What Have You Been Reading?

I've been slacking a bit with the blog, haven't I? Thanks very much to the loyal visitors who come by, given the slim pickings lately. Notorious Apostate recently gave me a prodding, so now I really have to get a post up.


1. One book that changed your life.

I can imagine people who know (but do not share) my basic political orientation rolling their eyes at this, but I'm going to answer with Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. I read it during my senior year in high school, and it kind of catalyzed a fascination with history that has lasted for decades now. The book made me think for the first time of history as a record of conflict and struggle that needs to be considered from multiple viewpoints. The idea is pretty obvious, and I believe it informs the way history is taught in public schools these days--but it sure didn't back when I was attending.


2. One book you have read more than once.

I have shelves and shelves of books in my tiny little apartment--way too many--but I never really read them more than once. I'm just a pack rat, and I like knowing I could read them again, whenever I want to. At times I've tried to break the hoarding habit by giving away books that I particularly liked to particular friends who I think would also like them. But then I'm left only with books I know I'll never read again. I remember giving away a book of short stories by Raymond Carver, Where I'm Calling From, but I can't remember to whom. That one I did actually read more than once before I gave it away, and I'd like to have it back. Two stories I particularly remember and would like to reread: "Why Don't You Dance" and "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love."


3. One book you’d want on a desert island.

I'll take my compact Oxford English Dictionary. It's the full 21 volume OED microprinted and put in one volume--comes with a magnifying glass. Not a particularly convenient technology in these days of Google, true, but good for a desert island. It also has sentimental value as a gift from my parents for university graduation. And it's amazingly interesting to read the histories of word usages, in some cases going back hundreds of years and more. Should keep me busy until I'm rescued.


4. One book that made you giddy?

Quentin Crisp's memoir, The Naked Civil Servant. Back before homosexuality became as generally understood and tolerated as it is today, it took a rather, um, strong personality, to make one's gay way in the world. When dignity isn't a realistic possibility, you can still manage a sort of integrity through indignity--if you have a good sense of humor and a pathological lack of self-consciousness. Absolutely hilarious, and a great document of twentienth-century cultural history .


5. One book that you wish had been written.

Hmmm, I don't know. It'd be nice if there were genuinely useful self-help books. There are aspects of life I wish I had figured out quite a bit sooner. But it seems some things can't really be understood until you live through them. Doesn't that suck? Are there writers who are brilliant enough to overcome that problem and impart genuine wisdom to people young and malleable and still able to make good use of it?


6. One book that wracked you with sobs?

Well, I can't think of one. I'm a terrible weeper at movies, but not so much at books--more complex and subtle emotional stimulations from the printed word, I think. One book I finished recently that did put me through quite a wringer of all kinds of responses, though, is Thomas Carlyle's History of the French Revolution. Amazing, amazing book--a history of the French revolution in somewhat the same way that the Iliad is a history of the Trojan war. In other words, it's not about the facts of the matter so much as the raw human condition, with the particular events as the setting.


7. One book you wish had never been written.

The Institutes of Biblical Law by R. J. Rushdoony. I can only pick one?


8. One book you’re currently reading.

Oh, here's another reread, actually. This one might seem odd: French and Taylor's Introduction to Quantum Physics--an old textbook of mine. I knew this stuff back at one time long ago, and I had a recent urge to know it again. Whoa.... Fourier transforms....


9. One book you’ve been meaning to read.

I've got a paperback here by Patricia Highsmith, Deep Water. She's most well-known as the author of The Talented Mr. Ripley, and that's how I found out about her. She's a genre writer, pulp fiction, but way, way underrated as an author because of that. Here's a blurb I just pulled from Amazon.com. "An atmosphere of nameless dread, of unspeakable foreboding, permeates every page of Patricia Highsmith, and there's nothing quite like it." So true. I'm looking forward to this one.


10. Now tag five bloggers.

I'm going to cheat a bit and direct you to two entries that have already been done, by vjack and BeepBeep, and then pass onus to Stardust, Delta, and Drunken Tune.