As tagged by [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] and [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]
1) Total number of books owned?
Actually, I surprised myself. Around 200, counting TPBs, which are expensive enough to be counted. ;) My bookcase has tardis-like qualities.
2) The last book I bought?
*thinks* Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell by Susanna Clarke, as far as books with more words than pictures go. It's a lot of fun, and I'm tempted to have Jonathan Strange be an ancestor of a roleplay sock I use...
I also bought about five trades at the Brisbane Comicon, having discovered the cost-price trade stall, including 1602, a Powers trade and the second Fables trade. Oh and Small Gods, which is really good.
3) The last book I read?
The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett. Pratchetts are good re-reading books, and the paperbacks fit in your pocket for taking to the pub, the laundromat, or on the tram to work. I'm a fan of the witches, but you have to love Vimes.
4) 5 books that mean a lot to me?
1) Dex is going to snort at me for this, but Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein. I found it at age 13 on the senior fiction shelf of my high school library, as I was working my way through likely-looking candidates for the bus trip home. I'd already cleaned out the junior fiction, given the voracious reading appetites I had back then, and this was the first fantasy I'd ever laind eyes on - small country schools didn't have a lot in the way of alternate fiction back then. I read the first book in about two days, started on the second and stayed up til three in the morning to finish it (on a school night) and then borrowed the third before I went to class, where it burned a hole in my bag for the whole day. I nearly missed the buss because of it - I was reading it while I waited and didn't see it until it was about to leave. I still drag it out for a re-read once a year - even the dry, academic tone some parts have can't get in the way of the scope of the world Tolkein created, and every time I open it, I remember how it felt to realise there was a whole new world of fiction ahead of me.
2) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. One of the first Gaiman books I ever read. I admire his writing immensely - Neil writes the way I wish I could, and sometimes can. Neverwhere is a wonderful combination of urban legend and folklore and all those thoughts you have when you're sitting on a commuter train, bored out of your brain.
3) Callahan's Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson. Actually, all of Spider's earlier Callahan's stuff. Not just because they're funny and quirky, but because they hold elements of a life you wish you could have. Spider writes people as you wish they could be, decent, unprejudiced, focussing on individual people's strengths rather than on sterotypes and biases.
4) How Are We To Live? by Peter Singer. I really need to get my own copy of this. BRM owned it, and I read it several times. Peter Singer is like John Pilger, a sort of a hero to me. It's about living ethically, and while I don't follow it dogmatically (since that goes against the general idea of any philosophy of ethics, imo) but I try and keep the precepts in mind in my day to day life. To sum it up? Don't be a bastard.
5) The Books of Magic Neil Gaiman et al. Okay, this one's a TPB, but it's the one that cemented my liking of comics. Up until then I'd been pretty much solely an X-Men reader, and becoming increasingly disgruntled by the writing style, and wanting something a bit more complex. The Books of Magic was it, with gorgeous art by several different artists, and a great storyline. There's very few heroes or outright villains, just people. And there was this rather amusing smartarse by the name of John Constantine who appeared...
5) Tag 5 people to fill this out on their LJs:
[Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]
[Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]
[Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]
[Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]
[Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]
Heh, aiming for the Aussie contingent... I was going to tag [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] but she got impatient on me and already did the meme. Consider yoursel retroactively tagged, mate.
