Books
Ok books... love em. But not sure if they have such an impact on me that they seem to others... but heres a good stab at figuring it all out. By the way, im not big on recommending books as i feel it somehow cheapens them... perhaps im just really selfish or knew someone who pointedly refused to read anything i recommended as a rule.
A book that changed my life:
Well... that would have to be Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching TIED with The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. Both comfort and provide me with insight into something better than me.
A quote from Pooh,
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie
A fly cant bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie
A book I've read more than once:
Whoa, LOADS of em... but the first one that springs to mind is The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy and all the other ones... i have them in one lovely leather bound fat fat edition of loveliness. Whenever I'm bored or hanker for a laugh... i can NEVER go wrong. hehehehe pangalactic gargleblasters.
and yes of course the Lord of the Rings Trilogy... too many times.. before it was a film and super pop-culture i was quietly proud of my two digit readings over the years... now im just a closet geek. Looking in my bookshelf, which has been pared down over the years due to several very long distance moves, it mostly contains those books I either spent too much money on, knew I'd read again and again or just haven't taken to the second hand book store yet. The good ones are the complete collection of Haruki Murakami whom ive just finished reading and am waiting for the newest to go to paperback. (i HATE that wait), quite a few by Iain M Banks, some shitty sci-fi fantasy crap... a fair few russians, and ashamedly pop-lit self helpers like The Life of Pi, which although i loved it, lets face it... it was a fuzzy warm self helper.
Speaking of self help books, if its at all possible get your hands on Generica by Will Ferguson (yes the canadian ferguson of the ferguson bros. ) I laughed and loved it. Anything that takes the piss outta americans is fine by me. hee!
right, on with the show...
A book that made me laugh:
ooooo ya! totally forgot him! Paul Auster! i have a very difficult time getting my hands on anything by him over here in the archipelago... but i have whiled many an hour away in Chapters with a coffee on a sofa reading books that i could never afford to buy. Most of whom were Paul Auster's. The one that made me laugh my ass off was Mr. Vertigo. In fact I believe I actually bought that one... it impressed me so much. I will forgive his penchant for Baseball (but respect its modern day equivalent to oral history) Other very funny books are of course The Hitchikers Guide, and the other day i got a weird look from a girl in the laundromatt when i was laughing at Sputnik Sweetheart by murakami... cant recall that it was all that funny really but i did get caught out.
A book that made me Cry:
Erm... I actually try to avoid books like these... I guess I am wrong... i am affected by books, as books with particularly gut wrenching, heart leaking, eye throbbing emotion really take a lot out of me. Im not particularly super cheery. Dont get me wrong I not a damp rag on the fires of life but recently things havent been exactly... superduper.* As such I avoid them like the plague. Thinking back though I am having a difficult time thinking of any really moving-in-the-sad-department books. OOO YA!! back in highschool or junior high or something... I bawled like an abandoned redheaded stepchild when i read Flowers for Algernon. I console myself in the fact that most people have shed a tear for Algernon. DONT DENY IT! if you do I may have to reassess my gay to not gay ratio... please dont make me do that.
Okay down to 5 ciggies... and one of those is the morning smoke! so actually four... including the one in my mouth... i better get things moving here.
A book that I wish had been written:
what??? the thing i love about books is the discovery! wishing one had been written is like reading the last chapter and thinking.. ya well that was dumb. If one i wished to be written WAS written i wouldnt be able to read it as i would already know what it was all about and as such in a sense had already written it in my head. and unless I wrote it i couldnt read it again as it would be heavily spoiled. I dont speak to hear the sound of my own voice at all (as half the time I'm not really aware of what Im saying... or how loud) but i confess to re-reading my own words and... yes... laughing at my own pathetic whittiness. Literal Narcisism. great... just add that to paranoia, melancholy, and mild neuroticism. huzzah... im retarded.
So if i read my own words the book i wish was written would be my own book. I have a title and everything! In fact, in some ways this blog is groundwork for it. The title is The Sadly Comic Misadventures of an Over-Sensative Boy. The cover will have a caricature-derivative of me, with a shovel, standing in a mushroom field, with a silhouette of a hairdressers razor howling in a full moon behind me. There may also be a bottle of gin and evil looking cigarettes. and tire tracks. and maybe a dribbling dirty french man in a string vest with beef-tea stains on it wringing his hands in a corner muttering 'hrrrarr.. phshazza.. meh'. Or none of that at all... just a 50ft animatronic Legoman destroying London. ya... i like that. he has to have the manically/beautifically/brainwashed grinning face too. the normal lego smile.
A book I wish was never written:
Um... I know i've read some absolute crappers in my life.. but none really stand up and say 'burn the author while making him/her eat me till he chokes/immolates to death'. crap.... 2 smokes left.
Googling 'the worst book ever written' came up with Mein Kampf... which i disagree with... its a necessary mirror to the nazi/adolf's mindset by which we can measure cultural/social norms against. and apparently Jesse Jameson and the Golden Glow: Bk.1 (Jesse Jameson S.) by Sean Wright is pretty bad... but then... what does some loser on amazon know eh? I think the worst book ever written is probably anything with Elmo from sesame street in it. I hate the little red demon.
Books I'm currently reading:
hrm... the last of the Murakami titles 'Underground'... which is frankly a little dull... more of a documentary/commentary on the gas attacks in tokyo in '92. I'm also reading H.P. Lovecraft's 'At the Mountains of Madness and other Novels of Terror'.. which isnt scary at all and I'm only reading him to justify my use of Cthulhu in one of my prints... who hasn't even been MENTIONED yet i might add. Also reading Demons by Dostoevsky.... which I reckon i will be trying to finish until i die. And re-reading 'The New York Trilogy' by Paul Auster. Its my laundry day book. I have Nietzche's Twightlight of the Idols/The Anti-Christ in the bathroom and sorta try to read him but he's a bit of a freak. I also got this really cool Chinese Literature Monthly (not in circulation) short stories collection from a second hand bookshop/antiques shop from 1964 that has really interesting stories post WW2 in rural china. and it smells really awesome... that old book smell you get in really old librarys like Trinity College in Dublin.
Thats about it really... im forever picking something up and dropping it again after a few chapters only to return to it and have to back a chapter or 2 up to remember who's who and what's what.
A book(s) I've been meaning to read:
Demons by dostoevsky... it is my literal demon... it haunts me... it torments me... it sits there smugly and chunkily on my cheap flatpack bookshelf taunting me with its smooth quality paper and bold DEMONS on the spine. my nemesis... my Delilah.
Shock of the New... because as an artist apparently i am deficient if i havent read it.
A book on post-modern christianity my Dad asked me to read and I am mildly curious as to what it talks about. Don't have it to hand to get the title though.. sorry.
Underworld by Don DeLillo upon recommendation... apparently a peer of Paul Auster.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka... the best title EVER for a fiction novel, and it always catches my eye in the book store... those books never fail me. yet.
The Catcher in the Rye - always seems to flee my mind in the bookstore and library... but always one i want/ed to read.
The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie because I've heard so much about it and may even be more poignant in the world today... stupid crap library never has it in though.
Dante's Divine Comedy and Goethe's Faust. As you do.
As i light up the last stupid self loathing cigarette of the evening... er... morning.. (CRAP another late night... looks like a nap in the back room tomorrow at work) i will say nitey nite! Maybe tomorrow i will link all the titles to Amazon like other very keen bloggers have done and I will tag two people whom I am curious about their reading habits.
Special thanks to Lolabola for the tag as i really enjoyed writing this post and will probably enjoy re-reading it tomorrow as I am really quite pathetisad. (I coined that word... but you may use it)
TAG you're it Mike, Ed and SIC
cheers!
p
ps. damn i hate it when hyperlinks underline... cant seem to get rid of em... and now this post looks like a freakin ad for amazon.
* note the use of an outdated word... it will become really cool again
A book that changed my life:
Well... that would have to be Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching TIED with The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. Both comfort and provide me with insight into something better than me.
A quote from Pooh,
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie
A fly cant bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie
A book I've read more than once:
Whoa, LOADS of em... but the first one that springs to mind is The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy and all the other ones... i have them in one lovely leather bound fat fat edition of loveliness. Whenever I'm bored or hanker for a laugh... i can NEVER go wrong. hehehehe pangalactic gargleblasters.
and yes of course the Lord of the Rings Trilogy... too many times.. before it was a film and super pop-culture i was quietly proud of my two digit readings over the years... now im just a closet geek. Looking in my bookshelf, which has been pared down over the years due to several very long distance moves, it mostly contains those books I either spent too much money on, knew I'd read again and again or just haven't taken to the second hand book store yet. The good ones are the complete collection of Haruki Murakami whom ive just finished reading and am waiting for the newest to go to paperback. (i HATE that wait), quite a few by Iain M Banks, some shitty sci-fi fantasy crap... a fair few russians, and ashamedly pop-lit self helpers like The Life of Pi, which although i loved it, lets face it... it was a fuzzy warm self helper.
Speaking of self help books, if its at all possible get your hands on Generica by Will Ferguson (yes the canadian ferguson of the ferguson bros. ) I laughed and loved it. Anything that takes the piss outta americans is fine by me. hee!
right, on with the show...
A book that made me laugh:
ooooo ya! totally forgot him! Paul Auster! i have a very difficult time getting my hands on anything by him over here in the archipelago... but i have whiled many an hour away in Chapters with a coffee on a sofa reading books that i could never afford to buy. Most of whom were Paul Auster's. The one that made me laugh my ass off was Mr. Vertigo. In fact I believe I actually bought that one... it impressed me so much. I will forgive his penchant for Baseball (but respect its modern day equivalent to oral history) Other very funny books are of course The Hitchikers Guide, and the other day i got a weird look from a girl in the laundromatt when i was laughing at Sputnik Sweetheart by murakami... cant recall that it was all that funny really but i did get caught out.
A book that made me Cry:
Erm... I actually try to avoid books like these... I guess I am wrong... i am affected by books, as books with particularly gut wrenching, heart leaking, eye throbbing emotion really take a lot out of me. Im not particularly super cheery. Dont get me wrong I not a damp rag on the fires of life but recently things havent been exactly... superduper.* As such I avoid them like the plague. Thinking back though I am having a difficult time thinking of any really moving-in-the-sad-department books. OOO YA!! back in highschool or junior high or something... I bawled like an abandoned redheaded stepchild when i read Flowers for Algernon. I console myself in the fact that most people have shed a tear for Algernon. DONT DENY IT! if you do I may have to reassess my gay to not gay ratio... please dont make me do that.
Okay down to 5 ciggies... and one of those is the morning smoke! so actually four... including the one in my mouth... i better get things moving here.
A book that I wish had been written:
what??? the thing i love about books is the discovery! wishing one had been written is like reading the last chapter and thinking.. ya well that was dumb. If one i wished to be written WAS written i wouldnt be able to read it as i would already know what it was all about and as such in a sense had already written it in my head. and unless I wrote it i couldnt read it again as it would be heavily spoiled. I dont speak to hear the sound of my own voice at all (as half the time I'm not really aware of what Im saying... or how loud) but i confess to re-reading my own words and... yes... laughing at my own pathetic whittiness. Literal Narcisism. great... just add that to paranoia, melancholy, and mild neuroticism. huzzah... im retarded.
So if i read my own words the book i wish was written would be my own book. I have a title and everything! In fact, in some ways this blog is groundwork for it. The title is The Sadly Comic Misadventures of an Over-Sensative Boy. The cover will have a caricature-derivative of me, with a shovel, standing in a mushroom field, with a silhouette of a hairdressers razor howling in a full moon behind me. There may also be a bottle of gin and evil looking cigarettes. and tire tracks. and maybe a dribbling dirty french man in a string vest with beef-tea stains on it wringing his hands in a corner muttering 'hrrrarr.. phshazza.. meh'. Or none of that at all... just a 50ft animatronic Legoman destroying London. ya... i like that. he has to have the manically/beautifically/brainwashed grinning face too. the normal lego smile.
A book I wish was never written:
Um... I know i've read some absolute crappers in my life.. but none really stand up and say 'burn the author while making him/her eat me till he chokes/immolates to death'. crap.... 2 smokes left.
Googling 'the worst book ever written' came up with Mein Kampf... which i disagree with... its a necessary mirror to the nazi/adolf's mindset by which we can measure cultural/social norms against. and apparently Jesse Jameson and the Golden Glow: Bk.1 (Jesse Jameson S.) by Sean Wright is pretty bad... but then... what does some loser on amazon know eh? I think the worst book ever written is probably anything with Elmo from sesame street in it. I hate the little red demon.
Books I'm currently reading:
hrm... the last of the Murakami titles 'Underground'... which is frankly a little dull... more of a documentary/commentary on the gas attacks in tokyo in '92. I'm also reading H.P. Lovecraft's 'At the Mountains of Madness and other Novels of Terror'.. which isnt scary at all and I'm only reading him to justify my use of Cthulhu in one of my prints... who hasn't even been MENTIONED yet i might add. Also reading Demons by Dostoevsky.... which I reckon i will be trying to finish until i die. And re-reading 'The New York Trilogy' by Paul Auster. Its my laundry day book. I have Nietzche's Twightlight of the Idols/The Anti-Christ in the bathroom and sorta try to read him but he's a bit of a freak. I also got this really cool Chinese Literature Monthly (not in circulation) short stories collection from a second hand bookshop/antiques shop from 1964 that has really interesting stories post WW2 in rural china. and it smells really awesome... that old book smell you get in really old librarys like Trinity College in Dublin.
Thats about it really... im forever picking something up and dropping it again after a few chapters only to return to it and have to back a chapter or 2 up to remember who's who and what's what.
A book(s) I've been meaning to read:
Demons by dostoevsky... it is my literal demon... it haunts me... it torments me... it sits there smugly and chunkily on my cheap flatpack bookshelf taunting me with its smooth quality paper and bold DEMONS on the spine. my nemesis... my Delilah.
Shock of the New... because as an artist apparently i am deficient if i havent read it.
A book on post-modern christianity my Dad asked me to read and I am mildly curious as to what it talks about. Don't have it to hand to get the title though.. sorry.
Underworld by Don DeLillo upon recommendation... apparently a peer of Paul Auster.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka... the best title EVER for a fiction novel, and it always catches my eye in the book store... those books never fail me. yet.
The Catcher in the Rye - always seems to flee my mind in the bookstore and library... but always one i want/ed to read.
The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie because I've heard so much about it and may even be more poignant in the world today... stupid crap library never has it in though.
Dante's Divine Comedy and Goethe's Faust. As you do.
As i light up the last stupid self loathing cigarette of the evening... er... morning.. (CRAP another late night... looks like a nap in the back room tomorrow at work) i will say nitey nite! Maybe tomorrow i will link all the titles to Amazon like other very keen bloggers have done and I will tag two people whom I am curious about their reading habits.
Special thanks to Lolabola for the tag as i really enjoyed writing this post and will probably enjoy re-reading it tomorrow as I am really quite pathetisad. (I coined that word... but you may use it)
TAG you're it Mike, Ed and SIC
cheers!
p
ps. damn i hate it when hyperlinks underline... cant seem to get rid of em... and now this post looks like a freakin ad for amazon.
* note the use of an outdated word... it will become really cool again
posted by Marcus Dunning at 11:24 pm
1 Comments:
The Tao of Pooh! I bought that when my dog died when I was 18....forgot about that one. I love Pooh (hee hee), have a very worn out copy of The House at Pooh Corner on my shelf. I think it's the oldest book I have.
Flowers for Algernon, I can't remember if I cried but my sister did and for some reason I remember that.
Will have to follow your amazon promos and see what these others are all about.
Pathetisad is a great great word.
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