What was the last book you bought?
My primary means of obtaining books is not through purchase, it’s through borrowing from my parents who have hundreds if not thousands of of books, dozens of bookshelves and boxes in the attic worth, and a garage with wall to wall bookshelves, an architectural masterpiece designed by my grandfather. The last one I grabbed off my mother’s table is James Lee Burke's novel In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead.
Name a book you have read more than once?
Almost all of Ayn Rand’s fiction, Tai-Pan and King Rat by James Clavell, The Road to Gandalfo and others by Robert Ludlum, Stranger in a Strange Land and others by Robert Heinlein, parts 3&4 of the Harry Potter series, I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, Franny & Zooey by J. D. Salinger I've read at several times, and Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. Probably some more. If you count short stories then include a bunch by Salinger, Hemingway, and Edgar Allen Poe.
Has a book ever fundamentally changed the way you see life?
Tai-Pan opened my eyes to Squeeze, most of Ludlum’s books make me keep my eyes open for sabotage, and several of Heinlein’s books keep my eyes open for orgies.
How do you choose a book? E.g. by cover design and summary, recommendations or reviews?
I only read books on recommendation, or ones that I find around my parents. I can’t even remember the last book I read randomly, but whatever it was, surely it was the summary that got me, not a review or cover design. What am I, six? Plus I prefer old fashioned cover designs: compare the old and new covers of Tai-Pan.
Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction?
They’re both great. Fiction tends to be more compelling, but non-fictions tends to be much more fun to talk to people about.
What’s more important in a novel - beautiful writing or a gripping plot?
Plot is clearly more important. What good is beautiful writing if the plot is trash? It’s about as useful as beautiful trash. I’d rather have ugly treasure than beautiful trash. Plus I just recently began to notice beautiful writing anyway, since I read Sin and Syntax. The first author whose writing I noticed as quite nice was Barbara Kingsolver.
Most loved/memorable character?
Tai-Pan. Ragnar Danneskjöld. Valentine Michael Smith. John Galt. Gandalf. Mycroft Holmes. Dagny Taggart. Aristotle Quance. Zooey Glass.
Which book or books can be found on your nightstand at the moment?
From top to bottom and left to right, arranged by height:
Complete Tales and Peoms, Edgar Allen Poe
Understanding Arguments, Fogelin
SuperFoods Rx, Dr. Pratt
The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R.Tolkien
Papers, Papers, Papers, Carol Jago
Aristotle for Everybody, by Mortimer J. Adler
How to be a Man, by Dirk Flinthart, John Birmingham
The Art of War, Sun Tzu
How to read Literature Like as Professor, Foster
Colossus, Ferguson
The Best American Travel Writing, I forget which year so I can't name the editor
The Dilber Future, Scott Adams
The Dilber Principle, Scott Adams
Robinson Cruseo, Daniel Defoe
Refiner’s Fire, by Mark Helprin
The Captive Mind, Milosz
Conrad’s Heart of Darknes, Dean
Sin and Syntax, by Constance Hale
Animal Dreams, by Barbara Kingsolver
Doctor Sax, Kerouac
The Hobbit, J.R.R.Tolkien
The curious incident of the dog in the night, by Mark Haddon
The Bourne Ultimatum, Ludlum
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
Job: A Comedy of Justice, Ludlum
The moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein
The Road to Gandolfo, Ludlum
Expanded Universie, Robert Heinlein
Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
Noble House, Clavell
The Prometheus Deception, Ludlum
The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand
The Tomb and other Tales, by H.P. Lovecraft.
Old Man’s War, Scalzi
Literature as Exploration, Rosenblatt
The Caves of Sreel, Asimoov
King Rat, Clavell
The Matlock Paper, Ludlum
The Golden Aple of the Sun, Bradbury
Foundation Trilogy, Asimov
Metodiniai Nurodymai renantiesiems edukologiniijos pagrindiniu studio mokslinius darbus, Zulumskyte
Teaching and Learning—Towards the Learning Society, European Comission
OECD Recommendations for Education in Lithuania, Totoraitis, Briedis, Gudaityte
Pedagogų Rengimo Standarto Gairių Projekto Tyrimo Ataskaita, Sauleliene
Švietimo Studijos: Lietuvos Švietimo Kaita, Bruzgeleviciene
Pedagogų Rengimas Lietuvoje Ÿ Pertvarkos Pastangos
Prarastieji Lietuvos Talentai, Rudokas
To be fair on this point, my nightstand is the size of a desk. Actually, it is a desk.
What was the last book that you read?
The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, which I read for a third time. What happened was my wife was reading and we talked about what was going on in the book, and she refused to let me read over her should, so the day she finished I couldn't help picking it up, even though I have a dozen or so books on hand that I haven't read once.
That's the last book I finished. I am currently in the middle of, or nearing the end of, or just begining, The Foundation Trilogy, The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Elements of Style, Franny & Zooey, and In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. Actually I'm just about to begin Franny & Zooey, but I've already printed out a copy in five parts to bring with me to the gym so I don't get bored doing cardio. I used to print out some news to read, but it's just been too depressing for the past week.
Have you ever given up on a book halfway in?
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. Here’s what I think about her!
I plagiarized these here questions from Rachel.
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6 comments:
I'm guessing your desk is like that because you don't have room for an appropriate bookcase? My old desk used to be pretty much the same until I had a bookcase built, and I certainly plan on having a book collection like your parents! And I remember that post from 2005, it certainly made me laugh again, but when it comes to Pride and Prejudice I never liked it, and I could never understand why so many other girls liked it, of that year I loved Wuthering Heights.
PS your grandad designed your place in Lithuania or the States?
of that era, not year
In the States we have two places just like in Vilnius, a big house and a garage with an apartment attached. My grandfather designed the apartment for himself and my grandmother to live on the same 25 acres with us. He had been spending every other week since his retirement there, planting a ~20x20 meter garden, an orchard with 60 fruit trees, a pine forest with maybe 100 trees, and converting a swamp into a swimming pond. I've tried, at age 25, to re-dig the ditches he dug at age 75, and found it nearly impossible. He wasn't an architect, but he designed the house brilliantly. It has no boiler, so it takes some work to keep the wood stove going through the winter, but it's not hard to get it so hot you have to open the windows and be glad the screens keep the snow out. The two houses share a well and a water pump, so the garage's only cost is electricity. There's no basement, so the foundation is very stable. I haven't heard about any work being done on the place since I've been gone, which puts it at age 23 without requiring roof work or professional plumbing (I did a half ass job on the plumbing myself once). Oh, and it's never needed painting, because it has vinyl siding. I don't know how much money my parents spend to paint the big house every few years, but I expect it's a bundle.
Pride and Prejudice is great! There's this kind of stereotype about Jane Austen that you might believe if you watched one of the period dramas on television - that Austen wrote about daffy dames flouncing about the English countryside in bonnets.
That's all a load of crap; what Austen did and did brilliantly was parody and take the piss out of all the romantic stereotypes that were around in her own time. So she invents smouldering romantic interests like Mr Darcy, but then has them do utterly stupid things in the height of their passion like -
He paced to one side of the room for no other purpose than to walk to the other side of the room.
Plus, in Pride and Prejudice you've got a lot of other good stuff - the father of the Bennet family, for instance, who is constantly making fun of his wife (who just wants to marry their daughters off) and his daughters (most of who are overly romantic or young or a combination of both). I don't think irascible and cranky old fathers would play such a large part in a trite Mills and Boon romance. Plus there's a splendid snob in Lady Catherine De Bourgh, who is probably a pretty accurate picture of class distinctions in 18/19th century Britain.
Look, I'm not saying it's too everyone's tastes, but I am saying there's a lot of stuff in there that the Austen/romantic/costume-drama stereotype misses out on.
That's not an exact quote btw. I just remember reading it in Austen, but not sure where now.
i didn't have any preconceptions about her for some reason, i'd barely heard of her. i think what i hated was speech pattern of the characters, which i supposed might be the same in the works of all her contemporaries as well. if you think she's that good, though, then i'll give her another try.
the one good thing i remember is that the husband and wife always called each other mister and misses whatever. that's funny.
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