A books meme! or, ‘In which Mark reveals his fundamental manliness.’
Meme courtesy of T.
One Book That Changed Your Life:
Easy. It was the mysteriously untitled NaNoWriMo novel by T. of course. Now let’s never speak of NaNoWriMo again. Seriously but, the best example I could give would be Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. I really liked Fight Club, with it’s interesting take on conformity, alienation and friendship, and Choke develops those themes in a different way - with the added advantage of not leaving you wondering whether the movie was better than the book. Along the same lines is Andrew Wellman’s S.F.W. but, again, that one was made into a movie that’s just as good.
One Book You Have Read More Than Once:
I’m not one for multiple reads, so the ones I have read a few times are only the greats: The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, To Kill a Mockingbird and Catch 22. But poetry is different - books like TS Eliot’s Prufrock & Other Observations and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass are always worth another read.
One Book You’d Want On A Desert Island:
Perhaps my pocket edition of The SAS Survivial Guide? Either that or some heavy tome that I would only ever read if I had nothing else to do. Like Being and Time or something by Dostoevsky.
One Book That Made You Giddy:
Vile Bodies was too too giddy-making in my opinion, but if you’re really up for some Evelyn Waugh you’ll want to grab The Loved One. It’s sort of a surreal black comedy about the funeral industry, with bonus marks for not being long enough to have any crap bits in it.
One Book That You Wish Had Been Written:
‘Here’s What I Was On About’, and edited collection with chapters from TS Eliot, William Burroughs, Gilles Deleuze and all the other authors whose books I can’t make sense of.
One Book That Wracked You With Sobs:
I have never been wracked with sobs by a book. That shit is for girls and sissies, whereas I am tuff and manly. However, as a manly man I am allowed to shed a quiet tear at Leaves of Grass because of the inspirational manliness of it all.
One Book You Wish Had Never Been Written:
So many to choose from… something like Mein Kampf would be a start, though the Da Vinci Code is perhaps an even greater evil. And if Brave New World had never been written I wouldn’t have wasted precious hours reading that turgid and condescending heap of crap. But I guess I can’t narrow it down to one.
One Book You’re Currently Reading:
Well there’s nothing non-fictional around here, so I’ll say: In Spite of Plato by Adriana Cavarero. A sort of stylish Italian feminist thing about female characters in Greek mythology. Worth a read if you’re into classics and/or gender issues.
One Book You’ve Been Meaning To Read:
After reading The Winter of Our Discontent and finding it very nifty I’d like to try another Steinbeck novel, like The Grapes of Wath. People have also been telling me to read some Beckett so I might do that. And I never read He Died With A Felafel In His Hand, which apparently everyone else has read, so that could also be the one. Plus, I would like to try and read Cloudstreet, if only to further justify my disdain for Tim Winton.
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He Died with a Felafel in his Hand is indeed an awesome book, plus seriously funny. The sequel - The Tasmanian Babe Fiasco is just as good.
But yes on the To Kill a Mockingbird, I adore that book.
Comment by Lucy — Sunday August 27 2006 @ 8:06 pm
Okay, felafel it is then. btw, TKAM is *everyone’s* favourite book. I’ve never met a person who didn’t think it was great, let alone anyone who didn’t like it.
Comment by Mark — Sunday August 27 2006 @ 8:12 pm
I wouldn’t bother reading Felafel if you’ve never had housemates, though. Can’tsee the point if you’re not going ‘holy shit I lived with that freak’!!!
Comment by nailpolishblues — Sunday August 27 2006 @ 10:42 pm
Ooh, my NaNoWriMo novel! A scintillating, semi-autobiographical tale about a girl who goes bananas and picks up motorbikes, and other such impossibilities. I should’ve put that one down, because it changed me from ‘it’d be lovely to be a writer’ to ‘HOLY SHIT, writing is painful.’
You don’t still have a copy of that, do you?
Comment by T. — Monday August 28 2006 @ 7:51 am
Nails - Really? Er. Well that’s a bit disappointing then. Hey why don’t you do this meme?
T - Of course I have a copy. Not that I’ve read it more than once or anything; it’s just sitting on my hard drive. I was good, you know…
Comment by Mark — Monday August 28 2006 @ 4:18 pm
pick up a vollman–william t–novel. start with the atlas; it’s a fine example of america’s literary dominance. most people don’t know the first thing about lit–there are only about 5 really good books, and the rest r a waste of time and have done far more harm than good.
Comment by andrew — Monday August 28 2006 @ 5:08 pm
Duuuuuuuuuude, with some of my housemates I could’ve written half of Felafel. And people wonder why I now live alone…
The chicks with hatstands thing is so true though.
Comment by nailpolishblues — Tuesday August 29 2006 @ 12:21 am
Andrew - You’ll have to write down the 5 for me and then I’ll be sorted. Kewlz. Vollman, eh…
Nails - yes, hatstands. What?
Comment by Mark — Tuesday August 29 2006 @ 5:43 pm
Avoid them because they’re psycho. It’s a marvellous way of judging people.
Comment by nailpolishblues — Tuesday August 29 2006 @ 9:08 pm
Oh I detest Winton as well. The Riders was the biggest pile of horsedoodoo I’ve ever read.
I didn’t much like Choke, probably because it seemed to similar in many ways to Fight Club. I did however dig Lullaby. Chuck P seems like a bit of a one trick pony though…
Comment by audrey — Tuesday August 29 2006 @ 9:28 pm
I hadn’t realise how much I missed your blog until catching up on these posts.
I hated Cloudstreet. But everyone else I have ever spoken to thinks it’s pure magic.
I’m half way through Evelyn Waugh’s Works Suspended at the moment (been put on hold during the moving, and now I’ve started rereading Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency). I love his style of writing. I’m working my way through his entire body of work, in order that they were published. I highly recommend it.
Comment by boofuls — Wednesday August 30 2006 @ 1:22 pm
Nails - fair enough, will avoid the hatstand set.
Audrey - fair enough, Chuck is a bit like the same each time.
Book - fair enough, though Dirk Gently is also a good read.
Comment by Mark — Wednesday August 30 2006 @ 1:37 pm