NewscomaGot A Two-Pack Habit And A Motel Tan

Tagged again, this time by Huck. Okay, I can do this, but most of the time I have newsprint soy ink on my finger and it tends to smear the pages of any book I pick up.

[1] Name 5 of your favorite books

• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll- I love this book. It’s absolutely one of my favorites. Batesy over at Batesville USA gave me an early edition for my birthday.
• I Am Legend by Richard Matheson – If you like horror novels, and I do, this one rocks. Who is the bad guy in this novel? Sort of reminds me of what’s going on right now in the world, the isolation, need for social grounding and the fact that nothing appears at it seems. That’s what’s so cool.
• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – There isn’t a young Southern girl who doesn’t want to be Scout and who doesn’t want Atticus Finch to come and be their knight in shining armor.
• A Girl Named Zippy, Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel – This book made me laugh out loud. This book made me feel good.

[2] What was the last book you bought?

· Mary Shelly’s: Frankenstein – ‘A little research now and then is cherished by the wisest men’…

[3] What was the last book you read?

· Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins – Have a hearty belly-laugh at the mandacity of death (and life), mortals. Laugh with me, and enjoy a beet or two, right along to the beat of each footfall in time… Great God Pan! Why the hell haven’t I read any Robbins before now!?!

[4] Name five books that have particular meaning for you.

1. Elric of Melnibone by Michael Moorcock – Actually, this entire series is what put me onto books. I read this entire series on a family camping/road trip from Birmingham to Yellowstone and back in the summer between my sixth and seventh grades. I highly recommend a steady thundering of early eighties death metal maddness as background acompanyment – most especially Iron Maiden’s Powerslave. Oh sure, I read plenty of other books before this one: here a little CS Lewis, there a Lloyd Alexander, yes even some Tolkein, but they were the recommended books, the books to read from the school library list. Elric was my first ‘real’ book. The book that I picked out for myself. …and I haven’t been the same since.

2. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Got Gumption? Get it! Well, I dare say, it helped me.

3. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault – Because you can’t handle the truth. Yes, because it will always be constructed via the discourse with which you approach it, silly rabbit.

4. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse – Somehow, it helps to know that there has been another freak out there just like me. Hesse gets me. He really gets me.

5. Thus Spoke Zarathustra : A Book for Everyone and Nobody by Friedrich Nietzsche - The Superman be praised! I am eternal recurrance. I am. All men. All women. amen.

[5] Three books you are dying to read but just haven’t yet.

1. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino – Aunt B. recommended this to me, and I went out the very next day and bought it. Unfortunately, I was working on a couple of other books at the time. Soon, very soon.

2. Cloud Atlas: A Novel by David Mitchell – I started reading this last year and got sidetracked. I’ve got to get back to it. Mitchell is a historical chameleon. He is able, like no other author I’ve read, to time warp on a dime, and totally sans anachronysm. Genius. Oh, for more time.

3. The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell – I’ve been wanting to read this for years. It’s one of those books that is always at the back of your mind when you walk into a bookstore. I can never remember to remember it.

[6] Tag five people to go through this same ordeal.