TAG, I’M IT! NO, I’M NOT WILDLIFE, NOR DO I USE A BODY SPRAY…

My dear friend Stardust has tagged me with a book-reading meme. We’re both avid readers (mine stems from doing very poorly in school in my teenage years, ergo, I was ‘grounded for life until further notice’, so I had to fill in the hours SOMEHOW).

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m somewhat of a ‘scattered’ reader. I tend to jump from one title to another, much like water on an old-fashioned hot grill, so bear with me here.

1. A book that changed your life

Out of all of them, this is perhaps the strangest: Chinese boxing, Masters and Methods by Robert W. Smith. If I hadn’t read this back in the late 70’s, I’d not have learned about Tai Chi, which subsequently led me to quit doing drugs altogether, and the practice thereof has given me some peace of mind, a hobby, and an alternative income when I fall on hard times. Oh, and Paine’s Age of Reason. That bad boy rang my bell big time.

2. A book you’ve read more than once
Aye caramba! I mean there’s just been so many of these. I’ve re-read all my Harlan Ellison hardbounds and paperbacks multiple times, Donaldson’s trilogies, Tolkien’s trilogy, some graphic novels (Gaiman’s the Sandman series, Carey’s the Lucifer series), the bible, the Tao Te Ching, the Tai Chi classics, I have no idea where to begin on this one. Dick’s Valis. Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light. Most of Clive Barker’s earlier novels. I could fill a hundred pages on this one alone.

3. 1 book you’d want on a desert island
This is a toss up: How to survive anything, or the SAS survival guide.

4. 1 book that made you giddy
I don’t do giddy.

5. 1 book you wish that had been written
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Religion (hehehehe, that’s the best I can come up with).

6. 1 book that made you sob
Moby Dick. The passion, the strength. Sure, Melville digressed once too often (the chapter on the seaman lecturing the sharks was kinda silly), but wow! Truth is, I watched the recent release of it (with Patrick Stewart), and I wept at the end. Mostly out of envy: I wish I could write with such passion and vigor. Whenever I read Ellison’s Paladin of the Lost Hour, I always weep at the end.

7. 1 book you wish had never been written
Aye caramba! Again, there’s just been so many of these. Multiple religious tomes. Mein Kampf. The Politically Incorrect guide to Evolution. Mastering Witchcraft (that one goofed me up BIG TIME!). C.S Lewis’ marginally awful fantasies. Kinda like going to the dump, and picking the worst garbage. I’ll have to go with Lewis’ Mere Christianity, though, as I’m thoroughly fed up with that ‘objective morality’ crap that keeps cropping up.


8. 1 book you’re currently reading
Currently, I’m reading the Penultimate Truth by Phillip K. Dick. Not his best by far.

9. 1 book you’ve been meaning to read
There are a few of these. I can’t seem to wade through Doestoevsky’s works (I can only take so much angst, before the whining gets to me) – Dickens, Tolstoy. The big problem here is – I may have read all three of these guys (I kid you not – voracious is an understatement when it comes to reading – at one point in my life, I had a six-book-a-week habit).

Now I run off, and yell TAG! You’re it!My buddies, Frances the Magnificent, Aaron Kinney, Mojoey over at Deep Thoughts, Beep! Beep! It’s Me!, and Aviaa.

Addendum: As Beep! Beep! had already been tagged, I just tagged Future Geek.