Book tag

I got book-tagged by Brent awhile back, meaning that I'm supposed to answer a bunch of questions about my literary habits. I put off responding for so long, because I wanted to come up with brilliant replies that would impress and inform. This is similar to how I approached regular "tag" as a kid. Given the choice, I would've opted to not play tag with the other kids until I'd practiced enough to be good at it; which, of course, I never would've accomplished; but I wouldn't have minded so much, because anything was better than being "it" for too long. I especially hated it when the fastest kids would hang back and let me see how close I could get to touching them before they took off like jackrabbits. Straight-up tag was the worst: no base, no rescue from being frozen, no tag-backs, just running the entire damn time. I didn't mind Chinese tag so much back then. Now, I think I might. Frantically crawling through a person's spread legs, I'd probably overstrain myself to avoid proximity with his/her genitalia to the point that I'd get the knees of my jeans extra scuffed with blacktop that would never come out. And it would always be there reminding me that I wasn't fast or graceful enough to save my comrade and myself from being playground permafrost. There aren't even any veteran's war stories that end that way, but I'd have to live on with the shame. And what the fuck is "Chinese" about it?

Anyway...

1. Number of books I [have] own[ed]:
God only knows. My immediate thought is in the high hundreds. Further thought argues with this. I really don't know. I'm not God.

2. Last book I bought:
Medallion. I got it off Amazon after remembering that we had read it in the fourth grade at EBCS. I can see why I liked it: it's fairly entertaining, and it's not overly Christian. In fact, one of the lands in the fantastic realm the book describes is named "Litoris". Heh heh It's one of the evil countries.

3. Last book I completed:
Lenny Bruce is Dead by Jonathan Goldstein, my favorite contributor to This American Life. Before that was The Sun Also Rises. I was kinda waiting to finish it before I responded to the tagging so that I could sound smart, but then I ruined it by reading another book really quickly.

4. Ten books that mean a lot to me:
- Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Danny the Champion of the World, and Good Night, Mr. Tom -- These are books that my mother got me one Christmas as a kid to get me reading. They're one of the few gifts I actually remember receiving. Unfortunately, to this day, I mostly read kids' books. Probably not what she was going for.

- Soup and Me -- Another choice inspired by my mother. Namely that she wouldn't let me borrow it from the library because she thought it was too stupid. I read plenty of stupid books now, but I've never read that one. That one would be an admission of my lingering stupidity.

- The Encyclopedia Brittanica Volume "R" -- I spent many an adolescent hour scouring the descriptions and explanations of "Reproduction: Sexual: Human". My parents thought I was going to be a genius. I did too, but at sex.


- The Magic of Sex by Anne Hooper -- This represented the ultimate goal of my frequent library visits during junior high. It was while nervously flicking through this book that I invented the brilliant scheme of taking a dirty book into another section of the library so no one would suspect.

- Bad As I Wanna Be -- I've never actually read Dennis Rodman's autobiography. I'm just glad that it's out there.

- General Chemistry (3rd Edition) (Hardcover) by John W. Hill, Ralph H Petrucci, Terry W McCreary, Scott S. Perry -- And that's when I learned I'd never be a doctor.


5. What I'm currently reading:
- Ghosts of Tsavo
- Mossflower
- A Gesture Life

6. TAG! 5 diff bloggers:
- Rush Limbaugh -- You fat-ass bastard! Can you even read? Prove it muthafucka!
- Scarlett Johansson -- Baby, I just know we'd have a lot in common.
- "Dr." James Dobson -- Because I'd really like to know what motivates this man.
- Oprah -- Has she actually read the books on her list?
- Wes Andersen -- Because I like Roald Dahl too.
- Megan's turn & anyone else who wants to do one.

7. A new question that I made up: What percentage of your library books return unread?
I'm hovering around 70%.