Musings

This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

In the order which I thought them:
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic
The Planiverse by A.K. Dewdney
Primary Inversion by Catherine Asaro
The Book of Lost Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
Firebird by Kathy Tyers
The Conference of the Birds by Farid ud-Din Attar
The Bible
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

This wasn’t hard. For sure, these books have stuck with me for a while, and I don’t think they’re going anywhere!

(Have been reading much but reviewing little, so here are a few memes to pass the time. Watch out for a Bookshelf post soon.)

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A bunch of BTT memes from the last month or so that I’m catching up with - because they’re all good ones!

Week of 26 Feb: Collectibles

* Hardcover? Or paperback?
* Illustrations? Or just text?
* First editions? Or you don’t care?
* Signed by the author? Or not?

I’m a book collector in regards to my personal library (the lending library serves day-to-day reading), so many books I own are special or distinctive in some way. I overwhelmingly prefer hardcovers and trade paperbacks, down to specific editions for their covers or illustrations. For example, I own all of Miéville’s novels as Pan McMillan trade paperbacks, Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy in Bantam paperback (on top of an Earthsea Quartet trade paperback) because they contain illustrations, and Tolkien’s Book of Lost Tales Parts I and II in Houghton Mifflin hardcover. I like novels that have illustrations, provided they are good, and I like matching trilogies/series. The only time I’m not fussy at all is when I’m looking for a rare or out-of-print book.

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I’m currently working through the Author A-Z challenge, which is taking much longer than the original timeframe of 2008. Since some of my reading priorities have changed (I’m favouring “lighter” reading over literary/classical works), I’m not sure when I’ll finish it, but I’m loath to abandon it or change the list. So I’ll keep plugging away at it.

In the meantime, some more reading challenges for this year and beyond.

I. 10 Books from my Library
The books in my personal library tend to sit neglected on my shelf for a while (often for years) before they get read. Here’s my challenge: to read ten books I own in 2009, especially the oldest ones. The list below are some suggestions for me, but they may change. So far I’ve already read two, so I’m 20% of the way there!

01. IN & OZ, by Steve Tomasula (finished 11 Jan)
02. Amberlight, by Sylvia Kelso (finished 23 Mar)
03. Firebird, by Kathy Tyers
04. Fusion Fire, by Kathy Tyers
05. Crown of Fire, by Kathy Tyers
06. King Rat, by China Miéville
07. Un Lun Dun, by China Miéville
08. Shadowbridge, by Gregory Frost
09. Landscape Painted With Tea, by Milorad Pavic
10. Bright of the Sky, by Kay Kenyon

II. Graphic Novels in June-July
I love graphic novels and want to read more. Starting in June (a month after Free Comic Book Day) and ending in July (Comic-Con International is at the end of the month), I’ll read as many graphic novels, illustrated books, and comic books as I can. Some that I’ve flagged (because I own many of them):

- The Red Star: The Battle at Kar-Dathra’s Gate, by Christian Gossett et al.
- The Red Star: Nokgorka, by Christian Gossett et al.
- The Red Star: Prison of Souls, by Christian Gossett et al.
- Griffin & Sabine trilogy, by Nick Bantock
- Tales From Outer Suburbia, by Shaun Tan
- Iron West, by Douglas TenNapel
- Galactic Geographic: Annual 3003, by Karl Kofoed
- Flight (collections), edited by Kazu Kibuishi
- Daisy Kutter: The Last Train, by Kazu Kibuishi
- Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, by Bill Willingham
- Jack of Fables: The (Nearly) Great Escape, by Bill Willingham et al.
- V For Vendetta, by Alan Moore

And one for whenever I finish the Author A-Z challenge:

III. 5 Nobel Laureates
So far I’ve read John Steinbeck, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Beckett, William Faulkner, T. S. Eliot and Saul Bellow to various degrees. This challenge is to read five Nobel Literature laureates who are from underrepresented nations and/or not white. Based on what I’ve heard of them, I’ve chosen:

- One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Gárcia Márquez (1982)
- Children of the Alley, by Naguib Mahfouz (1988)
- Soul Mountain, by Gao Xingjian (2000)
- Age of Iron, by J.M. Coetzee (2003)
- My Name is Red, by Orhan Pamuk (2006)

Wow, all very recent laureates. Maybe next challenge will be to read older Laureates!

If you have any recommendations for graphic novels and Nobel laureates, please post them here. I’m always looking for more good books to read.

I’ve seen this “One Book/Movie” meme floating around readerblogs. Here’s my take!

ONE BOOK:

• you’re currently reading: Ilium by Dan Simmons
• that changed your life: Under Cover by John Bevere
• you’d want on a deserted island: Empires of the Word by Nicholas Ostler
• you’ve read more than once: The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic
• you’ve never been able to finish: Fusion Fire by Kathy Tyers (because I kept getting interrupted and distracted)
• that made you laugh: Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
• that made you cry: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
• you keep rereading: The Planiverse by A.K. Dewdney
• you’ve been meaning to read: Count Zero by William Gibson
• you believe everyone should read: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• Grab the nearest book. Open it to page 56. Find the fifth sentence:
  “No stopping the stallion or the mare.” –Exile’s Gate by C.J. Cherryh

ONE MOVIE:

• that you saw last: Gran Torino
• that changed your life: Contact
• you’ve seen more than once: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
• you walked out of/turned off before the end: I’ve definitely done this, but all such movies have been so insignificant that I don’t remember any of them
• you’d want on a deserted island: The Lord of the Rings trilogy (all extended)
• that made you laugh: The Triplets of Belleville
• that made you cry: Gladiator
• you watch over and over: Road to Perdition
• you’ve been meaning to watch: Let the Right One In
• you believe everyone should watch: Hero (Ying Xiong)

Since “Inspiration” is (or should) the theme this week … what is your reading inspired by?

A rather vague question… does it mean “what inspires me to read”, or “what inspires me to read a particular book, at this point in time”?

To answer the former: I read because I want to connect with the thoughts, imaginations and ideas of other people. I read because I want to learn more about the world and myself. It’s such a delight to read thoughts put in eloquent and beautiful words; it’s so exciting to have a new world created by someone else blossom in my mind’s eye, which gradually unfolds the more I read; it’s satisfying to chew on ideologies, theories and philosophies espoused in fiction and non-fiction, hash out my own world-view and come to fresh (or reinvigorated) understanding about the world. I read because it’s the most timeless way of connecting with people, ideas and worlds.

Concerning the latter: It’s a mix of reading goals, desire for variety, and spur-of-the-moment whim. And I read because there are so many excellent books out there in the world (and so many being published each year!), and only a few years of life to read them. That’s why I read!