No one tagged me for this meme, but I saw it over at Grumpy Girl and decided to do it on my own. Does that violate the laws of memes? If so, sorry Alyssa and 'sphere...but I found this too tantalizing to ignore...
1. TOTAL NUMBER OF BOOKS I'VE OWNED:
Impossible to say. Everytime I've moved since graduating from college (and that's a grand total of 12 times in the last 17 years) I've had more boxes of books than anything else. And as my husband will tell you, I'm not so good at getting rid of stuff... It's got to be in the thousands.
2. LAST BOOK I BOUGHT:
I went on a Border's binge about a month ago, and bought a few things, including Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty
, which I liked, but ultimately didn't love (my perceptions no doubt colored by reading this,) and Them: A Memoir of Parents, which I haven't started yet, among a few others. (The H participated in this indulgence, so we came home with four or five books between us--sheer gluttony.)
3. LAST BOOK I COMPLETED:
Truth and Beauty
4. FIVE BOOKS THAT MEAN A LOT TO ME:
I could spend weeks trying to answer this, so instead, I'm doing it stream of consciousness. Here goes:
1. Mandy by Julie Edwards, aka Julie Andrews (yep, that Julie Andrews, as in "The Sound of Music.") A fantastic kids' book, and another of her books, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles is every bit as good, possibly better, especially if your taste runs more to whimsical fantasy.
2. Why I'm so focused on books I read as a kid, I don't know, but the next one that came to mind is Where the Sidewalk Ends, which my mother loved to read to me, and which created my first real understanding of the subersive powers of literature. (Later confirmed by reading lots of Roald Dahl.)
3. Flashing forward to high school: As I Lay Dying. Thanks to one of my favorite teachers, Mr. Terry, who started my love affair with Faulkner (one that, sadly, has been in mothballs for a while now--I might have to start to reread...)
4. I guess I spent most of college reading criticism, not literature, which is kind of pathetic, and nothing I read in college leaps forward demanding attention for its lasting influence on me. But after college, when I was underpaid, living in boxy New York apartments and loving every minute of it (when I wasn't angsty about WHAT I WAS DOING WITH MY LIFE--so some things never change) I got really into Robertson Davies. I read everything he ever wrote (so, ok, that makes this more than one book, but whatever), and was depressed for weeks when I was done. Another place to expend some re-reading energy someday soon...
5. The most compelling work of nonfiction I've ever read: Shot in the Heart. I can't remember what drew me to this book; it must have been a review somewhere, probably in the New York Times. But I was aware enough of it to make a special trip to Rizzoli, then a wonderful bookstore in Santa Monica (now, I think, only still at its original location in New York) to an author signing. Years later, I had the opportunity to work with Mikal while he adapted the book into a script for HBO; the version that was eventually made (long after I left my job there) bore no real resemblance, in my opinion anyway, to either his book or his script. (But that's Hollywood.) But oh, this book. It is gorgeous prose, magic and unbearably dark all at once.
5. WHAT I AM CURRENTLY READING:
Since childhood, I've had the odd habit of reading multiple books at the same time. If one gets too sloggy, or too hard, or just needs processing, I can move to another and still have the joy of reading. At the moment, I've got a few going:
The Reluctant Tuscan by Phil Doran, which I like for its atmosphere (Tuscany--what's not to like?) and for its sentiment--a television writer who's on the downward slope of his career is more or less dragged by his wife to a wreck of a house in Tuscany (which she bought without telling him) because she's trying to get him out of Hollywood. He's a very successful sitcom writer, and it shows in his prose, sometimes to the book's disadvantage. But when he's being sincere, he's wonderful.
The Battle for God by the wonderful Karen Armstrong--a literate, thoughtful, somehow personal history of the similarities and conflicts between fundamentalism in Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
Olympos, which is the sequel to a book I really enjoyed, Illium, but which I 'm having some trouble getting into...unlike Dan Simmons' Hyperion trilogy, which I read last summer and could not put down (perhaps because it was my first foray in years into science fiction/fantasy, which I devoured as a child and had really abandoned in adulthood.
6. WHICH FIVE BLOGGERS AM I PASSING THIS ALONG TO?
Hmm...that will have to wait until tomorrow morning...
6:45:39 AM 
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