books (and an mp3)
Thanks to John and Joel for giving me something to write about besides Israel losing its confrontation with Hizballah.
1. Book that changed my life. I’m closer to the belief that, like Joel, I am partially the sum total of the many hundreds books I have read. I suppose if there were one, it was A Diary of the Century by Edward Robb Ellis. I last read this book over ten years ago, and it’s what started me writing every day, which I’ve done more or less continuously since. No doubt I’d be a lesser person if I hadn’t done so.
2. Book I have read more than once. All of the books I have read I have read more than once. Book I have read most often? Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.
3. Book I would want on a desert island. Well, the obvious books about raftbuilding and signaling rescue aircraft aside, I’d have to say Complex Analysis by Lars Ahlfors. I always felt that complex analysis was one of the best branches of mathematics to study, because it pulled in elements from the major families — algebra, analysis, and topology.
4. Book that made me laugh. The Illuminatus! trilogy, by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
5. Book that made me cry. I can honestly say that I haven’t cried because of a book. I’ve been sad upon a book’s conclusion, and felt just about everything else. But I haven’t cried.
6. Book I wish I had written. This is easy — it’s Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan.
7. Book I wish had never been written. Joel cites the Protocols, and it’s hard to argue with that. I guess another choice would be Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman, being the basis for the racist propaganda film The Birth of a Nation, which fueled a massive resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and leaves a bitter legacy that is still with us to this day.
8. Book I am currently reading. The Tao Te Ching. Again.
9. Book I’ve been meaning to read. The Federalist papers.
10. Tag five other people. Tony, Mike, and my three Politburo co-guest-bloggers Rachel, Barry, and Joe.
UPDATE: Speaking of Tony, check him out on KMBZ 980-AM from Sunday morning.
08.14.2006 @ 20:34
Thanks for playing, jd.
You’re right about Dixon. I’ve read a couple of his novels as part of my research for my dissertation. Not a pleasant task. It is truly breathtaking on all sorts of levels to know that for a while there he was the top-selling novelist in this country; it’s very easy to find copies of his books at flea markets. Not that this excuses his popularity then, but that fact is indicative of how pervasively racist this nation was at the turn of the 20th century.
08.14.2006 @ 20:40
It’s impossible to say whether we might have progressed along down the path toward racial harmony more quickly without such books and movies in the last hundred years.
I say it couldn’t have been worse.
08.14.2006 @ 21:07
Oooh! “Diary of the Century” sounds cool.
That’s one thing I like about book-sharing on the blogs … new reading material ideas.
Speaking of which, I’m going to get off the Web and read a lil’ bit before bed.
08.15.2006 @ 22:20
Tag I am it. I am working on this post…stay tuned!