Another Book Meme

Post Six of Meme Week.

I ran out of memes that I have seen on blogs I read regularly, so I started Google searching for memes and found this very good meme on a blog called Squander Two. It actually required more concentrated thought than any of the other memes I have done all week. Hopefully the thought shows.

1. A book that changed your life.
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. This book was my “first hit is always free” introduction to Kurt Vonnegut and his cynical yet hopeful take on this abused world we live in. Then I read Slaughterhouse-Five, but it was Mother Night that didn't have any fantasy or sciece fiction elements that made me realize that he was a genius writing great truths with simple words.

2. A book you’ve read more than once.
I’m slowly re-reading my Vonnegut and MacDonald collections, but other books I have reread recently just to see how they hold up include Neuromancer by William Gibson, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson and Startide Rising. Other than those, I just have to big a backlog of books I have never read that I need to get to.

3. A book you’d want on a desert island.
When I was in junior high, my friends and I were obsessed with the Cold War and the coming conflict with the Soviet Union. From Alas, Babylon and Malevil and other post-holocaust books, I realized that I was woefully undereducated for surviving the collapse of civilization. I started buying the Foxfire series of books because they had a lot of folklore and country wisdom that could come in handy. For example, they explain how to properly butcher a hog, a skill that would be very valuable on a deserted island. Unfortunately, there is a big difference between book-learning and real skill. I have sense then resigned myself to being one of the first victims of the Postman-esque roving hordes.

4. A book that made you giddy.

For just shear joy in reading, little beats The Princess Bride.

5. A book you wish had been written.
For years I had in the back of my head a plot outline for story involving the little known legends abound lost looted gold hidden in the Philippines at the end of World War II. When I lived in the Philippines I heard odds and ends about this treasure and how maybe Ferdinand Marcos had found it. In Cryptonomicon, that gold ends up being a pretty major plot point. I can’t compete with Stephenson, so my version will never get written.

6. A book that wracked you with sobs.
In high school, a girl I was dating dared me to read Love Story without crying. I lost that bet.

7. A book you wish had never been written.Not even close: Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard. The fraud and nonsense this con job has unleashed on the world is criminally obscene. Unlike other religious books like The Bible and The Koran, Scientology was invented whole-cloth by an unscrupulous hack solely to exploit the ignorance and gullibility of the general public.

8. A book you are currently reading.
My nightstand table is so full that I can barely reach the light switch. I again recommend that you read my monthly BooksFirst lists and check the Books Bought list against the Books Read. That is usually a clue of what is currently on-deck. At this very moment, I am reading Lost In A Good Book, the sequel to The Jane Eyre Affair that I read in January.

9. A book you’ve been meaning to read.
I have started Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson several times and each time I get a little further in. I just have to buckle down and tackle it once and for all.

10. Tag 10.
I haven’t even been getting ten comments on these memes. There is no way I can tag ten people. Fortunately, a lot of book lovers read my blog and might pick it up.

Tomorrow will be the end of Meme Week. It has exhausted be because in addition to the memes, I kept coming up with blog ideas that had nothing to do with memes that I will have to work on later. Memes make for a nice occasional diversion but in large quantities, they are nearly fatal.