Hhm. Ok, I know I said I'd go write, but I forgot I wanted to do this first. I caught it from both The Corpuscle and Patrick, though neither person actually sent it my way or, you know, really knows who I am.
Total number of books owned:
Whee! Fun with counting! On my shelves at the moment or loaned out I've got 622, but that doesn't something probably pretty close to another 200 books sitting in boxes at my parents' house. For the record, though, I was counting comics in trade form, what with them being "graphic novels" and all, but not individual issues.
Last book bought:
I just listed six, all bought at once, in my last post, but that feels like cheating. The last book I bought before that was Neil Gaiman's The Wolves in the Walls, which was going for seriously cheap from some Canadian online bookseller. By the time I factored in the shipping, though, it ended up being only like two dollars cheaper than buying it from Amazon would've been. I should've gotten The Bard to order it and hold onto it for me, or something. Ah well.
Last book read:
I just finished, for my paper, a book called Hiding, by Mark C. Taylor. It's more accessable than the last book of his that I read, but it's still fairly weighty. It's basically a deconstruction, and partial refution, of the postmodern condition. He goes through body modification, fashion, architecture and virtual reality, talking about the substance that skims the surface. I'm not sure I could explain what he's talking about without rewriting part of my paper for all of you, which I'm not doing, but the crux of it is that there's no dichotomy between style and substance, as postmodern theorists (and pretty much everyone before them, too) would have you believe, but that, rather, style has a substance of its own, style is substance and isn't void of meaning but rather has a special meaning that builds upon the meaning of substance to create something more real than possible alone.
It is, to put not so fine a point on it, the sort of book that Warren Ellis would grind into a very fine powder and snort or, more likely, freebase and inject into his eyeball.
Five books that mean a lot to you:
This is always so tough... I mean limiting it to just five... Yeesh...
The Last Unicorn. For the reasons why, as well as a view of me demonstrating exactly how big of a Peter S. Beagle fan I am, read my comments in this fable.
The Princess Bride. Along with the aforementioned unicorn book and some randomly chosen Neil Gaiman book it's one of the three books I read once a year. I have since I was a freshman in college and Eric pointed out to me that it actually was a book and loaned me his copy. It's great fun.
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Actually, it takes up the space of nine books on my shelves, since I have two different editions, at four and five volumes respectively, but it's all one book, really. If you haven't figured out that I love this book by now, you haven't been paying attention.
Les Miserables. By the word. That's how Victor Hugo must have been paid when he wrote this thing. It's the only way to explain the first 80 fucking pages being about a character who does not show up again in the book. For all of the long-windedness, though, it really is a great book. It's tremendously... human. Also one of the few things French that I like. Also I personally know only one person besides myself who has read the whole damn thing and he is an inestimably cool human being.
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. I had a lot of choices for what to put in the number five slot. I almost picked the Yale Complete Shakespeare, because it was a touching gift from a good friend and is the heaviest book I own. I almost picked The Perseids, because Robert Charles Wilson is the only author aside from Beagle who I wish I wrote more like, I almost picked Kavalier and Clay, because even though I only just read it this year it's probably the first book I ever read that I felt was written just for me, I almost picked Bullfinch's Mythology, because... yeah. I picked the Tough Guide because not only is it hilarious, but it's also useful and it makes fun of all of those bastards who bore me to tears because they do little more than rehash what that other guy who bores me to tears and whose name starts with "T" and ends with "olkien" wrote.
Tag five people to continue this meme:
Ideally, I'd like everyone I know to answer this. I loves me some books. But I'm particularly interested in hearing answers from:
Comments (14)
Total number of books owned:
Well...lesse. Seven shelves of gaming books, about equal that of trades, about 10 shelves filled two to three deep (most often three) with novels...
I dunno. Five hundred. Six maybe. Seven on the outside. Probably no more than eight.
Last book bought:
Picked up George RR Martin's "A Clash of Kings" yesterday. Also grabbed the second and third trades of "Noble Causes".
Last book read:
Still reading George RR Martin's "A Game of Thrones". Quite enjoyable. Last book finished was Robert Jordan's "The Fires of Heaven". I tend to read serieses all the way through till I get to the end, or have to wait for the next book.
Five books that mean a lot to you:
Hmm. That's a toughie. Not counting trades:
Neil Gaiman's "American Gods". Just something that I come back to a lot and enjoy every time.
Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up. Yeah, I enjoyed this one the best. Damned if I know why. But the series just kind of grew on me.
Various authors, "Wild Cards I". The first book of the series was incredible. I'm a huge fan of Golden Boy and the Great and Powerful Turtle.
Charles de Lint, "Memory and Dream". Read this a few times to. It was my first introduction to de Lint, and its gotta be one of my absolute favourite books. A story about mystic artists and the responsibility of power...and the lack of responsibility.
Neil Stephenson, "Snow Crash". Damn I loved this book. Its the perfect demonstration of Stephenson's literary philosophy: the survivalists are always the ones that are out to kill you (held true in Zodiac, Cryptonomicon, and most of his other stuff).
Posted by Bard | June 7, 2005 11:00 AM
Posted on June 7, 2005 11:00
I responded, even though you DIDN'T ASK. *sniff*
Posted by Erik | June 7, 2005 8:18 PM
Posted on June 7, 2005 20:18
Well, leaving aside the part where I said "ideally I'd like everyone I know to answer this," I specifically did not put you on my list of five because I was pretty sure I already knew your answers, or at least rough approximations there of.
Now let's go see if I was right...
Posted by Jason | June 7, 2005 8:26 PM
Posted on June 7, 2005 20:26
I filled it out on my lj.
Posted by Lukas | June 7, 2005 8:29 PM
Posted on June 7, 2005 20:29
total number of books owned
just the rpg section is over 160 the rest of the library is over 900
Last book Bought & read
The return of the dragons by Margaret weis. even though I had read the series this one had skipped my grasp and now that miriam is reading the series i managed to read this one as well.
5 books that mean a lot to me.
The art of war. (useful in so many situations)
Zen for the martial arts.
Don't make me think (usability book)
Players handbook & dmg have read them so much and i still do providing me with so much fun.
Professional asp just because it was my first technical programming book I bought
Posted by gus | June 8, 2005 8:13 AM
Posted on June 8, 2005 08:13
i could probably toss in as well the LoTr book but i though about it too late
Posted by gus | June 8, 2005 8:15 AM
Posted on June 8, 2005 08:15
Total nuber of books owned THat is really tough last time I had them all out of the boxes it was 3 7 foot tall by 3 foot wide shelves so who knows.
Last book purchased
well the gf and I have a weekly date to Barnes and noble on sunday nights and allways go through the bargain books but the last one purchased and immediately read was the song of susanah by steven king.
Well that takes care of two questions in one
Five books that mean somthing.
1. The Trilogy of Talisen, Merlin, and Arthur, by stephen lawhead they aproach the arthurian legend from a pseudo christian standpoint they also have a lot of day to day history in them as well as really interesting stories in bards tale sort of way.
2. The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and etc. Monty Python meets philosophy. I have recently been introduced to this as I was made to read them before the movie came out.
3. The dark tower series by steven king another great set of books shoved down my throat by the gf. Who can argue with Tolkien meets steven king meets a spaghetti western? totally worth it if you can get past the typical king/rice problem of taking 40 pages to describe a piece of paper that blows down the street but for some reason has absolutely NOTHING to do with the story line.
4.The life of Jesus by khalil gibran you have to love arabian poetry and this is one of the more famous of poets it is kind of a collection of "accounts songs and stories" from people that "knew" him.
5.Wow last one ...... umm....probably the one I read as a boy more then anything swiss family robinson I still go back and read it every other year or so
Posted by Zach | June 8, 2005 1:23 PM
Posted on June 8, 2005 13:23
Gus:
Holy crap, man, I don't know that even I own 190 gaming books, and I spent like a year and a half with White Wolf sending me pretty much every book they put out for free...
(At the same time, I did later get rid of a bunch of my books, mostly D&D 2nd ed stuff...)
Also: The Art of War is cool, though I like the 100 Unorthodox Strategies better. At least in terms of committing actual acts of war.
Zach: Well, look who just jumped out of the fucking woodwork? Where you been? I swear, it's like my entire Illinois posse (all, you know, two of you) just dropped off the face of the earth.
Kahlil Gibran is awesome, though I've only read The Prophet. But as far as middle eastern mystic poets, well, you've got to know I prefer Rumi. Also Omar Khayyim:
Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough,
A flask of wine, a book of verse and though
Beside me singing in the wilderness
Ans wilderness is paradise enow.
(and I came really, really close to remembering that whole thing without looking it up...)
Posted by Jason | June 8, 2005 4:04 PM
Posted on June 8, 2005 16:04
Total number of books owned:
I don't do numbers. Quite a lot though, especially if you count my physics/math/programming references.
Last book bought:
Pacing The Void
Last book read:
In completion: Wicked.
Not in completion: The Three Kingdoms
Five books that mean a lot to you:
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
(it's SOOO good)
The Three Kingdoms
(The greatest of epics I tell you, the greatest)
The Death Gate Cycle
(my fave fantasy)
Paradise Lost
(writing doesn't get better than this)
The Feynmann Lectures on Physics
(genius physicist, genius teacher)
Posted by The Ogre | June 8, 2005 7:53 PM
Posted on June 8, 2005 19:53
I counted my gaming books.
Lesse...roughly 70 per shelf. At 8 shelves (I miscounted), that's about 560 gaming books. Give or take. Probably closer to 500, since there's that big empty space on the bottom shelf that just has the 4 leather bound Encyclopedia Magica and my Buffy Scriptbooks.
Then my shelves are three deep in novels, fitting between 20 and 40 per row, so we'll say 90 per shelf. There's 8 shelves of those, so that's maybe 700 or so books, probably closer to 650.
Then trades...lesse. About 50 per shelf, on average. Over 5 shelves, that's maybe...jesus. I cannot have 250 trades. That just ain't possible. Probably closer to 200.
...damn. I probably have over a thousand books in my personal collection. Jesus christ...
Posted by Bard | June 8, 2005 9:50 PM
Posted on June 8, 2005 21:50
he he I was in a white wolf demo team but I did not get rid of my old books.
As for the unorthodox strategies I dont think I could borrow it from you now could I :)
Posted by gus | June 9, 2005 8:02 AM
Posted on June 9, 2005 08:02
fun books related link
http://www.liviodemarchi.com/casauk.htm
Posted by gus | June 9, 2005 9:00 AM
Posted on June 9, 2005 09:00
By popular demand...
Well, while I hate to dissapoint you, I lost some of my books moving back home. I had something like 200 books mostly sci fi and fantasy because I was reading them at my third shift job at the hotel many years ago and I needed something to pass the time. I also own two bible's (I'm betting that's something of a shock).
Let's see... Most of the are series including Dragonlance, Dragon's of Pern and the Clan Novel's (when I got back home I discovered one of them missing. Not happy.) I count my gaming books because I actually read all of them cover to cover. I figure, a lot of people put time and effort into writing it, the least I can do is read what their work.
I think that's about it, really. It's not as much as most people I know, but at lesat I read everything I own.
Well, except the Bible.
Posted by Jon | June 10, 2005 3:01 PM
Posted on June 10, 2005 15:01
Gus - awesome link.
Jon - returned from the dead, are we?
Posted by Jason | June 12, 2005 11:20 PM
Posted on June 12, 2005 23:20