Libri Awesomi Sunt

All right, how could I resist doing a quiz all about books? You're right, I couldn't. This is subject to David's same caveat about the Bible: it would apply to essentially all these categories, so it shall be assumed in the background as the ultimate book, but I shall consider non-inspired works in my answers.


1. One book that changed your life: The Iliad. I would never have written Immortality otherwise, nor would I have known about kleos or Diomedes' aristeia in Book V.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Peace Like a River.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: The U.S. Army Survival Manual. :P Or if it were abundantly clear that even the best advice in the world would be of no avail, then...oh...dang, I have to choose one? The Complete Works of Shakespeare? I can count a collection of plays and poetry, right? I'm glad you agree.

4. One book that made you laugh: I could name any number of Wodehouse books and short stories, but Huckleberry Finn would also have a spot.

5. One book that made you cry: Out of the Silent Planet, of all things. I was in an odd, exceptionally sensitive phase and I was incredibly frustrated by the expressive gestures of the Huorn to call Ransom into the boat. It made me really sad to think of it being confused and trying everything it could think of to show him what it wanted.

6. One book that you wish had been written: Achilles: The Autobiography or I Really Am William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: One? How about the entire His Dark Materials series. Or The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Or Hobbes' Leviathan. Or Flavia Bujor's The Prophecy of the Stones (a fantasy by a fifteen year-old where all good things are accomplished by communal will-power and the key city in the novel is Paris, and nothing really makes sense).

8. One book you’re currently reading: The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

10. Tag five others: Any coves who haven't made the attempt yet. If you exceed five in number, I won't report you. I'm no rat. In a town this bad, who's there to rat to anyway? ;-)