Meme, With Relish

Right now it's 99 degrees in New York, with the heat index bringing it up to 109. That's hot - too hot to do any thinking, critical or otherwise. So while I attempt to cool off my brain enough to finish the second book in my yearly Hugo series (it's awesome, BTW), here's a book meme* someone sent me a while back. I pass it on to all of you.

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1. One Book That Changed Your Life:
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien - This could have easily been any number of books, but the fact remains that The Hobbit was one of the first "big person's" books I recall reading as a child. In it are a thousands strands of memories tied to my father and how our love of this book shaped and anchored our relationship as long as he lived. I still have the version my father gave me all those years ago, and it will be the first book I give to my son when he's old enough to understand the role books can play in our lives.

2. One Book You Have to Read More Than Once:
Dandelion Wine/The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury - Calendars be damned; the "official" start of Autumn is October 1st in my opinion. And every year until very recently I celebrated the onset of my favorite month by reading both great works by Ray Bradbury: one a fond remembrance of what Summer means to one young boy, the other a wonderful dose of magic and childhood detailing the meaning of Halloween around the world. The perfect way to usher in the new season while bidding adieu to the old.

3. One Book You'd Want on a Desert Island:
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust - The easy (not as in "cheap" but in "this is how I always answered in the past") used to be The Complete Works by William Shakespeare.  I still say it's a good answer, but if I were really stuck on a deserted island I might be more tempted to go with something I haven't finished yet, and if I try hard I can interpret the question to read as "One book (out of many) you'd...." so there you go.

4. Two Books That Made You Laugh:
The Sword of Samurai Cat by Mark E. Rogers and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - Both books have the same crazy type of laugh out loud humor, and since everyone and their uncle know the classic Douglas Adams book, let me take a brief moment to extol the virtues of the wonderful Samurai Cat series. At once a slapstick action comedy and a satire of all things that make us human, Samurai Cat leaves no event intact, whether it's retelling WWII with dinosaurs as Nazis or inserting a Zeno's Paradox joke in an Indiana Jones parody. Plus, every book is lovingly illustrated by the author. What Hitchhiker's was to me in high school, Samurai Cat was to me in college.

5. One Book That Made You Cry:
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving - John Irving holds an irrefutable spot on my list of Greatest Living American Authors.  A Prayer for Owen Meany is my (and almost everyone else I ask) favorite Irving book, and one of my most vivid memories is having my wife walk into the living room of our Las Vegas suite (a story unto itself) and finding me bawling on the couch as I read through the last few pages of this great novel.

6. One Book You Wish You'd Written:
If On A Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino - My introduction to Calvino, and the book that opened my eyes to a entire world of modern, inquisitive and challenging literature that had been eluding me for years.

7. One Book You Wish Was NEVER Written:
Titus Gamble by Peter Gentry - Yes, it's a pulpy, less-than-racially sensitive romance novel featuring a slave who ravishes the plantation owner's wife.  I was 12 when I came across this book locked in my Dad's old footlocker I was using as a bench in my room, and what the cause of, shall we say, a "delicate and embarrassing" situation early in my adolescence.

8. Two Books You Are Currently Reading:
D-Day by Stephen E. Ambrose and The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - I don't often read more than one book at a time, but when I do I usually go the fiction/nonfiction route.  D-Day is an excellent accounting of the events of that day by the author of Band of Brothers, and The Windup Girl is the Nebula and Hugo nominated debut novel by Bacigalupi, a stunning piece of speculative fiction I'll be reviewing next week.

9. One Book You've Been Meaning to Read:
Volumes II-VI of In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust - Volume I was incredible and unequivocally a work of genius. My brain couldn't take another 1,500 pages right away. But I'll get there, honest!

If you love books, consider yourself tagged. Link your post in the comments below. Huzzah!

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* I'm not sure that this actually is a meme, but that's how it was sent to me, and it's way too hot to investigate.  If this isn't technically a meme, sorry about that.