tag! i'm it!

i don't know what it means, but chris called it "a blog meme! yay!"

how many books i own

the law of averages states that that if some of a number of independent equally likely events have already occurred, then the probability that the remaining ones shall occur increases. that said, if a bookshelf is approximately two feet long, i own approximately 250 books ... and i've read approximately 210 of them, whether i remember or not.

the last book i purchased

holy hell. let's see ... i'm pretty sure it was zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. i gave away my last copy, and will most likely give away this one as well. as soon as i'm done with it. again.

the last book i read

for some reason, i've been obsessed with serials this year. i finished the bourne ultimatum not too long ago. it was good, but the supremacy was hands-down the best of the three. there comes a point where, as an author, you have to trust that your audience has read at least one of the previous books ... and that should be enough to get them thru the next one. not that i know anything about it.

books that mean a lot to me

i am the cheese by robert cormier: this was the first high-school-required book that i ever actually read. i was a freshman so it set my expectations for required reading unattainably high. don't look for a heavy, intellectually rigorous read here. this is not-so-simply a touching story about a boy.

to kill a mockingbird by harper lee: this was the second high-school-required book that i ever actually read. the expectations set by i am the cheese crashed and burned the following year with a separate peace and the pearl. [turns out "fagitude" isn't really a word, and you should never, ever plagiarize.] i go back to this every summer because summer is the best time to daydream about what it was like to be a carefree, inquisitive, rebellious kid. i'm in love with this novel because it has more heart than anything i've ever read.

east of eden by john steinbeck: no, aaron, it's not about lettuce. the movie might be, but the book is way less vegetable-centric. trust me. a picture of an ugly landscape can be breathtaking.

dirk gently's holistic detective agency by douglas adams: you think i'm putting this in to be funny, but that is so not the case. when you're me, you don't believe that it has to be tragic or forcefully insightful to be good literature. in the last five years or so, the majority of books [at least the ones i've either been subjected or have subjected myself to] have (with a few shining exceptions) been either self-indulgent or wholly depressing. not that there's anything wrong with that. rarely, if ever, do you find adams' type of escapism anymore ... and it scares me to think that it may now be extinct.

jude the obscure by thomas hardy: remember how i said that depressing tragedies don't necessarily make great literature? well, this one does. when you're in one of those moods where you feel like there's no possible way your life could get any worse so you might as well curl up and die under a filing cabinet, this is what you should read. it'll help you realize that, really, you're perfectly fine ... so stop complaining.

the moonstone by wilkie collins: mystery and intrigue with Romantic brits ... what could be better? if you're in to that kind of thing, that is.