Tuesday, October 09, 2007

By The Book

 


By the Book

Scarlett has tagged me for a Meme. http://wanderlustscarlett.blogspot.com/

I have a question. Where did the word Meme originate?

1. Total number of books owned – Well, in my small office I have four bookshelves. They are mostly stuffed with books. Some are classics. Some are new. I am currently counting. One…two…three…four…. Around 300 wonderful words of wisdom.

2. Last book bought - James Joyce Ulysses.

3. Last book read - Necessary Losses by Judith Viorst. I’m on a journey. The book made a lot of sense to me.

4. Five books which mean a lot to you –

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
The Source by James Mitchner
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.
The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe by Douglas Adams

I could add others. The entire series of the Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Or On Writing by Steven King, or Green Mansions by W. H. Hudson. Then there are all of the Deadly Sins by Lawrence Saunders or Lou Reed by Lou Reed. There is EVERYTHING by J. R. R. Tolkien. Then Agatha Christy. I must have at least eight Bibles. The book of Ruth comes to mind. I adore the feel and the smell of a book. How it keeps one company at the end of a long day.

There are also the endless animal books beginning but not ending with North American Wildlife and Amphibians and Reptiles in West Virginia. Also the complete series of the Wildfire by Eliot Wigginton.

It saddens me that in this day and age, Children are not encouraged to read. I say, they are much poorer for the lack of that experience.

Right then. Tagging all that read this. You’re it.

5 comments:

Dominic said...

I find the word meme annoying (although not as much as that other Internet-coined word pwned). It screams "Me! Me!" every time I see it.

Here's the definition from Wikipedia:

Meme (/mi:m/) is defined within memetic theory, comprising a theoretical unit of cultural information, the building block of cultural evolution or diffusion that propagates from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution.

Dominic said...

Shoot! Just realized I was tagged, so now I have to do this farkakt meme.

1. Total number of books owned - between the ones I have in storage, in boxes at my folks' house and at my place... over 2000 - a number which depresses me, because I would like to reread most of them.

2. Last book bought:

In-Depth Book: Red Figure Vases - South Italy/Sicily - an eBay purchase. I know, what was I thinking, but the subject and jacket was interesting. It's still in the mail, expecting to receive it this week.

3. Last book read:

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta - an amazing book about a city caught between the past and the future. It reads like a contemporary documentary about Blade Runner.

4. Five books which mean a lot to me:

The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
History: A Novel by Elsa Morante
Nigger: An Autobiography by Dick Gregory
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

A few more favorite books:

The Red and the Black by Stendhal
The Centaur by John Updike
Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven by Mark Twain
The Human Comedy by William Saroyan
The Plot Against America: A Novel by Philip Roth
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Penrod by Booth Tarkington
The Story of the Amulet by E. Nesbit
At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Tag. You're it.

Roberta said...

I'll never catch up to you intellectually, Professor. :)

Dominic said...

I'll never catch up to you lyrically, Poetess. :)

Wanderlust Scarlett said...

Took me long enough to get here, don't you think?

So sorry!

I love your list! Those top 5 are five of my top favs too! Great books all the way down.

Thanks for playing!

Scarlett & Viaggiatore