Oh Goody - A Book Meme!

Steve : Numen tagged me for a book meme. The meme asks for a personal list of 15 things about … books.


1. My parents delighted in telling us to "look it up" whenever we had questions like, what are clouds made of, how far is it to the Moon, or why do bugs have brown blood instead of red? This was way before computers were invented. We had a set of enclyclopedia and a set of Wonder Books. I loved, loved, loved browsing through those things! My folks did a lot of things wrong, but this instilling a love of books and knowledge was way right!

2. Our cars can drive us to Half Price Books without our assistance. In fact, for ages our big Saturday night hot date has been to have dinner at our favorite pizza place, then go to Half Price, then Sonic for chocolate shakes. Ah, married life!

3. When Tomcat and I got married and moved into our house, we culled through our combined book collection and boxed up the duplicates. Twenty-six boxes of duplicates. Which we took to Half Price. That was almost twenty years ago.

4. Twenty years of continued collecting later, there is no longer any room for books in our house. Seriously. But that didn't stop me from sending my Amazon Wishlist to friends this season.

5. We cannot possibly pay to move all of these books to North Carolina with us when we go. That would be insane. Wouldn't it?

6. I collect old, old recipe and housekeeping books, the kind where the section on poultry begins, "Do not feed the birds the day before slaughter." Recipies were called "receipts." I love that. And just reading about everything they had to do to clean the house is exhausting, which explains the state of my own house. When I get home with one of these books, I will read it cover to cover as if it were the lastest Harry Potter. I do not know what is up with that.

7. My favorite love story of all time is Jane Eyre. Sigh. Oh hell no -- swoon is more like it!

8. Tom Robbins' Skinny Legs and All is both the funniest and most spiritually profound book I've ever read.

9. Two more favorites: Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow, and its sequel, The Children of God. Wow. I've blogged about these before on my old blog. I even wrote to the author (I've never done that before.) IMHO, the sequel IS the story, and The Sparrow is just the prequel to it. But that's not what I wrote the author about. The Sparrow is going to be made into a movie, but not for several more years because of various contractual commitments of the parties involved. But I'm not too disappointed with having to wait until 2010 for the movie. That's because I am dreading the movie. You see, they picked Brad Pitt to play the lead role of Emilio Sandoz. This is deeply wrong. I wanted Johnny Depp. The author said, "Oh dear God yes, Johnny Depp." But, it is not to be. My mother-in-law says Al Pacino. I say yes, yes, Al Pacino, but a YOUNG Al Pacino. But, it is not to be. They picked Brad Pitt to play this wonderfully complex human being, Emilio Sandoz. Apparently, they are even thinking of changing the character's ethnicity. I cannot stand it.

10. Although The Sparrow and The Children of God are technically science fiction, I don't classify them as such in the Dewey decimal system of my mental library. So, my all-time favorite sci-fi is Dune -- Dune and all of its sequels, its posthumous prequels and coming sequels. What a universe! What a stupendous mind that created it! I've lost count of how many times I've read these. There are many levels to this work, as Frank Herbert Himself said. No matter how many times I go back, I'm never bored. This is odd, because I must have started the first book, Dune, two or three times and just couldn't get into it. But, once I got past the first, oh, 50 pages or so, I was hooked for life. My favorite of Herbert's in the series is God Emperor of Dune. My favorite of the prequels written by Herbert's son and a co-author, is The Machine Crusade.

l1. Another thing I collect is books on British Royalty. But not the current Royals. Quel bore! No, I started out with the Tudors (now that was a dysfunctional family!), then studied the Regency period, then the Victorian. That's when I fell in love with Albert. Albert was the best king the British never had. Or something like that. Maybe I'll do the Plantagenets next.

12. I used to read a lot of John Grisham, until I realized I was reading the same story over and over. Ditto Dean Koontz.

13. I have tons of books on crafting. I also have detailed indices of projects that looked like fun in craft magazines. It is impossible to live long enough to try even a tenth of these projects.

14. I have an extensive collection of astrology books. I even have ephemerides from the days before astrology software programs.

15, Oh no! I'm already at number 15? Obviously, I could go ON and ON about books! Okay, here's something I'd like to add about books: I've written one, and started another. The first one, The Earthquake Doll, is an historical novel for Young Adults set in post-war Japan. It is in its third rewrite. After the first of the year I'll be sending out query letters to literary agents. Wish me luck! And the second one? Well, I'm still kinda waiting for the plot to get here.

Okay, now I'll tag ... Duke of Earle at Romantic Ramblings, and because she loves books SO MUCH, Michele.