June 21, 2005

Show and tell  

Paul Musgrave passes on this personal library/reading habits meme. I own somewhere between 1000 and 1200 books, although the number I've read is substantially smaller, and these days I'm trying to acquire books only at about the rate that I read them, which is a difficult discipline. The last two books I bought (both from the Seminary Co-Op, although these days I usually buy from Abebooks) were Slavoj Zizek's On Belief and Harry Mathews's My Life in CIA. The book I just finished was Gregory Maguire's Wicked.

Books that have meant a lot to me? It's a cop-out answer, but the book I've spent by far the most time with in the past year is my Norton Anthology of Poetry. Aside from that, Hamlet and The Tempest, the Odyssey, and Don Quixote are big for me, and I love Ada and Pale Fire. Also The Shock of the New, On the Heights of Despair, The Storyteller, Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Miles Davis's autobiography, Ulysses, The Master and Margarita, The Myth of Sisyphus, Jealousy, Cigarettes, and The Anxiety of Influence. Probably the book that's had the most formative influence on my sense of and feeling for language is the 1979 edition of the Book of Common Prayer.

Others I'd like to hear from: Lenka, Hugo Zoom, Sudeep, Allison, and Barrett (on cookbooks).

Comments
Hugo Zoom  {June 22, 2005}

Hey Paul,
Well, you got my attention. I have most of my books here in Denton, plus a few(50? 100?) in my aunt's house in San Antonio. The last book I bought* was Bad Bet on the Bayou: the rise of gambling in Louisiana and the fall of governor Edwin Edwards, by Tyler Bridges. No, I still haven't read it, even though I think Edwards is a fascinating character. I'm a slow reader-- this summer I'd like to read Bad Bet and Camus's The Rebel which I started years ago but never got around to finishing, like so many other things...

(*Apart from textbooks; it's not that they "don't count", obviously they do; it's just that I don't find them as compelling when I have to read them per se.)

Anyway, give me a week; I'll straighten up my unkempt sty and count my books and get back to you.

paul  {June 22, 2005}

Yikes, I didn't mean to put anyone out by tagging them with the meme -- it's just an amusement. This is the first time I've participated in one of these things in quite a while, actually.

I wonder about you though whether you're more interested in/engaged by images of some kind -- you seem to have a keen eye for them.

PG  {June 23, 2005}

Ooh, I love Wicked. I'm almost sorry that I've read the book, because I'm afraid that the musical -- as fantastic as everyone says it is -- will be bound to disappoint now.

Hugo Zoom  {June 24, 2005}

Yikes? What yikes? Please. It's no big deal-- besides, I really do need to clean my apartment.

paul  {June 24, 2005}

Hugo -- sometimes it just catches me by surprise to think that what I write here might actually affect other people's lives in some way, even if it's just about cleaning up the apartment.

Anyway if you end up reading The Rebel let me know what you think of it.

PG -- I loved Wicked too, and while I haven't seen the musical yet (I'm not such a big fan of musicals) I'm a lot less worried about that than about seeing The Wizard of Oz again... I'm worried that it'll lose a lot of its nostalgia somehow. I did go back and reread the book, which you can find posted online since it's in the public domain, and that was fun... but I have a lot more emotional attachment to the movie.

Lenka  {June 27, 2005}

Hello Paul ---

Let's see now...when people visit our apartment, they tend to fall into three categories: there are the book lovers like ourselves, who see the five thousand or so books we own and say, "Wow! What a great collection!"

The second category does not comment on the books.

The third category looks at our crowded living space, and remarks something to the effect of, "you need to get rid of all these books (with the same reproachful tone one might use in reference to piles of old newpapers) and make some room."

The hell I will. As if couches and light fixtures had anywhere near the edifying capacity of books!

I will carry on the torch, Paul, and post of my favorite books shortly...

Lenka  {July 1, 2005}

As a child, my most influential books were probably the Golden Book Encylopedia series (the 1959 editions, with the shiny cellophane covering that peeled in tempting birchlike curls with age) and the Time Life international cooking series, "Foods of the World." I credit these two series for spurring my lifelong passion for science, technology, obscure facts and strange foreign cuisines.

Allison  {July 10, 2005}

Paul, I got back from vacation a few days ago and saw this. I read Wicked a few years ago and loved it. It's so far removed from the movie, though, that it didn't really change the viewing experience much for me (except maybe to make me chuckle a little at Glinda the sorority girl and vaguely reinforce the distaste I've always felt for the Wizard). I also enjoyed his Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.

I'm embarrassed to admit that other than Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH I haven't read a single one of the other books you mention.

Allison  {July 10, 2005}

...except for Hamlet, the Tempest, the Odyssey and Don Quixote, which I overlooked because they weren't highlighted text.

paul  {July 11, 2005}

It wasn't meant to embarass! I've read some of the ones you mention but certainly not all, and of course I was also unfamiliar with some. I think that's kind of the point (?)


Post a comment










Remember personal
information?