Miss Kitty over at Educated and Poor has tagged me with a meme, to list seven random or weird book facts about myself. I don't know that these are weird, as I don't have much knowledge of others' reading habits, but they are random, as they just popped into my head as I'm writing.
1. I hated the book THE HUNGRY OCEAN by Linda Greenlaw, which was November's choice of book in my book club. I was uneasy with it from the beginning and when I got to the part where they set a shark on fire and let it writhe helplessly in the air, suspended by a noose from the rigging of their swordfish-fishing boat, I was totally disgusted and stopped reading. I couldn't stomach the author's casual attitude toward either fish or humans.
2. I have read all the Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh mysteries, but it has been so long ago I don't remember any of them, just that I thoroughly enjoyed these women's ability to spin a yarn.
3. Stephen White, who writes psychological thrillers set in Boulder, Colorado, is one of my favorites, largely because he describes places I know personally very well.
4. I hardly read any non-fiction now that I'm out of seminary. I find that stories are much more important to me, when it comes to revealing truth. I have read David Dunaway's biography of Pete Seeger very recently, however, and was captivated by Seeger's life story.
5. I remember the books of my childhood so fondly: Anne of Green Gables, Back of the North Wind, Little Toot, Nancy Drew, Paddle to the Sea. And I still have Tommeliten and Pannekaka, two Norwegian-language picture books that my mother painstakingly translated into English in between the printed lines. They are tattered and faded, but they are very dear to me as they reveal my mother's beautiful penmanship.
6. I always read myself to sleep at night, only giving up when I'm dozing longer than I'm reading. Right now I'm reading Robertson Davies' THE CUNNING MAN, which is meaty, funny, erudite, and lengthy---my favorite characteristics in a book. Thanks to ChaliceChick, who turned me on to Davies.
7. I practically only give books as presents. My brother in law collects old Inland Empire history books and documents, especially those which are meaningful to our family's history in eastern Oregon and Washington. My sister loves murder mysteries, especially Evanovich and George. My brother is a thriller buff and his wife enjoys a variety of kinds of books. The FS, DIL, and GKs get gift cards to local bookstores in their area.
There, Miss K, I've done it. The orders are to tag seven other people, so here goes:
Joel the Neff over at On the Other Foot
Christina his lovely wife at A Hot Carmel Sundae
Joel Monka at CUUMBAYA
Kari at Chalice Spark
Lizard Eater at The Journey
Tim at The Eclectic Cleric
Ms Theologian at Surviving the Workday
If any of you don't have time or inclination to do this, don't feel guilty. I usually skip memes myself but this one I had time for this morning, having finished the sermon!
UPDATE: I know that the links aren't working properly and I'll try to get back to correct them later today. Thanks to Ms. T for alerting me.
5 comments:
I haven't read much nonfiction since seminary either. Weird, huh.
(Check your links. They seem to have an unnecessary"blogger.com" in them)
Hurrah for Robertson Davies, to whom I was turned on several decades back by a friend in Iowa City. Anyone who like Davies knew the names (like Hippolyte Delehaye) and work of the Belgian editors of the lives of the saints (Acta Sanctorum, AASS) can't be all bad. I think that there is a monument to him somewhere in the Toronto area, but perhaps I made it up because there should be.
I have just read through Philip Jenkins's study of the life and death of Christianity in the Middle East, followed by Umberto Eco's "Baudolino", a large chunk of which is based in the same territory. Fiction and fact are mutually complementary, so long as one can tell them apart, which is a good idea.
Aha, LF, so it may have been you who alerted CC to the charms of Robertson Davies?
CC already had a better knowledge of Robertson Davies work than I did or do by the first time that she visited the house in which I lived in SC, when she was a newspaper reporter and visited the Columbia UU fellowship. There she was pleased to find a foot and a half of shelf-space devoted to Davies, and immediately recognized the quality of the best painting in the house (by Abraham Rattner).
The problem with the links is that you forgot to put "http://" in front of them. I've done that myself often enough.
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