- Written friends: Check!
- Found digital camera manual: No. Haven't started looking. But I downloaded a PDF version, so I have the info I need. Still want to find the manual, tho.
- Found missing DVDs: No. Barely looked.
- Planning trip: Check!
- Mowed grass: Check!
There's supposed to be a mass of rain coming in today from Minnesota. That's what the radar shows. Of course, that's what it showed yesterday, but it apparently got lost somewhere in northern Wisconsin. Took a wrong turn on U.S. 8, perhaps.
The other amazing piece of news is that my official ModBlog stats show that 8 people have visited my site today, and I have 142 page views. Uhh-huh!
According to the "latest visitors" column, exactly one person has stopped by since midnight.
I've been tagged to pass along info on my reading habits. That can, at times, be highly embarrassing. Not because of what I read but because of what I don't. Just out of college, I was pretty up on the best-sellers, but I got away from that.
Today, I like to watch sports and movies on TV and news, but that's about all. Regular TV prime-time fare: I barely give it a glance. What's this "Survivor" thing people seem so hepped up about? Don't people have anything better to do?
Instead, I search here and there on the internet, read blogs, occasionally write them, swap e-mails and try to learn new stuff.
The biggest challenge of this, frankly, is finding new people to "tag," since I think everyone in Modblogland has already been a tagee. Darn, and I wanted to tag someone so much! (I tagged my wife pretty good last night, by the way, so I'm feeling pleased with myself today.)
OK, back to business.
How many books to I have? Tons! There is no way to give even a remotely accurate figure. It's the old "books are friends" thing, and I don't like to let them go. I know I have to do a serious triage and get rid of a lot of them--maybe 2/3rds of them. It'll hurt--I know that. It won't be happy work.
Book I am currently reading: It's "The Last Juror" by John Grisham. About a little Mississippi town, a small newspaper, a murder and the search for vengeance. Just started reading it yesterday--so I can have a "book I am currently reading" reply for this questionnaire. Hey, I'm not dumb--am I?
Actually, it's been a fast read so far. A friend lent it to me, and I put off reading it until, in her last e-mail, she reminded me of it. So I'd better polish this one off. Lately, I've been staying up a little late, reading blogs and getting to bed late--that's when I usually read, to give my brain a workout before I go to sleep.
Last book I bought: Oh, that's the second question. Hmm. Let me think for a moment. The quilting/inspiration book I bought my wife yesterday probably doesn't count. I'll have to get back to you on that.
Last book I read again: That's easy. "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein. I got the 1961 version, and now I'm going through the 1991 uncut version. (Wait: Are you reading two books at the same time? Actually, three or four. But the Grisham book is going to be at the front of the line for a while.)
More about "Strangers" later.
Five books I would take along to a desert island:
(This assumes I won't have to spent 95% of my waking hours seaching for food and water, fighting off wild animals (or mosquitoes) who know a tasty tidbit when they see one or straining to build a shelter to protect me from the world. Sort of like Tom Hanks in "Castaway.")
1. "Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. This is a book about a boy named Huckleberry Finn. America was younger but it really wasn't an age of innocence. The fuse was burning when Huck and Jim went down the Mississippi on that raft. He saw nobility, he saw cowardice, he saw manipulation, he saw courage, and most of all he saw the humanity of his raftmate, whom he had thought of as only a slave. And when the chips were down and Huck had to decide whether to do the right thing (as he had been taught by 1840s society) or whether to condemn himself to hell, he said, "All right then, I'll go to hell!" He protected the runaway Jim, whom he thought of as the property of a man he didn't know, a man who had never done Huck any harm.
2. "Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding. What a wonderful book! What adventures Tom had! His lust for living and ladies got him into trouble time and again, but his basically honest nature saw him through the hard times. Fielding's book is wordy and very long--but very funny, with many keen insights into human nature that ring as true in the 21st century as they were in the 18th century, when it was written. I think this will be my next re-read.
3. "Death in the Afternoon" by Ernest Hemingway. I could name any of Papa's novels, but I choose this straightforward documentary on bullfighting in Spain from just after World War I. Warning: The punctuation is atrocious, as commas are used for semicolons, and vice versa. But I worked through it, mumbling under my breath at times, and I found it an engrossing book, a look into a world that few Americans know much about and practically none cares for. But how's this for a savage comment on man? Among the pictures is one of a dead bullfighter in a hospital room, surrounded by about a dozen men--one of them is looking down at the dead man, the rest at the camera. Hemingway's caption: "Only one man is concerned for Joselito. The rest are concerned with how they look in the picture." Who are the beasts, anyway?
4. "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein. I had this book years ago, read about half of it, it got lost (or I got busy on something else), and I only got it again recently. And it absolutely blew me away! The book hit a very resonant chord with my beliefs about love and monogamy and caring for one another. "Thou art God!" How's that for a concept? What would the world be like if we chose to see the divine in one another instead of our failings? What would the world be like without jealousy and pettiness and spite and manipulation? What if we made a priority of giving each other pleasure and happiness? To me, it's very close to my notion of what Heaven is like. And if Heaven isn't like that, I don't think I want to go.
5. I wanted to put in a book by a woman. I had to think for a while, since my favorite authors are male. And then the lightbulb lit. Of course! "My Secret Garden" by Nancy Friday. Technically, she didn't write it. She collected the erotic fantasies of many women, and they shared dreams and wishes that are light years beyond those of mortal men. Erotic thoughts and dreams and wishes. I deeply respect those fantasies and the imagination they show. The book is not classic literature--but if I'm on an island by myself, with no female companionship at hand ... hey, I'm not dead yet, you know!
Next five to tag: Hey, any of you Modbloggers haven't been tagged yet? What about my dear young friend BlinkFreak? How about an English perspective, operaredhead? Have you done this yet, Disturbed Angel? And I'm dying to know what's in Purely Pink's bookcase. How many llama books does Lady Visine have? And Mystic Song shows her current read at her site. What else is there?
Wait a minute! That's six! Oh, well. Four of the six have probably done this already, but my pea-sized brain forgets. It's that dreaded disease among people my age, known as CRS.
As for myself, I'm going to try to track down "The Alchemist," because from what Squilla wrote, it looks like my kind of book. (And yes, I absolutely adore Gary Larson's cartoons, too.)
What a surprise! The latest cloudburst from the Gopher State has fallen apart. Looks like I won't have to build that ark after all.
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