He tasks me. The bubbleheads, they haunt me and task me with more thinking than I am capable of. The Geezer demands answers, yesterday (actually day before yesterday). Yep, you guessed it, I’ve been hit with another meme.
The subject today is books. Its a great one for me because I have books everywhere, in my apartment, in storage, even at my son’s place. So lets talk about those books:
(1) Number of books I own: I don’t know for sure, but split between all three of the above locations somewhere between 750-800.
(2) Last book bought: The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman. (Just started it. )
(3) Last book I read: ?????????????????????????Excitement at midnight-Blue train). A Japanese manga book. Do comic books count?
(4) Five books that mean a lot to me: This is downright hard. There are lots of books I like. Narrowing it down to five just does not do the other ones justice. Here goes however:
(a) Winds of War and War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk. Yea its two books, but really only one story, you can’t read the latter with out having read the former, despite what Mr Wouks says in the preamble. Its one of my absolute favorite books and I’ve read it probably 30 times in the last 25 years.
(b) The Fifties-by David Halberstam. One of the best histories of the period I think I have read.
(c) A Good Walk Spoiled : Days and Nights on the PGA Tour- Golf book by John Feinstein. Since I am a lousy golfer who fantasizes about being on the tour and getting PAID to play golf, its a must read.
(d) An Introduction to Shakespeare- Edited by Hardin Craig and David Bevington. My college English text for second semester. Still on my shelf and I read it from time to time when I feel in the mood to read Shakespeare, something that , sadly, fewer and fewer young people are doing these days. All the biggies are there: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Richard the II, King Lear, Twelfth Night. Sadly it does not have Macbeth or the Merchant of Venice, two other Shakespeare plays I love.
(e) What If? – Edited by Robert Cowley. An anthology of alternate history essays by a bunch of historians including Caleb Carr, Stephen Ambrose, John Keegan and others…..
There are a whole bunch I could have put on there. As you can see I tend to read mostly non fiction however any of Hemingway’s books deserves honorable mention. Plus books I read as teenager and have since forgotten, like Cry the Beloved Country or Flowers for Algernon.
And now to give the gift that keeps on giving: I tag Expat at Large, Yankee Sailor, with total respect, The Bookworm.
Whew!
Skippy-san
