Book Meme
Tagged by Larisa. So it took me a while.
There need to be funner book memes. I see wierd, wacky, funny, thought provoking memes for for movies and music and the Zodiac and whatnot all the times. Why do books just get a sort of dry, serious, straighforward "What are you reading?".
Anyhow, the meme:
- Books owned: Circa a hundred, I would say. They're all over the place, so it's hard to count. Besides, we sort of own books collectively as a family, I think. (With the exception Larisa, who turns them into random piles of paper.)
- Last book I bought: A bit hard to say. Either "Tales from the White Hart" By Arthur C. Clarke. (Tel Aviv Central Station, (in Hebrew, but theres pictures, just to sort of give you an idea of the place.) third floor, by the big, inexplicable block of purple quartz.) or "Quicksilver" by Neil Stephenson (Nifty place in Jerusalem.) or Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence, (Also Tel Aviv Central, Also third floor, but by the Levinsky Street entrance, the place that sells mainly comics.) I was with someone when she picked up volumes 3 and 4 of Churchills "The Second World War" (For 15 NIS each!) about a week ago. Hebrew, 1955 translation, best of luck to her - I only managed to get through one volume before completely loosing it. (Jerusalem Central Station, third floor, way at the end past the camping place.) From this we learn - I spend too much time at bus stops.
- Last book I read - I just finished "Survival of the Prettiest", by Nancy Atkoff. (Spelling?) Fun, thought provoking mix of psychology, sociology, anthroplogy, biology and history, all on the subject of (primarily) human, (primarily) sexual beauty. Good tranlation too.
Also in the middle of "The Science of Discworld II - The Globe" Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart and Terry Pratchett, nuff said. The Science bits are funny, and possibly educational, and the novella as good as ever. Plus the whole thing has a funny meta-level, in that you're reading a story about your ability to read stories, as the book does remind one.
And "The Gulag Archipelago" Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, harsh reading, not only content-wise. I'm going through it very slowly. I'm reading it in English, and the translation does show. Maybe thats not so apparent if you don't know Russian.
- 5 books that mean a lot to me: This is hard, I don't really get hugely attached to books.
Childhoods End, By Arthur C. Clarke, which is such a beautiful, melancholy story. And the book has gorgeous prose, IMO.
A Peace to End all Peace, By David Fromkin. I think it's subtitled something like "British Foriegn Policy in the Middle East, 1914-1922". I just like it, OK? It fun and it's cute and it cheers me up whenever I read it, with it's conbined sense of the pathos and the absurdity of history.
A Song of Ice and Fire, By George R. R. Martin. (AFFC is done! Done! Done! Well, sort of. Either way, it will be out in Sep-Oct. I still don't really belive it.) I could go on endlessly about how good this series is, how intricate and powerful the story is and how complex and very human and yet larger-then-life the characters are, but mainly it's just that i've put os much effort into thinking about this.
Can't think of any standout for the last two, so i'm leaving it at this.
- I'm not tagging anyone, but I am charging anyone who reads this to help me come up with a sexier, wackier book meme.