Bookish Gardener: Again with the books

Again with the books

Another gift that keeps on giving, this time from Robert the Llamabutcher and ever so humble:

1. Total Number of Books I've Owned. Let's see. I've had overstuffed bookshelves and on-floor book piles for about three decades now. If I even attempted to count the books I have now, plus the libraries'-worth I've discarded to charity or sold to used bookstores over the years, I am sure I would just sit myself down and weep.

2. Last Book I Bought: Technically, the answer to this would be Seize the Work Day: Using the Tablet PC to Take Total Control of Your Work and Meeting Day. (Why? I actually won a Tablet PC recently as a door prize at a conference. Downside: I can never say "I've never won anything in my life" again. Upside: I know I never have to bother buying a lottery ticket again.) But that's really more of a manual than a book, isn't it? The last "real" books I bought were a couple off of my Amazon Wish List: Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, and Jim Gustafson's An Examined Faith: The Grace of Self-Doubt.

3. Last Book I Read: I've had lots of assigned reading these days, the most recent of which was The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, for my neighborhood book club. It's a breezy cotton-candy read, pretty much an R-rated Harlequin romance. I liked it being set in Chicago, although the author gets Hyde Park and the U. of C. mostly wrong (crossing the Midway from 59th Street won't quite get you to the Smart Gallery), and I am permanently irritated with her use of the ethnic sidekick Mrs. Kim, aka "Kimy" of the "flat Korean face", who should be played by Joel Grey in the inevitable movie version, if you ask me. The plot was clever, but aggregations of fantasy characteristics do not a character make. (Although I'll grant that having your dream guy be able to recite Rilke in the original German would probably have been found in my own Android-Identikit. When I was younger. And didn't know any better.)

Although it has been way too long since I've sat down with a book that I've chosen for myself (won't let that happen again), I've started Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea, and am luxuriating in it.

And, of course, I am rereading Dracula.

4. Five Books That Mean A Lot to Me: Well, there were the ten books on this list, and then the five "desert island" books on this list. Do we need another list? I think not.

5. Tag five people and have them do this on their blog. Reader, tag thyself!

04:05 PM in Reading | Permalink

Comments

I loved The Sea, the Sea! Luxuriate is the perfect word. Another Murdoch waits by my bedside.

The Murdoch, the Murdoch!

Thanks for going along with the tag, good book sport.

Posted by: Amy | May 23, 2005 at 05:09 PM

Oh, lord, a few years ago, well into "middle age" I finally found that person who could and would read Rilke to me both in the German and in the Stephen Mitchell translation, which probably should have been my tip-off because I don't care much for SM's translation, and this person was otherwise so deeply flawed that it put me off Rilke probably forever. At the very least I can probably never be seduced with poetry again.

Posted by: Molly | May 23, 2005 at 05:22 PM

Amy, thanks for the meme[ories]. 'The Murdoch, The Murdoch' indeed!

Molly, put off Rilke forever, oh no! (But there is something about Rilke's poetry that makes it particularly susceptible to that kind of unhappy use, I think.)

Posted by: Chan S. | May 24, 2005 at 06:40 AM