World Book Day Meme
The book I am reading: I'm never reading just one thing. Currently I have The City & The City by China Mieville (but I left it at d_floorlandmine's on Monday) , The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (last years Hugo and Nebula winner) at home, and Smoke and Mirrors, Neil Gaiman's short story collection, as a commuter book.
The book I love most: Seriously impossible to choose. It's like asking someone which of their kids they like the best. So I'll list instead my go-to non-fiction books for when I need reassuring that all is right with the world and my place in it.
Everything I Need To Know In Life I Learned At Kindergarten by Robert Fulgham. I've had this for a very long time (since I was about 14?) and it's followed me around wherever I go. I don't always agree with everything Fulgham says, and it's hokey as all hell in places, but the bit about the mermaid always makes me cry, and I do love chicken-fried steak.
This Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. Honest and intelligent and polemic and human. A plea for self-awareness and critical thought.
The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet W Hardy - keeps me grounded in my relationship choices.
The last book I received as a gift: Instructions, by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Charles Vess, which was a belated Christmas present from d_floorlandmine . Utterly charming, wise and heartbreakingly lovely.
The last book I gave as a gift: Showgirls, Teen Wolves and Astro-Zombies: A Film Critic's Year-Long Quest to Find the Worst Movie Ever Made, by Michael Adams. Valentine's Day present to d_floorlandmine . He appears to be treating it as a shopping list.
The nearest book: Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman, as it's in my work bag. Unless the M&S Home catalogue counts as a book, which I don't feel it does.
The book I would most like to own: (I added this category!) The Rhinegold & The Valkyrie, the libretto of Wagner's Ring Cycle, illustrated by Arthur Rackham. The market is currently flooded with cheap and nasty 'print-on-demand' paperback editions, as it's out of copyright, but there hasn't been a proper full-colour illustrated edition since the 70s (other than a prohibitively expensive Folio Society one). And in any case haf the joy of owning a copy would be the soft-cornered boards and foxed endpapers. If anyone wants to make me fall in love with them, buying me a lovely old (pre-1930s) edition of this book would go a long way. I know neither Wagner or Victorian book illustrators are currently fashionable, but frankly fashion wouldn't know splendour and magic if it bit them in the ass.