![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jawnbc...who is no doubt swimming in a post-malt loaf glow. Lucky cow.
1. Total number of books owned?
Hundreds rather than thousands, though I've bought gazillions over the years. I used to spend a lot of $$ on beer, so whenever I wanna buy another book and feel that instinct that says "don't waste your money" I buy it anyway. If I don't feel the need to keep it, I pass it on, sometimes to a local library. I can afford to support writing, and writers, and reading.
Having said that,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
querrelle and I have enough books that getting them from Australia to Canada's a bit daunting. Books be heavy an' shit.
2. The last book I bought?
International Encyclopedia of Adult Education (Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), for which I've written two entries. But it's being shipped to Hongcouver so I won't see it until August.
3. The last book I read?
Eurovision Song Contest: 50th Anniversary - The Official History, which I reviewed for ESCToday.com. A good fun read, but I'm a bit obsessed with the subject.
and
Small Island, Andrea Levy. Heartily recommend it. An excellent novel.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me?
1. The Stranger Albert Camus: though in hindsight I suspect the take my teenage mind had on this one was a bit fooked, it nonetheless respresents the potential of economic, powerful writing. Its candour, narrative, politics and teleology formed perhaps the first stepping stone into a life as my own person. Formidable as they say.
2. Struggle for Intimacy, Janet Woititz: I generally loathe self-help books. But this one had the spiritual and emotional effect of taking that big box of computer cables most of have sitting in a closet somewhere, tossing the contents up into the air, and having them land untangled. Which then let me keep the ones that worked, tossed the ones that didn't, and put aside a few more to try again later. Except that's all about emotions, trust, love, sanity, honesty--things about which I was pretty much a basket case until my late 20s. Not an easy, fun read, but embedded in the challenges I found hope.
3. The Hithchiker's Guide the Galaxy, Douglas Adams: a loving indictment of humanity. A real story disguised as science fiction. Words that make fun of themselves while making fun of the characters, the reader, nationalism, sport, drinking, tourism....really I can't do this 5 book trilogy justice.
4. The Blackwater Lightship, Colm Toíbin: my pick for the first truly great gay novel. Family, betrayal, expectations, sexuality, death, culture, sexism, spirituality, fealty, the Church. Should have won the friggin' Booker.
5. Orientalism, Edward Said: probably the hardest book I ever read, in terms of intellectual challenge. But how often do we get to read a book that's wholly shifted the very idea of "culture"? Said, a Palestinian ex-pat, takes a fine-toothed comb and scours Western literature and history. He proves that "the Orient" is a construction that objectifies not only artifacts but people...and that the only appropriate response is to move beyond the notion of empire. Hence the term post-colonialism.
5. Tag five people and have them fill this out on their ljs:
trapezebear
art_thirst
zurcherart
stoplabelingme
f8n_begorra
1. Total number of books owned?
Hundreds rather than thousands, though I've bought gazillions over the years. I used to spend a lot of $$ on beer, so whenever I wanna buy another book and feel that instinct that says "don't waste your money" I buy it anyway. If I don't feel the need to keep it, I pass it on, sometimes to a local library. I can afford to support writing, and writers, and reading.
Having said that,
querrelle and I have enough books that getting them from Australia to Canada's a bit daunting. Books be heavy an' shit.2. The last book I bought?
International Encyclopedia of Adult Education (Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), for which I've written two entries. But it's being shipped to Hongcouver so I won't see it until August.
3. The last book I read?
Eurovision Song Contest: 50th Anniversary - The Official History, which I reviewed for ESCToday.com. A good fun read, but I'm a bit obsessed with the subject.
and
Small Island, Andrea Levy. Heartily recommend it. An excellent novel.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me?
1. The Stranger Albert Camus: though in hindsight I suspect the take my teenage mind had on this one was a bit fooked, it nonetheless respresents the potential of economic, powerful writing. Its candour, narrative, politics and teleology formed perhaps the first stepping stone into a life as my own person. Formidable as they say.
2. Struggle for Intimacy, Janet Woititz: I generally loathe self-help books. But this one had the spiritual and emotional effect of taking that big box of computer cables most of have sitting in a closet somewhere, tossing the contents up into the air, and having them land untangled. Which then let me keep the ones that worked, tossed the ones that didn't, and put aside a few more to try again later. Except that's all about emotions, trust, love, sanity, honesty--things about which I was pretty much a basket case until my late 20s. Not an easy, fun read, but embedded in the challenges I found hope.
3. The Hithchiker's Guide the Galaxy, Douglas Adams: a loving indictment of humanity. A real story disguised as science fiction. Words that make fun of themselves while making fun of the characters, the reader, nationalism, sport, drinking, tourism....really I can't do this 5 book trilogy justice.
4. The Blackwater Lightship, Colm Toíbin: my pick for the first truly great gay novel. Family, betrayal, expectations, sexuality, death, culture, sexism, spirituality, fealty, the Church. Should have won the friggin' Booker.
5. Orientalism, Edward Said: probably the hardest book I ever read, in terms of intellectual challenge. But how often do we get to read a book that's wholly shifted the very idea of "culture"? Said, a Palestinian ex-pat, takes a fine-toothed comb and scours Western literature and history. He proves that "the Orient" is a construction that objectifies not only artifacts but people...and that the only appropriate response is to move beyond the notion of empire. Hence the term post-colonialism.
5. Tag five people and have them fill this out on their ljs:
trapezebearart_thirstzurcherartstoplabelingmef8n_begorra
