BOOKS: Meme

Passed to me from Ian, here is my excuse not to have to come up with an original idea today. I mean, my response to the current book meme.

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

If it weren't for Ian's response to this question, I would have no idea what this meant. It's been a very long time since I've read F451. So: which book would I like to memorize and recite to keep its memory alive? It would be too easy to copy Ian and say a Seuss book (which, if I did, by the way, it would be the brilliant The Lorax), so I'll say... The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I love Twain, and that book still provokes attempts at censorship and banning, so it seems fairly worthy of protection and preservation in real life, let alone in F451's dystopian world.

The Satanic Verses would be my second choice. And Nicholson Baker's Vox would be my third, just because I think it would be funny to have to constantly recite a novel that's basically one long phone sex conversation.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's, but that might just be because you can't read that story and not think of Audrey Hepburn. I'm strangely proud of myself that that's the only one that immediately leaps to mind. Now, if you wanted my television crushes... that would take some time to tell, my friend.

The last book you bought is:

Jasper Fforde's Lost in a Good Book, the second in the Thursday Next series.

The last book you read:

Oh, man. I honestly can't remember the most recent book I actually finished. It's probably Lemony Snicket's The Grim Grotto, which is a fine, fun read... but that still makes me a little sad. Tom needs to graduate to grown-up books! Also, that must've been a good two months ago. Criminy, I used to read a book a week, easily. What's happened to me??

The book before that, I think, was The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction. Also a fine, fun book, but hardly a challenging read.

What are you currently reading?

I'm in the middle of so many books, it's ridiculous. I can't finish a damn book! I keep starting one book, putting it aside, starting a second book, going back to the first book, starting a third, going back to the second... it's lame. I have next to no time for reading these days (or next to no patience, possibly), so when I do read something that requires longer attention than a children's book or a humor book, I find myself unable to muster that attention, and move on to something else.

Here's a (probably incomplete) list of books I'm somewhere in the middle of:

Stephen King's The Dark Tower (I've waited 20 years for this series to wrap up, and now I can't get myself to finish reading it.)
Tim Dorsey's Florida Roadkill (Most likely to actually be finished by me sometime in the near future.)
Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver (It's great, but it's just so darn heavy! And there are two more books in the series!)
Jonathan Lethem's Amnesia Moon (It's been a long time since I even opened that book; I don't know if I can fairly call it "current" reading anymore.)
Mickey Spillane's Survival... Zero! (It's a tiny book, but I only read, like, five pages at a time, every other week or so. So it's taken me over a year, and I still haven't finished. This is my emergency back-up book; if I'm somewhere away from home and find I have nothing else to read, this book is in my car.)

Five books you would take to a deserted island.

I loved Ian's answer to this, but again, I don't want to copy. I think I'll name five books I'd like to read, but don't think I ever will unless I'm on a deserted island.

David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
Thomas Pynchon's Vineland (Or maybe Gravity's Rainbow.)
James Joyce's Ulysses (The heavily annotated version.)

...and, hell, I gotta have some fun, right?

Stephen King's The Stand
Charles Schulz's The Complete Peanuts (Vol. 2 -- but only because Vol. 3 hasn't come out yet.)

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

Man, I don't know. Let's say Dorian, because he probably secretly wants to do it, but won't unless someone specifically invites him; Bill Sherman, one of my absolute favorite bloggers -- his encyclopedic knowledge of all things pop culture, and ability to write so eloquently and entertainingly about it, constantly amazes me; and Beaucoup Kevin, who knows the Shat is the man, and who is currently in the middle of a music meme. Here's another meme, sucker! Haw-haw!