Wednesday, August 02, 2006

TAGGED!

Heh. My first meme. Thanks, blackamazon! And a book meme!! Oh where to begin...:-)

So, let's see:

1. One book that changed your life?
And right away with the tough ones. I never know how to answer questions like this...I'm gonna go with a book called "Do What I Say: Ms. Behavior's Guide To Gay and Lesbian Etiquette" by Meryl Cohn. Not so much because of the book itself (it's funny and well-written, probably not inherently life-changing) but because of what it represented: it was the first book that had "Gay and Lesbian" on the cover that I bought myself, in a gay bookstore, no less. (And then, I went to the gay city, to sit in gay bars and eat gay crisps...)

2. One book you have read more than once? If I like a book I pretty much always read it again and again: so, probably hundreds here. The all-time record for number of rereads might be "Of Human Bondage" by Somerset Maugham. There was one year where I just read it again and again and again. I guess in some ways you could call it life-changing, although it'd be subtle. These days I see it as not so much just a bildungsroman but the story of the struggle to find spiritual meaning in a modern, "secular" context, which has been one of my major life themes. i wouldn't have said any such thing at the time, though. the insights into human behavior I still find astonishingly canny.

3. One book you would want on a desert island? "How To Signal A Rescue Boat Or Plane From Quite A Long Way Away"

4. One book that made you laugh? "Them!" by Jon Ronson.

5. One book that made you cry? First thing that came to mind was a play, "The Baltimore Waltz" by Paula Vogel (well, I cried when I read the script). A more conventional "book" answer: "Once and Future King" by T.H. White.

6. One book you wish had been written? "Come Along With Me," the book Shirley Jackson started and never got to finish before she died.

7. One book you wish had never had been written? The entire "Left Behind" series.

8. One book you are currently reading? "2012" by Daniel Pinchbeck.

9. One book you have been meaning to read: "Time On Two Crosses" by Bayard Rustin. among many, many, many others.

10. Now tag five people

I tag...stolie, fastlad, Rey, antiprincess, and Robin.

9 comments:

antiprincess said...

(blush)

rey said...

D'oh. I've never done this before! It's like a pyramid marketing scheme of the mind...

Okay. Answers are forthcoming.

fastlad said...

Is this a chain letter? Will something sinister happen to me if I refuse?

rey said...

Yo, I did it, fastlad. You can, too.

If you don't I will prevent you from getting ice cream for the rest of the summer.

Anonymous said...

kewl.

Anonymous said...

lol the paranoia!

I'm weird with books, once I've read them: I can't read them again.
Weird or lazy, that is the question! :)

Elizabeth McClung said...

You win an award for actually finding all those books in the english language I haven't read - somehow I made it through high school and uni with an english major and didn't read "Of Human Bondage" - nor have I actually finished "The Once and Future King" (though I did read Le Morte de Arthur at age 9 or so - and I read Stienbeck's Arthur thing) - I will have to check these books out.

Bamboo Lemur Boys Are Mean To Their Girls said...

I can't friggin do this. I never remember the titles of books. Tag me for some weirld sexual meme that will be fun..

Twanna A. Hines | FUNKYBROWNCHICK.com said...

Okay, I’m just going to post my answers here since they’re too short to create a full post for my blog:

1. Can’t think of one in particular. 2. I never do this. I’ve read different parts of the Bible more than one time, but I’ve never read anything in its entirety twice. 3. “Idiot’s Guide to Surviving on a Deserted Island.” 4. “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young.” 5. I don’t cry when I read books. 6. Can’t think of one in particular. 7. There’s TONS of bad lit out there. 8. Nothing. I’ve been interviewing like a mad woman and I don’t really have a book that I’m reading at the moment. I’m just waiting for life to resume some semblance of normalcy and then the reading will begin again. 9. The list is long. 10. I’d do it, but I’d feel like a hypocrite since I never even got around to posting it on my blog. :(