Thursday, January 17, 2008

Tagged.

I was tagged by Mystery of Iniquity. However, I'm going to have to cheat on this, as most questions are limited to one response. And I'm the only person that ever had to be told, by her eye doctor, to stop reading for a month. The doctor couldn't believe she had to say it, but I had to let the the eye muscles relax ...

I wasn't able to do it.

1 - One book that changed your life
Well-done history books. It really brings to life "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."

2 - One book that you've read more than once
Too many to count. Anything on my bookshelf, I've read at least three times.

3 - One book you’d want on a desert island
A "book" that was in computer format, connected to an Internet that worked, and would let me connect to the entire library known to the existence of mankind. In English. After all, if I can make the last page in a book go right to the first page in another book on the computer screen, then it can all be considered one book. :)

4 - Two books that made you laugh
The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde.
Most David Eddings books.

5 - One book that made you cry

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. And Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls.

6 - One book that you wish you had written

I'd like to go with the Harry Potter books here, as JK Rowling has an incredible imagination. However, I don't think she's the best writer. She's a great storyteller, has a great grasp of character: but she uses way too many adverbs.

Or To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

7 - One book that you wish had never been written
Any book that picks up where "great works of literature" left off. I'm looking at *you,* all you Jane Austin sequels.

8 - Two books you’re currently reading
The Good Good Pig, by Sy Montgomery
Those Who Save Us, by Jenna Blum

9 - One book you've been meaning to read
Um ... no such thing as just "one." I have at least ten theology books I've been meaning to read, a few science ones, seven books checked out from the library that I must read in the next two weeks, so ... maybe I'll just go with "I mean to read anything I haven't yet read."

Anyone who wants to do this, consider yourself tagged.

3 comments:

HeIsSailing said...

Holy Mackeral, I guess that means I am tagged.

I am a pretty big book nut, but it has been mostly physics my entire adult life until about 3 years ago when I began to branch out. I am not nearly as well read as our bloghost OSS is.

With that said:

1) I like your answer regarding hsitory books. I recently read one on the Philippine-American war,, and I was mumbling over and over how history just repeats, and we never seem to learn from past mistakes. Anyway, if I chose a single book, I guess that would have to be Let the Trumpet Sound - A Life of Martin Luther King by Stephen Oates. That is ultimately the *one* book that got me down the road to leaving Christianity.

2)Of the big books, I have read James Michener's Hawaii 3 times, and Robert Price's Pre-Nicene New Testament twice.

3)Oh boy - impossible to say. I need something really entertaining. How about Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe if I can bring all volumes? I never get tired of reading that thing, but if I ever do, I can copy the pictures on my drawing pad while I am waiting for a ship to rescue me.

4)Well, Larry Gonicks great comics for one. Stanislaw Lem has written some stuff that is really funny, but in a strange, twisted-logic way.

5)The Water is Wide, by Pat Conroy

6) OK, the scientist in me must come out here. I wish I was brilliant, lucid and clever enough to have written Principles of Stellar Dynamics, but alas, it was written by the unbelievably brilliant Subrahmanyah Chandrasekhar.

or The Night of the Mary Kay Commandos by Berke Breathed

7)The Quran. Seriously.

8)I am currently reading 3 books. The Quest for the Historical Jesus by Albert Scweitzer - another great book available for free thanks to Google books! Science and Ethics, edited by Paul Kurtz. The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls

9)The next books in my reading queue are the books I have been meaning to read. For sure the next one is The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurzweil. I want to take advantage of some old classics I have missed out on. I have found some old Edgar Alan Poe, Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift on Google Books, and I would like to check them out too.

Thanks for the oppurtunity to make book lists!

Anonymous said...

I could answer this ten times and depending on what was going on in my life at the moment - I'd have different answers every time. Have to say - I absolutely love your answer for being stranded on a desert island!

OneSmallStep said...

HIS,

I'm going to have to look at that book you read on MLK. It sounds very compelling.

Arulba,

I'd be the same.