The Book Meme
I don’t normally ‘do’ memes… but how could I resist one on books?
One book that changed your life?
Whilst I can’t think of any single book that affected my life the way the question implies there are a few books that have heavily influenced my life – or at least my beliefs. They are 1984 by George Orwell (which helped to shape my politics) and The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (which confirmed my belief in Evolution and bolstered my growing atheism).
One book that you have read more than once?
I tend not to read books more than once, even the good ones. I just haven’t got the time & there are SO many other books yet to read. However, I have read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy (Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife & The Amber Spyglass) twice so far and intend to read them again. They are some of the best books I’ve ever read.
One book you would want on a desert island?
The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Enough reading for years & years.
One book that made you laugh?
I don’t read ‘funny’ books as I’ve discovered that book humour doesn’t really work for me so I drew a blank on this one.
One book that made you cry?
Some books have made me sad (at least in parts) because I do tend to get attached to the characters if they’re drawn well. I can’t remember actually crying whilst reading a book though.
One book you wish had been written?
Some years ago I read a superb fantasy novel called The Werewolves of London by Brian Stableford. In it several of the characters were trying to acquire a book called The True History of the World. The book held the secrets of what is really going on. How the world was created and what the plans of its creators are. For years I wanted to find that book & wished that it was real. [waits for comments about The Bible – grin].
One book you wish had never been written?
I’ll probably get shot down in flames for this – and I guarantee some eye-rolling at least when I say The Bible. The world would certainly be a different place without it and arguably a better one too.
One book you are currently reading?
‘One’ book? Yeah right. Anyway, I’m reading The Magic Goes Away Collection by Larry Niven. But I’m also reading a history book on Witchcraft, a biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, a book on Network Security, a book on Anthropology and a book by Che Guevara (amongst others).
One book you have been meaning to read?
Lots. I have a huge backlog of books yet to read and it can be quite a task deciding what to read next. But if I have to pick one….. it would be The Carnival of Destruction by Brian Stableford. It’s that third book in a trilogy and took me several months of tracking down on the Internet to find it as its out of print. Funnily the other two books were both in print. Go figure.
About Me
- CyberKitten
- I have a burning need to know stuff and I love asking awkward questions.
13 comments:
I wanted to say the bible too but I figured you and JA would have that covered. lol
I love Larry Niven. He's just about my favorite sci-fi author.
I like your list ... I'll be adding several of them to my buy list.
I've read just about everything Niven has produced and a lot of his collaberative stuff with Jerry Pournelle too. The Kzinti are amongst my favourite ET's and I would love to meet one IRL - as long as he was friendly.. but then again I normally get on very well with cats [grin].
I'm actually re-reading 'The Magic Goes Away' for the first time in about 30 years and am enjoying it [again].
If you haven't read Pullman yet you're in for a real treat. I envy you reading him for the first time...
"One book you wish had never been written?
I’ll probably get shot down in flames for this – and I guarantee some eye-rolling at least when I say The Bible."
No flames here, but instead some food for thought. I know you're a fan of AH, so you might be interested in this essay I found via alternatehistory.com. Especially the conclusion -
"There is little ground for this speculation, but I think that we should be pleased if we never know just what the West would have become had it never become Christian. A shadow of it may have been manifest in Carthage, or at least in Carthage as described in G.K. Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man." It would have been altogether a darker, more rigid, more ruthless civilization. The real choice in ethics, it has long seemed to me, is not between Christianity and liberalism, but between Jesus and Nietzsche. Had the shepherds slept soundly that night, we would be living in Nietzsche's world."
Be careful what you wish for.
random: That's an interesting speculation, but that's all it will ever be. We'll never know what a world without the Bible would've looked like. Also it's somewhat unlikely that my wishes on the subject will ever come true.
For good or not we are stuck in a world with the Bible in it for way beyond the foreseeable future.
What a fascinating group of books CK!
I have always wondered how people could put so much faith in a book that was written and rewritten by men. It's 'The Word Of Men' just as any book that is written has been written by human beings who more than not have an agenda,
I'll probably be told I'm going to go to hell for what I said. Oh Well....you have to believe in hell to be worried about it, don't you?
The 'problem' I have Naomi is that I have a butterfly mind. I'm interested in just about everything (except sport!) & want to know as much as I can about those subjects that catch my eye - and I want to know it all NOW!.
Unfortunately we don't (apparently) live in the Matrix so can't download the knowledge straight into our brains - hence the reading of as many books as I can get my hands on... My house looks like a cross between a library & a book store... [grin].
I do try & keep things a little varied...
Oh, as to going to Hell... Personally I seriously doubt it and I can't believe I'd meet you there even if it was true [chuckle].
*rolling my eyes*
Expect God to ask you about that statement you made when you're awaiting judgment. *wink*
I think the complete works of Shakespere is an excellent idea (along with my Bible, of course). I think I could read As You Like It a million times over and still be enchanted.
I played Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream back in highschool...
...I doubled as an Amazon.
Sadie Lou said: Expect God to ask you about that statement you made when you're awaiting judgment. *wink*
Not to worry Sadie. If I ever do meet the Big Guy I'm sure words will be spoken.... [chuckle].
I picked Shakespeare because he's written a *lot* and I haven't read any of it.... So it should take a while to work through!
Titania *and* an amazon... That's quite a range.... [grin]
You haven't read any of Shakespere's works? Not ever Romeo and Juliet? Where were you in English Lit?
Sadie Lou asked: Where were you in English Lit?
I didn't do English Lit. At my school that was an advanced course. I did Math, Geography & Biology instead...
I have seen some of his plays on TV, the movies & on stage though.... [grin].
CK, I could lend you any one of, or the whole collection of Shakespeare? I'll take Dawkins in return *grin*
I have LOTS of Shakespeare... Just not read any of it.... [grin].
You don't want to read Shakespeare... You want to read Shakespeare with full commentary. There are many marvelous puns that even many S lovers do not know about because they haven't read a copy of S that had full explanations of pronunciation, idiom and allusion. For example, in the Complete Yale Shakespeare copy of As You Like It, it explains that, in the following passage, "hour" used to pronounced like "whore" and "ripe" and "rape" sounded much more alike. Likewise, "rot" and "rut" were once more homophonious.
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, / And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; /
And thereby hangs a tale.'
It gives a whole new meaning by "hangs a tale" in that context.
As far as the Bible being the one book worthy of never having been written, I do not see it as meriting that great a distinction. All religions have been a dormant incendiary store awaiting only a fiery speaker or sparks of conflict with another religion. I believe that religiosity is a heritable trait, and that we are unlikely to breed it out of humankind without choosing to do so on purpose, so if it were not the Bible, it would have been something else. And, if the Laodocia Council had had a few more bottles of wine, the Bible itself might well have consisted of entirely different scriptures, making it something else of its own. Apparently the first "complete" (apparently, one had come before but it was not considered "complete" for some reason) translation of the Bible into English by Wycliffe was suppressed by the Catholic Church. Besides, until the 1500s or so, the Bible said whatever your local religious leader said it said and who could dispute him? There was likely only one copy of it around, it was written in a language very few understood, and access to the actual text was tightly restricted.
No, if you want to blame Christianity for the horrors of the Christians, you really cannot pin much of the blame on the Bible. It was the Church what did it, not the book that most people never even knew what it said. (Well, rabbis knew, but they only knew about the first 43 books.)
Personally, I'd go for Mein Kampf. It was probably the first widely-read book of untruth and inflammatory opinion disguised to appear to be current-day fact. Even if you think that the Communist Manifesto fell into that category, most of the people who fought in its name couldn't actually read it.
The book I wish had been written is either DIY: safe, controlled, non-polluting, sustainable megawatt fusion power generation in your home for under $200 dollars (power to the people) or The Revised Constitution of the United States proposed by Ken Comer, as unanimously adopted in 2009 by all 50 states. I'd even prefer either of those to My Life After My Spontaneous Rise into the Role of a Global God of Heterosexuality, a 200 Year Retrospective aka What happens After You Learn The Secret of Making Your Wildest Sexual Fantasies Come True Day after Day, Year after Year, Century after Century.
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