Saturday, August 12, 2006

Book meme

I've been tagged! By the lovely (and talented) Midwestern Transport.

So now I've got to go to work and answer this thing.

1. One book that changed your life?
Miss Vera's Finishing School for Boys Who Want To Be Girls by Veronica Vera. It was the first book I ever read that tried to explain why I want to present as a woman.

2. One book you have read more than once?
I seldom read books more than once. (So why do I keep all of mine?--Hmmm) I think the record is three times: Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?
I'll skip the obvious ones about rafts and survival. I think The Complete Works of William Shakespeare might do me well.

4. One book that made you laugh?
The Hot Rock, by Donald E. Westlake. This was the first of his Dortmunder series, the tales of a very good, but very unlucky, burglar. In this book Dortmunder steals a huge diamond--over and over, losing it after each successful heist.

5. One book that made you cry?
I can't think of any book that has ever done that. The closest is Guy de Maupassant's short story, "La Parure" (The Necklace, or The Diamond Necklace).

6. One book you wish had been written?
The Defeat of Bolshevism, by Alexander Karensky (or is it Kerensky?).

7. One book you wish had never been written?
Mein Kampf.

8. One book you are currently reading?
The Salmon of Doubt, by Douglas Adams.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?
Becoming a Visible Man, by Jamison Green, is next on my list. It's a very long list.

10. Now tag five people.
Helen Boyd, her husband Betty, Victoria Marinelli, The Lazy Cartoonist, my sister Deb.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ack! What's with the meme madness lately?

As it happens, I just now responded to a meme I got hit with two days ago. (Which I didn't actually read until today. After which, I read your post.)

So I may have hit my meme quota for the week, but if I do get around to responding to another meme (I hardly ever go in for these things) I promise this will be the next one :)

P.S. The Veronica Vera one sounds interesting. I'll have to add that to my (ever bloated) "to read" list.

caprice said...

Lately? I posted this in August.

About Veronica Vera's book: Note that I said this was the first book I ever read that tried to explain why I want to present as a woman. The book was from 1997. It's not a scholarly book by any means--it was somewhat an infomercial for her "school." There have been any number of better, more serious books about crossdressing and transgender topics that have been written since then. Foremost of these is "My Husband Betty" by Helen Boyd. She also has a new book coming out in a few weeks, "She's Not the Man I Married." I also think "Becoming a Visible Man," by Jamison Green, might be at the top of the list--I just started reading it, and so far it's great.

Getting back to Veronica's book--it really helped me begin to understand myself, which did change my life. So I listed it.

Anonymous said...

Oh, Good Lord. I apparently just saw "December" from "The time in New York is...," mentally paired it with the 12 from the actual post date, and assumed this was from last week. I am such a dork.

Hadn't seen the post, obviously, at the time, but it came up in a backlinks search yesterday, so that was when I finally found it.

Well, I never claimed to be able to keep up-to-date on anything... :)