Book Meme Redux
Category: Books & Writing...
Posted Wednesday, June 01, 2005 at 10:20 PM [GMT-6]

The pulchritudinous and erudite TulipGirl has tagged your humble scribe for a book meme, one that is similar to this one and yet different. Here 'tis:

1. Total books owned, ever: 1,843 (Go ahead...just try to prove me wrong!)


2. Last book I bought: "Hold the Enlightenment" by Tim Cahill - Cahill is perhaps the premier "adventure travel" writer, intentionally putting himself in strange and dangerous situations just so he can come back and write about them (assuming he survives). This book was published in 2003, but I just got around to buying and reading it. It's not his most entertaining work, but it is one of his most personal as he reveals hitherto unknown details about his life. He's in his sixth decade now, so the introspection is probably natural.


3. Last book I read: "'Scuse Me While I Whip This Out" by Kinky Friedman - The self-described Texas Jewboy -- who's getting some not-insignificant mileage out of his campaign to be the next governor of The Friendship State -- is a prolific author, but this is the first of his books I've read. It's a collection of stream-of-consciousness essays, mostly humorous, generally interesting but ultimately forgettable. I might still vote for him. With a campaign slogan of "Why the Hell Not?" I figure he's at least a match for The Governator. (Note: I really wanted to be able to say that the exquisite "The Kite Runner" was my last read, but that would be untrue. I picked up Kinky's tome as a light dessert following that wonderful entreé.)


4. 5 books that mean a lot to me:
   • The Bible - It's the Big Kahuna of, well, everything. I'm in my 15th consecutive year of reading it cover-to-cover, and I find new things every single time.
   • "Atoms and Evil" by Robert Bloch - This 1962 collection of short stories made me an incurable lifelong sci-fi junkie. They just don't write stories like this anymore.
   • "Designing with Web Standards" by Jeffrey Zeldman - This book has shaped and influenced my approach to every website I've built or worked on since I read it. If you're at all interested in web design, it's required reading.
   • "Pogo" by Walt Kelly - This was very likely the first book I bought with my own money as a child. I found it in a long-vanished bookstore (which may have just been a collection of haphazardly stocked shelves in someone's living room, now that I think about it) in my hometown of Fort Stockton, Texas. Walt Kelly's comic strips had allusions to things that I had no understanding about, but I found them hilarious just the same. His was a kinder, gentler and far funnier kind of political humor, and when we speak of the "good old days," we're surely referring to the times when Pogo still appeared in the daily funny paper. I still have the remnants of that 50-year old paperback, by the way. It has managed to survive several traumas, not the least of which was when MLB fell asleep in the bathtub while reading it.
   • "Introducing Poisonous Snakes" by V. J. Stanek - This is another book from my childhood, a thin hardback published in 1962 that probably contributed to my ambition to become a marine biologist (a plan which was working well until organic chemistry convinced me that I was better suited for a less, um, scientific career). This book is filled with low resolution black-and-white photos of deadly snakes from around the globe, and my imagination was sparked by exotic names like the Gaboon Viper, the Cascavela (Brazilian rattlesnake) and the Boomslang. (Interesting footnote: I just realized that this book was a gift to me and my brother by some old family friends. I'm not sure my brother ever realized that he was technically a co-owner. Wonder how that happened?)
   
   
5. Tag five people: I'm going to pass on this right now. If you'd like to participate, feel free to leave a comment to that effect and I'll give you a link, but it's late and I'm reluctant to do any unilateral tagging right now. Don't worry, Scott; you're not even on the radar screen.