For the past several weeks my blogging activity slowed down, as things got busy at work and at home. (I'll have more to say about that soon.)
As I'm trying catch up with my blog reading, I see that I've been tagged three times (that I know of). Today's post is an attempt to begin to catch up.
Transmission Marketing's Mark Goren in Montreal tagged me about books. He asks five questions. (I'm used to Four Questions, Mark.)
1. How many books do you own?
2. What was the last book you read?
3. What was the last book you purchased?
4. What five books are most meaningful to you?
5. What is your favorite obscure book?
How many books do I own?
I would guess a few hundred. The question makes me think of a Seinfeld riff where he asks why we tend to keep and display books after we've read them. Are they trophies of our intelligence, he wonders?
I have some books that are important to me in a breakfront in our living room. A few titles are Exodus (Leon Uris), The Gifts of the Jews (Thomas Cahill), The Encyclopedia of Jazz (Leonard Feather), In Love (Gordon Parks), In Search of Excellence (Thomas Peters/Robert Waterman), and Oh, the Places You'll Go (Dr. Seuss).
There are always a few books stacked on my night table. Eventually, I get around to reading them...usually.
I have stacks of books up in the attic. When my wife goes on a cleaning binge, I try to placate her by taking a dozen and putting them in the car. On our frequent trips to see our daughter up in Maine, we pass a quaint diner along I-84 on the Conn./Mass. line that trades books. They invite you to have a meal and help yourself to a few free books. And they accept books too. Of course, when I drop off a dozen books, I may end up taking two or three others to add to the stacks in my home office, my night table or eventually in the attic.
The last book I read, not counting MarketingProfs Book Club selections, was Giving, by Bill Clinton. I wrote about it here.
The last book I purchased was Giving. I bought it as a gift for my friend Guy, but I ended up reading it in the four days I had till we saw him for his birthday. I was careful not to fold back any corners or spill coffee on any pages.
The five books most meaningful to me? This is a really tough one, and those that I pick now could change. This list excludes The Five Books of Moses, or The Old Testament as many call it.
Lin Yu Tang's Moment in Peking is meaningful to me because it was one of my fathers favorite books. I read it as an adult, to read the same words my dad had read as a young man. It's in the breakfront in my living room.
Gone with the Wind was a spectacular book and, for the longest time, I refused to watch the movie version because I was afraid I would be disappointed. When I finally did see the movie on TV, I wasn't.
Two books I read recently (and write about here) have meaning. A little book by Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers) called Many Ways to Say I Love You, and Ishmael Beah's eye-opening book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier made an impact on me.
The Kite Runner was a beautiful story that put a face to people we hardly know here in the U.S. I was just given Khaled Hosseini's new book A Thousand Splendid Suns, which I hope to start reading very soon.
One more... I'll Always Love You, by Hans Wilhelm. It's really a children's book about love and loss. My sister gave it to me after my first dog died, and I still get teary when I read it.
Obscure books? I'm not sure how obscure they are. Maybe offbeat is a better word. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Richard Adams was fun. And in the days after college, I breezed through all the books by Richard Brautigan, starting with Trout Fishing in America. (I don't fish -- it's not an outdoorsman's guide.) It's cool that my son, 26, now likes those books.
So now, since this is tag, I get to pass these questions along. I'm tagging new blogger Gene DeWitt of The Media Age.