidding.
Last book read:
Technically, that would be Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby, but since I have recently written about that elsewhere, I'm going to cheat and mention the last book read but one: Crucible of War: The Seven Years War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 by Fred Anderson. Wonderfully expansive history of what was, in fact, the Very First World War. Excellent background to the war of American independence. Astonishing things I'd never learned elsewhere even though I've been to Fort Ticonderoga and reclined against one of its cannons.
Five books that mean a lot to you:
Gore Vidal's American history novels. I suffer from ecstasy whenever I am in the middle of one of these.
The Book of the New Sun, or, just about any novel by Gene Wolfe. This is the man who taught me that real life is SF, inasmuch as real life is a world baked by the Sun Between My Ears.
Huckleberry Finn.
Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan. Flags terribly near the end, but the man was dying after all. Nevertheless. This is the handbook for surviving the culture wars.
Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown. How to be a homo.
Tag five people to continue this meme:
Hmm... let's see... here are five who I don't believe have been tetched by this thing yet.
Dear Victims: feel free to ignore the tag, but if you do your luck (bad or good) will perish and from now on your ears will flush bright red whenever you hear the term "Swiss Chard". You've been warned.
dhole: ACCEPTED
Give,Get,Take, And Have:
Anna in Cairo: ACCEPTED
James Goodman: ACCEPTED
punkrockhockeymom: ACCEPTED
I'm curious: have you ever read Kevin Phillips' The Cousins' Wars? Interesting overview of the English Civil War, the American Revolution, and the Civil War as iterations of the same conflict inside Anglo culture. (And before reading it, it never occurred to me that the English Civil War was fought in North America as well as England.)
Posted by: Patrick Nielsen Hayden | June 05, 2005 at 11:45 AM
I haven't read it. The only thing I've read by him is American Dynasty which was very good though a bit sloggy at times. The Cousins' Wars certainly sounds like a book I would be interested in, on a subject Phillips would likely do an excellent job with. I'll look around for it today when I'm out & about.
Hunh. I guess these memes are good for something after all... :)
Posted by: Corpsy | June 05, 2005 at 12:08 PM
Thanks for the tag, Mike. And the curse of the meme continues... :)
Posted by: JamesG | June 05, 2005 at 01:27 PM
No prob, James. :)
Patrick, I was looking around at stuff on The Cousins' Wars, which I hope to buy this evening, and I found this very amusing bit from one of the reviews on the B&N page for the book:
Lance Morrow
The Cousins' Wars makes a daringly bulky package of history. In busy conversational style Phillips bustles about his enormous thesis, rechecking the ropes and knots with which he has bound it. If he finds a knot he thinks too loose, he reties it three or four times. The result is fussy but immensely impressive. -- Time Magazine
Heh. Sounds like American Dynasty actually.
Posted by: Corpsy | June 05, 2005 at 05:31 PM
Oh no. Thanks for the tag - but I don't know 5 people who would probably not already have been it. Hmmm.
Posted by: Anna in Cairo | June 06, 2005 at 03:18 AM
Anna -- yeah, I know. At this point, that seems to be the biggest obstacle tagees face.
Posted by: Corpsy | June 06, 2005 at 08:50 AM
Okay okay, now I really do have to update the darned thing, don't I?? Thanks for the tag, oh favorite blogger o'mine. As soon as I saw Patrick tagged you, I thought, uh-oh, now I'm in for it. But at least now I have an obligation to blog that trumps pretrial orders and such. Updates will be posted around 8:30 pm EST, after work, while Puppy is at the rink. Counting the blasted things is out of the question. I'll guesstimate and round down.
Posted by: Kimberly | June 06, 2005 at 12:39 PM
Done! Only four hours late.
Posted by: Kimberly | June 07, 2005 at 12:33 AM
Nice one, Kimberly. You should post to your LJ more often. I shall add you to my blogroll as punishment.
Posted by: Corpsy | June 07, 2005 at 06:34 AM
Thank you for the link! It's going to work, I already feel a sense of obligation...
Posted by: Kimberly | June 07, 2005 at 11:47 AM
I did accept. I was just out of town yesterday! Sorry I am late. That is me. I posted today.
Posted by: Anna in Cairo | June 08, 2005 at 09:25 AM
Anna: I was typing my comment below into your page's comment section, but then I realized since I don't have a Blogger username, I wouldn't be able to post it there. So, here:
Yeah, "passing it on" is easier for those who get the tag first. It's a lot harder for those of us who get the meme late. I think we can let you get by with 4. :)
I'm really glad you bothered, though. It's fascinating to see the meme pass through a city that is very far away and so far unvisited by me.
And now I'm off to explore the people you tagged... :)
Posted by: Corpsy | June 08, 2005 at 07:47 PM