I'm stealing a book meme

Because I have neither the time nor the energy for an original thought today.

From Mom-NOS, via Bub and Pie:

Total number of books?

(Blank stare.)

OK. Well. There's the large bookcase in the living room that has, let's see, 25 cubes. Each has to contain about 20 books (double-stacked, remember). So that would be around 500. Then there's the double-stacked bookcase in my room. That has to be another hundred, so we're at 600. Then maybe another 30 scattered in other shelves, and ten or so in my night-table, and a largeish stack on the coffee table. Plus another hundred or so at my parents' house in boxes (still). Maybe a bit more. So ... 750? ish? Maybe a bit less?

It's a good thing I gave all those books away when I moved. Can you imagine?

Last book read?

The Lenses of Gender by Sandra Lipsitz-Bem. I'm working on a review, it was really good.

Last book bought?

(digs toe into carpet)

Here's the thing: I went to the Word on the Street festival on Sunday with Frances. They had books everywhere, and they were cheap, and so ....

There were five Scooby Doo books ($5 for the lot), 3 Clifford books ($5 again), two preschooler hardcovers for Frances. Then for me, I bought Girlbomb by Janice Erlbaum, a memoir (I know her, sort of, from an old message board), Grassroots, Gwendolyn MacEwen's first novel (can't recall the title but I love her poetry and was very excited to see the novel, old as it may be), an anthology of Canadian poetry, an Ursula Franklin reader, a few hardcovers at $5 each (one of which was a novel that won the GG prize for fiction recently), and....

What? What are you shaking your heads for?

OK, yes. I went and bought so many books that I honestly cannot recall all of the titles or authors. Maybe about twenty? But books! Cheap books!

The scary thing is that I'd already had a stack of about twenty books in the to-be-read pile, four of which I am currently working my way through; and now I have so many books that I honestly have nowhere to put them. I can't put my new purchases away. There's nowhere for them to go.

Five meaningful books?

I'll refrain from being pedantic and pointing out that all books, technically, have meanings that are encoded in the little black marks made on the page (oops), and interpret the question as it was probably meant: five books that have special meaning to me.

A Christmas Carol, for believing that the worst of us can be better, that change is a constant potential in human nature.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for making me look in nooks and crannies for hidden kingdoms my entire childhood; for rewarding a belief in magic. Also, in the case of Alice, for being the only novel I know of that successfully used the "and then I woke up" ending.

Self (Yann Martel) for using Virginia Woolf's Orlando to explore doubleness, identities, and sex roles.

Not Wanted on the Voyage and Wicked for flipping the good and bad guys around, questioning the nature of good and evil, and letting the animals speak for themselves. Wicked gets bonus points for introducing Elphaba (the wicked witch of the west) as one of the most intelligent and interesting heroines of all time.

You'll notice that none of my "meaningful books" are realistic. It's not intentional. That's just the way my brain works.

Posted by Andrea at October 4, 2007 7:55 AM under Books

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