The Latest Meme
Since both Laura and Wendi have passed the baton to me, I guess I need to run with it. My answers are a little boring — not that that’s ever stopped me before.
You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be saved?
I’ll surprise you and pick the Bible. And not because I’m particularly religious.
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Edvarda from Hamsun’s Pan.
The last book you bought was…?
Hardcover: McEwan’s Saturday. Softcover: George Saunders’s Pastoralia.
Used: Larry Heinemann’s Close Quarters.
The last book you read was…?
James Jones, The Ice Cream Headache and Other Stories
What are you currently reading?
Proust Swann’s Way, Zsuzsa Bank’s The Swimmer, Cole Swenson’s Goest, the new Chicago Review Zukovsky issue. And here’s what I will soon be reading, since they are all due back to the library next week:
* Richard Howard, Paper Trail: Selected Prose, 1965-2003
* Stefan Kiesbye, Next Door Lived a Girl
* James Jones, The Thin Red Line
* Michele Claire Lucas, A High and Hidden Place
* Richard Stern, Stitch
Five books you would take to a desert island…
Assuming I’m there for a long time:
* Boswell’s Life of Johnson
* Shakespeare, Complete Works
* Proust, ISOLT (I’ll pretend it’s one book)
* Walser, Masquerade and Other Stories (There are still some in this collection that I don’t know by heart)
* World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time
Who are you passing this stick on to and why?
Pete, because he exemplifies the Chicago style (of reader, that is).
Perry, because he sent me that great pic of the Mawson statue in Adelaide.
Megan, because she’s an intermittent reviewer of reviewers, just like me.
