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ceebeegee1) Total number of books owned: Jesus. I have no idea. Hundreds, at least--I have TONS of books, of all kinds, both here and at my Mom's.
2) The last book I bought: The Great Mortality by John Kelly.
3) The last book I read: I'm currently reading The Great Mortality, In the Wake of the Plague by Norman Cantor, and The Dummy's Guide to the Middle East (again. I have a really hard time keeping Middle Eastern history in my head--it's so unstable, I get lost).
4) 5 books that mean a lot to me:
Man, this is hard without my books in front of me but...
* A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (I'll count them as one just because). I identified so strongly with Sara--I "supposed" just like her. I used to pretend I was a Princess which to me meant I could eat all the doughnuts I wanted. And I loved the Easter symbolism of The Secret Garden and how difficult Mary was. Such a great character. Colin was great too, pretending to be a Rajah and ordering the servants around.
*The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery. "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly--what is essential is invisible to the eye. It is the time you have wasted with your rose that makes her so valuable." That book is so beautiful, so touching.
*My cozy, old old, well-loved copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. I love this edition--my uncle Chip had it in boarding school (neatly lettered on the title page is "Kent School, 1954"), my dad had it in college and then my maternal grandmother had it, both of whom wrote notes in it. It's covered in canvas and quite worn. I used to sleep with this in college--it made me feel cozy and part of a tradition to have it next to me.
*A paperback book my grandmother gave me--I can't remember the title but it's basically the greatest works of American and British poetry with selections from the Bible ("Song of Solomon" and some of the Psalms) all the way up to mid-20th century. Pretty standard selections--no Mary Oliver or Adrienne Rich in there--but a nice little reference book that I use a lot. I also wrote down or printed out more obscure poems that weren't included ("Prayer to Persephone," "Richard Corey") and stuck them in there.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
(Appropos of Carl Sandburg, I used to tease my cat about having little fog feet.)
*Gone with the Wind, baby, by Margaret Mitchell! The one, the biggie, the Great American Novel. The plotting is decent, but the characterizations are what make this great--Scarlett and Melanie, two great women, somewhat modeled after Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley from Vanity Fair but much more fully realized than those women. Rhett is also awesome--always watching Scarlett for what she can't give him until the very end. "My dear...I am complimenting your intelligence by asking you to be my mistress without seducing you first." "Mistress? What would I get out of that except a passel of brats?"
5) Tag (someone) and have them fill this out on their ljs:
Doug
Xinher
2) The last book I bought: The Great Mortality by John Kelly.
3) The last book I read: I'm currently reading The Great Mortality, In the Wake of the Plague by Norman Cantor, and The Dummy's Guide to the Middle East (again. I have a really hard time keeping Middle Eastern history in my head--it's so unstable, I get lost).
4) 5 books that mean a lot to me:
Man, this is hard without my books in front of me but...
* A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (I'll count them as one just because). I identified so strongly with Sara--I "supposed" just like her. I used to pretend I was a Princess which to me meant I could eat all the doughnuts I wanted. And I loved the Easter symbolism of The Secret Garden and how difficult Mary was. Such a great character. Colin was great too, pretending to be a Rajah and ordering the servants around.
*The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery. "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly--what is essential is invisible to the eye. It is the time you have wasted with your rose that makes her so valuable." That book is so beautiful, so touching.
*My cozy, old old, well-loved copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. I love this edition--my uncle Chip had it in boarding school (neatly lettered on the title page is "Kent School, 1954"), my dad had it in college and then my maternal grandmother had it, both of whom wrote notes in it. It's covered in canvas and quite worn. I used to sleep with this in college--it made me feel cozy and part of a tradition to have it next to me.
*A paperback book my grandmother gave me--I can't remember the title but it's basically the greatest works of American and British poetry with selections from the Bible ("Song of Solomon" and some of the Psalms) all the way up to mid-20th century. Pretty standard selections--no Mary Oliver or Adrienne Rich in there--but a nice little reference book that I use a lot. I also wrote down or printed out more obscure poems that weren't included ("Prayer to Persephone," "Richard Corey") and stuck them in there.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
(Appropos of Carl Sandburg, I used to tease my cat about having little fog feet.)
*Gone with the Wind, baby, by Margaret Mitchell! The one, the biggie, the Great American Novel. The plotting is decent, but the characterizations are what make this great--Scarlett and Melanie, two great women, somewhat modeled after Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley from Vanity Fair but much more fully realized than those women. Rhett is also awesome--always watching Scarlett for what she can't give him until the very end. "My dear...I am complimenting your intelligence by asking you to be my mistress without seducing you first." "Mistress? What would I get out of that except a passel of brats?"
5) Tag (someone) and have them fill this out on their ljs:
Doug
Xinher
