Infection!

I got tagged by, surprise to me, tsunobrat. Here goes.

Total number of books owned

Two hundred or so — I’ve always been the sort to read things borrowed, rather than owning them. At age 13, though, the circulation count on one of eight stickers on my library card was 2,500.

The last book I bought

“Programming Ruby”, by Andy Hunt, Dave Thomas, et al. At the same time, “The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed”, which I haven’t had a chance to read yet, and promptly loaned to a friend.

The last book I read

And had time to finish, “The Left Hand of Darkness”, by Ursula Leguin, I think.

I keep starting “Quicksilver”, but I keep getting distracted just before it gets good.

Five books that mean a lot to me

  1. “The Left Hand of Darkness“, by Ursula Leguin. It deals with gender identity issues quite gracefully, without being entirely about them;
  2. “Ender’s Game”, by Orson Scott Card, because in addition to being really good, reminds me of someone who goes by the name Petra on occasion;
  3. “Speaker for the Dead”, by Orson Scott Card, for being among the most juicy philosophical books in existence — enough so that a book reading club of mostly old ladies who hate science fiction can read it, enjoy it, and have the best discussion of the year about it;
  4. “Winnie the Pooh”, by A. A. Milne, also for its philosophical qualities, not to mention the wonderful memories of reading it with anandabrat. Honorable mention to ”And Now We Are Six” for good childhood memories. Contrariwise, I did not enjoy “The Tao of Pooh” very much, since it ends up talking about philosophy more than simply illustrating it.
  5. “Wonders, Inc.” for best childhood book. It’s where my sense of punnery developed from, aside from my father.

Infect five people

Also waiting for pseudomammal and julieclipse but I dun tag them because vruba already did. doni_dyke01 is also sure to have a good list.