Walking the Wall

I don’t do meme’s very often, but as a way of breaking the last month’s silence and because it has to do with books, I thought it would be an easy way to get myself back into gear. By the way, I looked up "meme" at Wikipedia and it was defined as "refer[ing] to a unit of cultural information transferrable from one mind to another" and then goes on a great length to talk about something that is a bit deeper than the atypical blogging meme, interesting anyway.

1. One book that changed your life:

Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Huff. I read this book when I was dealing with depression over my son’s illness, dealing with shattered religious beliefs, and stuck in a rut of "why why why" trying to make sense of everything. This book helped me to let go of the why’s, to see that why didn’t really matter, to stop fighting life and just roll with it. It made me see that negative things that happen in life aren’t a punishment, aren’t personal–they just are. I must have been at just the right time to read it, because it was like a lightbulb flashing and I simply got it, simply relaxed for the first time in a long  time. 

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:

Song in the Silence by Elizabeth Kerner. I love this book, I’ve read it many times, it’s like a comfort food for me. It’s not a particularly amazing book, it’s a good book, but not a classic, but it appeals to me, I think, because the whole thing tells me not to give up on dreams, never give up on dreams, never loose imagination. 

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:

This is a hard one, I don’t know if I could live with just a single book on an island, unless Katherine Kerr put her whole Deverry series into one humongous book–I think I could live on that series for a long time. Maybe the Library of World Poetry, or Best Loved Poems of the American People–a huge book of poetry would give me things to chew on for a long time. 

4. One book that made you laugh:

I do laugh outloud in books quite often, but I can’t think of something that made me laugh recently, oh yes! I was reading one of Pema Chodron’s book, I think it was the Start Where You Are one, and she has such a funny writing voice (and in her talks, which I’ve listened to a few of)–so different from what you’d expect from a Buddhist nun. She was talking about walking in on her ex-husband and his girlfriend (he wasn’t her ex at the time) and she so non chalantly mentions picking up a rock and throwing it at him. It struck me as funny, just how it was written and I had this image of Pema Chodron as she is now, doing it. She was at the beginning of her spiritual walk and her point was not to be hard on yourself, it’s all a process, just start now, and then start now again, and then start now again, if necessary.

5. One book that made you cry:

I know I cried in the Time Travelor’s Wife, there was a scene where he ended up somewhere very cold, very alone, naked as he always did and it was his biggest fear, loosing something he needed more than anything. Anyway, sorry to be cryptic, don’t want to ruin it for someone who hasn’t read it. I also cry everytime I read Deerskin by Robin McKinley, she really writes her despair and pain beautifully. I remember one book when I was in Junior High, my dad had the whole series of Star Trek books (the ooooold ones), and I remember sitting in the bathroom and reading the one where Spock dies in the radiation filled room and just bawling, I must have needed a good cry.

6. One book you wish had been written:

I’ll have to copy another person who answered this meme and say my own…though maybe I’d change the wording to "One book you hope will be written" 

7. One book you wish had never been written:

This is a hard question, books hold value to many different people and a book that may mean nothing to me, could mean a lot to another person and have a message I just don’t hear. That being said, maybe Ductigami: The Art of the Tape (Duct tape, that is)?

8. One book you’re currently reading:

Grendel by John Gardner. We read Beowulf in my Medieval literature class recently and I’ve always felt like there was much more to Grendel than shown–it is easy to make the "other" into the monster–so this book is from Grendel’s perspective and what he might have seen and thought. It is very interesting. 

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:

Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslundand (the story through Ahab’s wife’s eyes) also The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Margaret Atwood (the story told through Penelope’s eyes–I love books that take an alternative perspective on a well known story, like Gregory Maguire’s Wicked and etc.)

10. Some favorite books not on this list:

• He, She, and It by Marge Piercy
  
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
• Memory & Dream by Charles de Lint
• The Way of Wyrd by Brian Bates
• Nearly all Patricia McKillips