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anadamous picked me to do it, here's Kimberly's Anadamous' book meme:
1. Total books I own:
I'm not at home. A lot of them are in boxes now anyway. I don't really have any idea. Not having my shelves in front of me, it's hard to approximate how many fit on each shelf and even with the shelves full, there are still some in boxes. I'll say 300. Give or take 300.
2. The last book I bought:
Naked by David Sedaris. It was good. I'd previously read Me Talk Pretty One Day and that one was funny and fluffy. This one was more thought provoking but still funny in parts and definitely a good read.
3. The last book I read:
Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I borrowed it from my boss. I've finished it and given it back to him but he still has my copy of Good Omens. I can't imagine how they made it into a musical. Knowing there was a musical, I was surprised at how complex, dark and serious it was, though there were genuinely funny bits too. I'd like to see the musical when it comes to the Bay Area later this year but, as with just about every other movie/show based on a book that I've read, I'll go in deliberately taking it as a work on its own, not as an adaptation of a book I enjoyed.
4. 5 books that are important to you:
(In no particular order)
I'm afraid some of these are going to seem lame because I haven't read much poetry or older nonfiction. Also, I'm going to cheat and treat sets of books as one entry each or else I'd need more than 5. The way I'm interpreting "important" is "had an impact on me and/or I think other people should read it."
(a) Stephen Jay Gould's entire body of work. Since it's mostly essays (though his books, such as The Mismeasure of Man, are equally important), I think I can count it all as one, though they've been published in separate collections. If only everyone would read even one or two of his essays, we'd be so much better off. Nobody would accept for a second that this "Intelligent Design" bullcrap had any business calling itself science. But it goes beyond that: an understanding of evolution gives us such perspective. And Gould was singularly gifted at explaining and helping non-scientists reach that understanding. Gould's lifelong love of his work shines through in his writing and that's inspiring.
(b) The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos. This is the one that makes me cringe because it's the sort of book you'd see reviewed for a filler piece in the Lifestyle section of the local paper, not the sort you'd see on the reading list of an upper division literature course. But it changed the way I think about weight, health and the prejudice associated with those two things. In our present culture, that's not as superficial as it may appear.
(c) Guns, Germs and Steel by Jarred Diamond. For similar reasons as the above two, actually. For me, what makes these books important is that they provide the information that allows us to see our culture and history from a broader perspective. They don't settle for easy answers, they investigate and reveal that clear, meaningful explanations can be found. I was lucky enough to see him give a talk once at UC Davis. It was about environmentalism and ecology. I haven't read his book on that topic yet but it's on my list.
(d) What the hell, I'll put in another cringe-worthy one. Harry Potter. Without it, I probably wouldn't have started my web site because I wouldn't have had a lot to put on it (a lot of the pirate monkey stuff came later). Without starting my web site, I wouldn't have taken an interest in HTML, PHP or JavaScript and I wouldn't have been able to take over the web site at work. That's not my main job but it's great knowing I can make web sites if I need to. I suppose it could just as easily have been something else that got me going on the web site but as it happens, it was Harry Potter.
(e) I'm tempted to cheat again and say "Douglas Adams' entire body of work" but maybe I'm just feeling sentimental because I've almost finished re-reading the entire Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy. Unlike the above books, I can't say specifically what effect they've had on me, only that I love them. They probably made me think about physics more than I otherwise would have. And a speech he gave on atheism, transcribed in The Salmon of Doubt, inspired me to stop being spineless and come out and say I'm an atheist. So that's something.
5. Pick 5 other people to do this:
Argh. I'm going to bail on this one because I can't think of five people in particular who'd especially want to do this. So I'm going to point vaguely at everyone on my friends list. OK, go!
anadamous picked me to do it, here's 1. Total books I own:
I'm not at home. A lot of them are in boxes now anyway. I don't really have any idea. Not having my shelves in front of me, it's hard to approximate how many fit on each shelf and even with the shelves full, there are still some in boxes. I'll say 300. Give or take 300.
2. The last book I bought:
Naked by David Sedaris. It was good. I'd previously read Me Talk Pretty One Day and that one was funny and fluffy. This one was more thought provoking but still funny in parts and definitely a good read.
3. The last book I read:
Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I borrowed it from my boss. I've finished it and given it back to him but he still has my copy of Good Omens. I can't imagine how they made it into a musical. Knowing there was a musical, I was surprised at how complex, dark and serious it was, though there were genuinely funny bits too. I'd like to see the musical when it comes to the Bay Area later this year but, as with just about every other movie/show based on a book that I've read, I'll go in deliberately taking it as a work on its own, not as an adaptation of a book I enjoyed.
4. 5 books that are important to you:
(In no particular order)
I'm afraid some of these are going to seem lame because I haven't read much poetry or older nonfiction. Also, I'm going to cheat and treat sets of books as one entry each or else I'd need more than 5. The way I'm interpreting "important" is "had an impact on me and/or I think other people should read it."
(a) Stephen Jay Gould's entire body of work. Since it's mostly essays (though his books, such as The Mismeasure of Man, are equally important), I think I can count it all as one, though they've been published in separate collections. If only everyone would read even one or two of his essays, we'd be so much better off. Nobody would accept for a second that this "Intelligent Design" bullcrap had any business calling itself science. But it goes beyond that: an understanding of evolution gives us such perspective. And Gould was singularly gifted at explaining and helping non-scientists reach that understanding. Gould's lifelong love of his work shines through in his writing and that's inspiring.
(b) The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos. This is the one that makes me cringe because it's the sort of book you'd see reviewed for a filler piece in the Lifestyle section of the local paper, not the sort you'd see on the reading list of an upper division literature course. But it changed the way I think about weight, health and the prejudice associated with those two things. In our present culture, that's not as superficial as it may appear.
(c) Guns, Germs and Steel by Jarred Diamond. For similar reasons as the above two, actually. For me, what makes these books important is that they provide the information that allows us to see our culture and history from a broader perspective. They don't settle for easy answers, they investigate and reveal that clear, meaningful explanations can be found. I was lucky enough to see him give a talk once at UC Davis. It was about environmentalism and ecology. I haven't read his book on that topic yet but it's on my list.
(d) What the hell, I'll put in another cringe-worthy one. Harry Potter. Without it, I probably wouldn't have started my web site because I wouldn't have had a lot to put on it (a lot of the pirate monkey stuff came later). Without starting my web site, I wouldn't have taken an interest in HTML, PHP or JavaScript and I wouldn't have been able to take over the web site at work. That's not my main job but it's great knowing I can make web sites if I need to. I suppose it could just as easily have been something else that got me going on the web site but as it happens, it was Harry Potter.
(e) I'm tempted to cheat again and say "Douglas Adams' entire body of work" but maybe I'm just feeling sentimental because I've almost finished re-reading the entire Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy. Unlike the above books, I can't say specifically what effect they've had on me, only that I love them. They probably made me think about physics more than I otherwise would have. And a speech he gave on atheism, transcribed in The Salmon of Doubt, inspired me to stop being spineless and come out and say I'm an atheist. So that's something.
5. Pick 5 other people to do this:
Argh. I'm going to bail on this one because I can't think of five people in particular who'd especially want to do this. So I'm going to point vaguely at everyone on my friends list. OK, go!