on tag

cheers for the thought Loki, embarrassed to admit I never read comix as a lad, I was into…. Punch. For a couple of years. And a bookworm, down the library three times a week. So I will answer Jon

1) Total number of books I've owned
Must be over a thousand, at least. Distorted by the fact that the wife gets sent so many through her job and I cream off more desirables than can physically read. There they are, a stack of good intentions, gazing down at me reproachfully.

2) The last book I bought
The last one acquired was Penguin By Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 by Phil Baines (meant to pay but the friend who brought it over from England refused money). Before that.... I can’t actually remember, you know.

3) The last book I read
Tend to have many on the go, almost all of them never completed, an awful lot stopping about 1/3 the way in. Two right now I seriously intend to finish: Penguin by Design and Erik Davis’ book on Led Zeppelin IV/Zoso/Four symbols in the Continuum 33 1/3 series.

4) Five books that mean a lot to me (in no particular order)

(Submitted to only on the understanding that these are the handful-out-of-scores that first came to mind)

(The first three here are definitely “mean”, the last two are more like “had huge effect on”)

Ada, Vladimir Nabokov
Maldoror, Lautreamont
One of those Ballard short story collections: Terminal Beach, Low Flying Aircraft, The Best Short Stories Of...
The Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes
Rock and the Pop Narcotic, Joe Carducci

5) Tag five people and have them fill this out on their blogs

Stubbs, Gusset, Green Galloway, Sherburne, Riko