Book Tag

Over the weekend someone tagged me for a meme, a questionnaire related to books and reading.

The person who did this used to use his real name in his blog, but a few months ago he decided to hide behind a secret identity and just be known to the outside world as Career Guy!

I suspect that the reason for this change is that he is in the Federal Witness Protection Program …

But if anyone anywhere really wants to locate him for any reason whatsoever, you’ll find him at http://careerguy.blogspot.com/. He lives in Ohio where he claims to be a Eucharistic minister.(must be one of those mafia things). He wrote a book called Careers In Action published by Kendallhunt — that should give you enough information to gun him down track him down.

PS: if you pay him a visit, he owns a dog (thot you’d want to know) Please don’t hurt his family, they’re nice people.

PPS: Is there a reward?.

Anyhow, enough about him, here’s the book and reading questionnaire which is all about me me me me! Nobody but me meme!

First off I should say that I read all the time for both business and pleasure and I keep an annotated bibliography of everything I read in my journals so I can find a book again when needed. Checking this list, I see that so far in 2006 I’ve read 58 books, mostly fluffy suspense novels.

So I’m hard put to narrow my answers to single books in this questionnaire; but since it’s all about me, I’ll answer as I please and skip the hard questions.

1. Name one book that changed your life:

Of the several books which have most influenced me, Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula tops my list. Stoker wove several purported diaries into his narrative. When I first read Dracula in about 1954, I had never even heard the words diary or journal. The idea that a person’s daily life was worth recording captivated me. So much so that off and on from my teen years till now I attempted to keep a daily journal.

Two years ago my youngest son introduced me to the word Blog and encouraged me to record my days and thoughts on line for other people to read. It feels odd to make journal entries knowing that others read over my shoulder so I’ve cleaned up my language, stopped recording erotic encounters with that woman, and stopped using real names in most cases. Other than those changes — and the fact that now people comment — my journals continue just as they’ve all ways been.

And, no, I have not kept them all. Scads of them were lost through divorce, fire, moving, and general wear and tear. But I still have a closet full of the ones since the late 1970s.

Therefore, I feel I owe Dracula a great debt. I wouldn’t have done it without him.

2. Name a book you’ve read more than once:

The Bible. Watership Down. The Chronicles of Narnia, The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. Nevil Shute’s novels. Stephen King’s Desperation, etc. etc.

3. What one book would you want with you on a desert island?

I’d want a 1951 edition of the Boy Scout Handbook, which, as I recall, contained extensive chapters on how to trap animals, identify eatable wild plants, and distill drinking water from the ocean.

4. Name a book that made you laugh:

Donald Westlake’s wonderful series featuring the Dortmunder Gang: Hot Rock, Bank Shot, etc. I liked Drowned Hopes the best.

Anything by Dave Berry! My favorite is Babies And Other Hazards Of Sex.

5. What book made you cry?

This may sound odd but I can’t remember ever writing a single one of my own books that I didn’t cry over. Glog and The Lazarus Projects especially. Heck, I’ve been known to cry when I wrote blog entries. Utter damn wimp!

6. Name one book you wish had been written already:

For years I’ve dabbled at writting a book set in London in the 1660s. It features an apprentice cook and includes adventures, news stories and recipes current at the time. The thing looks to run about 900 pages and I keep starting and stopping work on it as life intervenes. I wish I had finished that book. That’s one I’d really like to get done before I die. My working title for it is The Cook’s Book.

7. Name one book you wish had never been written:

False religious works that lead people astray spring to my mind first, but I loath censorship. Even false works deserve to be published in a free society. Besides, if the book doesn’t lead us astray, something else would. It doesn’t take much to corrupt us.

So I would not censor any work. I may chose not to buy it or have it on my shelves, and I would encourage anyone who asked me to read something better, but I think every person should have the right to publish his ideas. God is perfectly able to correct false ideas —He’s corrected me many times.

8. What are you currently reading.

Doug Lowe’s Powerpoint 2002 For Dummies — I just wish he’d made it simpler.

9. Name a book you’ve been meaning to read but haven’t:

I can name tons of them! Eleven bookcases infest our house, every one of them chock full of things I hope to read — someday. Heading my list would be: William Law’s A Serious Call To A Devout And Holy Life; Jeremy Taylor’s Rules and Exercises For Holy Living And Holy Dying; Francois Fenelon’s Christian Perfection and other works. But if another Dave Barry or Stephen King or Donald Westlake book comes out, I’d read that first..

10. The last book you read because it would “be good for you”:

Last month I tried a self-help book by a noted psychiatrist whose book has sold millions of copies. My mind balked at the very first exercise and I couldn’t stomach going any further. This says nothing about his book; it says a lot about me.

11. The book your ninth grade English teacher raved about, but that you vowed you would never read precisely because of her recommendation:

Ah, contraire! As an adult I have read Caesar’s Commentaries, Beowulf, most of Shakespeare’s plays, and, my favorite, the complete Canterbury Tales. Loved ‘em all!

It’s a waste of time to tell kids about these adult pleasures, and early exposure spoils them — the books that is, the kids might be improved by the practice.

12. Best essential desk reference books:

Here are the three I consult almost every day: the Holy Bible, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance Of The Holy Scriptures, and Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.