June 2, 2005

• 
  
  
  
  

  “My Favorite Books” Response to a game of “tag” by Michael F. Nyiri

  
  

   

  
  

  Anita “Ants on a Blog” challenged me to one of these “blogger” games of tag on May 28th, and I am just now getting around to it, because I already had a couple of these entries planned, but since I usually don’t post one day of the week (although I think I have posted each and every day now for a while) I am posting the “results” of the “book challenge” here today. I already blogged about my reading and writing “history” on April 19th with “An Essay Detailing the Writing Process”. This is a nice “second chapter” to that entry, to which I have linked above if you haven’t read it.

  
  

   

  
  

  I am ashamed that although I always considered myself the “professor” sort that I have to report I haven’t read a book in over two years. Partly by design, and partly by procrastination, when I purchased my HDTV video monitor, I found the experience of watching my favorite movies in an almost theatrical environment hard to pull away from. I have purchased some books, but have put them “on the nightstand” where they sit waiting. At one time I could brag that I read 3-5 books at a time, but now I watch 3-5 movies or documentaries at a time.

  
  

   

  
  

  I also do a lot of reading on the internet. When I surf I am rather thorough, and I have been reading personal sites and blogs for two or three years, and this takes time as well. So, as I say, I’m ashamed. I see “Currently Reading” on a lot of blog sites, and some of you seem to read two or three books a week, or so it seems. The last books I actually read in book form, believe it or not, were books about movies. As movies have always been a passion for me, I have many books about them as well.

  
  

   

  
  

  Now to begin:

  
  

   

  
  

  Total Books Owned:

  
  

  Hundreds. Besides over 300 in the house, there are probably 200 or 300 more in the garage boxed up that I haven’t looked at in over 10 years. I really didn’t count them one by one. I know I have over a hundred in the “media” room alone.  As a child, my brother, sister, and I had many books, encyclopedias, science and geography, and theological books besides children’s books, including the “Children’s Treasury” series and a passel of “Little Golden Books”. I don’t have too many of these, although I do have “The Bible Story” series boxed up somewhere (I hope) which is an illustrated series of stories from the Bible that used to be featured in the waiting room of every doctor and dentist I ever visited. I used to wear these volumes out when I was a kid. My sister and brother took most of the children’s literature, as they raised children. I inherited my mother’s paperback collection however.
  I kept all the books I bought in college for texts. Since I majored in English Lit., and took classes in both English and American literature,  I have everything from Edmund Spenser to Ralph Ellison. One book “Critical Theory Since Plato” has been a reference I have gone back to many times. I have two Bibles, including my Mother’s “Family Bible”. I have quite a few novels, both in hardcover and paperback, and many many books about films and the movies, including “David O Selznick’s Hollywood” by Ronald Haver, an oversized heavily illustrated history of Selznick’s career, and “Variety Movie Guide”, a series of alphabetized movie reviews from Hollywood’s Variety periodical which was my main movie reference pre internet.

  
  

  
  Last book I bought:
  “My Life” by Bill Clinton and “Basket Case” by Carl Hiassen
  I am ashamed to say I haven’t read either of them. I got about a third through the Clinton book (it’s rather long) while attending Jury Duty in early 2004. I love Hiassen, but haven’t got to this one yet. The last Hiassen novel I read was “Lucky Me”. But my favorite is 1995′s “Stormy Weather”. His books are great for reading on planes.

  
  

   

  
  

  Last book I read:
  “Who the Devil Made It” by Peter Bogdanovich and “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” by Peter Biskind. I read them one after another in 2003 I think. I joked at the time that I had gone to reading books about movies, and was watching more and more movies owing to the Tivo and DVD player and hadn’t read a novel in a few years. (2001, to be exact) so movies were consuming my passions, even in reading. Bogdanovich is a respected director who worked as a film historian and writer and has collected a series of articles and interviews taken with older American directors. His latest, “Who the Devil is In It” details actors.

  
  

  
  5 books that mean a lot to me:
  I am going to “couple up” one entry, and list “six” instead of “five” with an “honorable mention”. You know how people can’t figure out which five books they would take on “a desert island”. Well, I’d have to sneak two of these books (and possibly more) into a rucksack.

  
  

   

  
  

  “1984″ by George Orwell and “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley

  
  

  I’ve coupled these titles of “distopian” fiction because I even took a comp lit class at USC where we read both. “1984″, which has some eerie cultural and social comparisons to some modern events, was written in England in 1948. The protagonist, Winston Smith, is made to “realize” that whatever the “society” dictates is right, whether true or not. “Brave New World” was written earlier, and describes a future “manufacutred utopia” where even the people are genetically engineered. Into this world steps a “savage” born of a woman, who disrupts the status quo. I’ve read each mulitiple times throughout my life.
  

  
  

  “Peyton Place” by Grace Metalious

  
  

  My mother recommended this book from 1957 to me when I was a child. One of the first novels I ever read was William Styron’s “Studs Lonigan”. Although raised with a strict upbringing, my mom recommended a lot of somewhat racy books. I recently bought a paperback in a used book store to replace my dogeared old copy which was falling apart. I think it is still out of print. Recently, watching “Empire Falls” on HBO, I thought of “Peyton Place” again. Since I grew up in the Los Angeles area, books about small town intrigues have always been a favorite. “Peyton Place” was the first and most favorite of these.
  “Dakes Annotated Reference Bible”

  
  

  I purchased this, my main Bible, in the 70s. The concordance is longer than the Scriptures, and is very detailed, even delving into evolution and science. This was the Bible of choice among my peers in our Bible Study group. I also enjoyed consulting a Bible that had four interpretations side by side, which another friend owned.
  “Shakespeare: Major Plays and the Sonnets” Edited by G. B. Harrison 1948

  
  

  Although I do have a “Complete Set” of the 37 plays and sonnets in two volumes, this is annotated and was my college text for my Shakespeare class, and is more detailed concerning the “major plays”. I also have a slim volume, also retained for my Shakespeare Class, outlining the Kings and Queens of England.
  “Centenniel” by James A. Michener

  
  

  I’m a sucker for historical novels, and Michener is one of the genre’s best writers. Of all his books, I like “Centenniel” the best, the history of one town, from “prehistory” to the dawn of modern civilization.
  “The Stand” by Stephen King

  
  

  King has been a favorite writer since “Carrie” in the early 70s, and I used to buy each book as it appeared. I have two “versions” of “The Stand”, the original, and the “expanded” version which came out in the late 80s. I believe it is still King’s crowning achievement as not only a horror writer, but a social and cultural novelist as well.

  
  

  “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell

  
  

  I’ve listed far more than five books already, but have to add Mitchell’s romance of the Old South, which I read at about age 10 (another recommendation from dear old Mom). I actually read the book before seeing the movie, which of course in those pre video days was only shown at “revivals”. This is another book which I have purchased multiple copies throughout the years as one copy gets worn, since they are in paperback.

  
  

   

  
  

  I won’t tag anyone because I believe most of the people I would choose have already responded to this. I don’t usually go in for this sort of thing, as mentioned, but the first challenge I answered last week was about films, and of course I couldn’t turn that one down. I don’t necessarily care for the “three screen names you use” type of challenges I read all the time, but books, like movies, are a particular love of mine. I am glad I never got that “book list” challenge, where you highlighted the books you had read and then added more books. Pity the poor guy or gal who gets the list with 1000 books on it. If “tagged” in future, I’ll try to comply, but it might take time, and if the “challenge” doesn’t seem to be something in which I’m interested, then I’ll have to “pass”.

  
  

   

  
  

  I have written a series of questions for my own “challenge” however and these will be presented as an “open challenge” or “survey” in an upcoming entry, and the questions are some I really would like to see answered by a cross section of bloggers.

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  • 8:09 am
  • 13 Comments