book meme

[42itous]

Some may have noticed that I try to stay away from memes, but I've been tagged! by eetmewithtoast so I must proceed accordingly.

1) I own about 120 books, ballpark.

2) The last book I bought was How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and How to Listen So Kids Will Talk

3) I finished rereading A Separate Peace earlier this week, and immediately wrapped it in the Sunday comics and mailed it to Ijpe, wherever he is.

4) Five books that mean a lot to me:
1. The Riverside Shakespeare (it's two volumes, but I could have bought it in one so it counts as one)
2. Many Moons, by James Thurber
3. Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney
4. A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
5. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

And I'm supposed to tag five people, but I figure if you want to catch this meme from me, you'll help yourself.

Comments

Re: Books

[42itous.livejournal.com]

Huh, that's funny. Snow Crash was too fast-paced and gratuitously mean for me, and The Diamond Age was really good except for the last 50 pages or so, which I hated. Cryptonomicon's ending wasn't impressive, but at least it didn't suck (fizzled out instead of tanked). The reason I liked Cryptonomicon, I think, is the way he combines historical figures with vague folk legends (Bobby Shaftoe) and pure fabrications so that you can't quite tell which is which. I also think that Stephenson has finally learned how to make a character accessible to the reader (I didn't care about any of the characters in Snow Crash, and only the title girl and her brother in Diamond Age).

Thanks for the recommendations. :)