# of books I own:
I can see about 100 from where I sit. There are another 50 or so on a shelf above my bed (if it collapses I’ll be an ex-Exile) and probably five hundred more in the attic. If we include my daughter’s books, we’re easily pushing 1,000.
Last Book I Bought:
The Dark Tower by Stephen King: The final book of the “Dark Tower” series. I’ve been waiting for 23 years for this! The first book came out in 1982. It is truly an epic and makes “War & Peace” look like a novella.
5 books that mean(t) a lot to me:
Jaws by Peter Benchley. Sounds silly I know, but I read it when I was about 8 years old. Although I didn’t quite understand the “sex stuff”, it beat the hell out of Dr. Seuss, which is what my contemporaries were reading.
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. I read this when I was about 12, before anyone had ever heard of Stephen King. The black cover and silver lettering just happened to catch my eye. The way that he portrayed real people and their petty lives hooked me into reading forever.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy: I could wimp out and cite this as 3 books, but I won’t. Again, I was about 12 or 13 when I first read it. This was well after the hippies thought it was cool and well before any of the movies. I just kind of stumbled across it.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: This is the only book that I have ever read that, literally, made me laugh out loud. The way that Douglas Adams phrased things was perfect. These books are the only things that have ever rivaled Monty Python for my fanaticism.
Slander by Ann Coulter: Although I was very well versed in politics, it somehow never occurred to me that reading “right-wing fanatic” books would be in any way interesting. Ann was my first (sigh), and who better? Now I have a shelf above my bed that is full of political books that may kill me.
Yeah, I know that the list doesn't sound very "literary". I've read Shakespeare, Melville, Nietzsche and a lot of the books that are supposed to make you "well read", but they really didn't "mean a lot to me". In fact they were so boring that it was a constant battle just to get through them. How exciting can a guy looking for a fish (yeah, I know: whales are mammals) or some 19th century nutjob trying to whip us into a frenzy over the "obermann" really be?
Yes, the "classics" have their uses and their place, but the reason most people read them is the sheer pretension of having been told that they need to read them if they care to be seen as intelligent.
Quite frankly, Stephen King taught me more about the human condition than Nietzsche ever did.
Nietzche was a fantasist, preaching about how people could be if only they'd march to his tune.
King is a realist who takes thousands of years of human nature into account and lets them march to their own tune. As even he's said, he has no control over his characters.
The only differences between Stephen King and Friederich Nietzsche are the fact that Nietzsche wanted to be a "serious" writer and King just wanted to be a writer.
It's kind of like Bill Clinton working his ass off to make a legacy for himself and George W. Bush doing it by default. Trying to make yourself a hero never works. John Kerry learned that the hard way.
I'm tagging:
Due to the fact that most of the blogs I visit seem to be group collaborations, any, all or none are welcome to respond.
Blogs Against Hillary
Anti-Strib
The Blue State Conservatives
California Mafia
"Ann was my first (sigh), and who better?"
ReplyDeleteLMAO! You're right though. She's one of the best. I own all her books.
And we, as stereotypical Conservatives, are supposed to HATE strong women like Ann.
ReplyDeleteAnd as a supposedly "sexist" and "racist" Conservative, they can't quite explain why I'd LOVE to see Condoleeza Rice run against Hillary in 2008.