Bunny Goodjohn tagged me with this meme, which is as good a way to start a Monday as any other – you can see her answers to these questions at Bunny’s blog and here are mine:
One book that changed your life.
The Once and Future King by T H White; it gave me a love of mythology that has never left me, confirmed me in the complex neurotic persona that is archetypally ‘Celt’and showed me that stories could be painful and funny, childish and adult, all at the same time.
One book that you’ve read more than once.
Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow; I have read all of Peter Hoeg’s books more than once, but this one I return to at least once a year. I love the genre twist from crime thriller to science fiction and his writing style is elegantly Scandinavian.
One book you’d want on a desert island.
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson; which is the one book I could not live without. A short, seamless, heart-filled text, brimming with humour and some horror and the original and best buddy movie, written before buddy movies were ever thought of!
One book that made you laugh.
Catch-22; made me laugh until I cried.
One book that made you cry.
See above. But also Rafi Zabor’s The Bear Comes Home; not only the best book about jazz I’ve ever read, but also the best book about a bear I’ve ever read – and it made me cry.
One book that you wish had been written.
Rafi Zabor’s second novel.
One book that you wish had never been written.
Plague Dogs by Richard Adams. I’ve read it once and I am haunted by the images contained in it – man’s inhumanity to man is bad enough, man’s inhumanity to animal is a moral pit from which humanity seems unable to drag itself.
One book you’re currently reading.
The Redundancy of Courage by Timothy Mo; a searing commentary on events in East Timor, with an unreliable gay Chinese narrator and a cast of insurgents, imperialists and priests – compelling and painful
One book you’ve been meaning to read.
Brick Lane by Monica Ali – keep starting, keep failing.
I tag Steve Kane and Femme au Foyer!
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