Book Meme

1. One Book That Changed Your Life

The Catcher in the Rye. Think it's a hackneyed, adolescent choice? Maybe, but Salinger, through his much crushed-upon bundle of contradictions, Holden Caulfield, made a string of subversive, spot on commentary on hypocrisy... society's, mine, yours, and it's funny. More than 50 years later, it's hysterical. and honest. And if it's possible to have feelings for a construct of fiction, then I had feelings for Holden. I wrote a paper once, for my own enjoyment, comparing and contrasting it to Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

2. One book you have read more than once

Other than "Catcher," The Monk Downstairs. Tim Farrington is a contemporary writer who is preoccupied with questions of spirituality and personal faith as expressed in interpersonal relationships. His monk was disarmingly guiless, sexual, funny, and human. I was more than a little smitten with him, too.

3. One book you would want on a desert island

Jane Kenyon's Otherwise. A tremendous collection of the late poet's work. Accessible, unassuming, staggering.

4. One book that made you cry

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

5. One book that made you laugh

Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job. Just. could. not. stop. laughing.

6. One book you wish had been written

Well, I'll take a little liberty with this one. The story of my life. I hope it will be. Maybe even by me.

7. One book you wish had never been written

Any truly crappy, poorly constructed book. I'm not a snob, though I do love real literature. I've enjoyed a variety of genres, both high and low brow... academic and utterly pedestrian. Good writing is good writing.

Okay, anything by Nicholas Sparks. That man is a hack. And it kills me that he's living well off his truly bad, formulaic books. He's the writer's Thomas Kinkaid.

8. One book you are currently reading

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

9. One book you have been meaning to read

Persuasion by Jane Austen

10. Tag five new people

Sarah, Catherine, anyone else? Have at it!