book survey...(tagged by lediz)
Book Survey!
1) Total number of books owned?
I wouldn't dare to count. Between the upper hundreds and a couple of thousand, I'd guess. ::sweatdrops (and not just from the heat either)::
2) The last book I bought?
Three at once, this afternoon: Hana-Kimi vol. 5 by Hisaya Nakajo, vol. 2 of Whistle! by Daisuke Higuchi, and Winter Rose by Patricia A. McKillip (this last for the folk/myth retellings discussion group I'm part of).
3) The last book I read?
I inhaled finished the two abovementioned manga this evening. (Will return to them in due course--I seem to do that a lot with graphic novels.)
The last non-manga books I read (all in the past couple of weeks, too!) were
*Roderick Townley's The Great Good Thing--a fantasy from 2001 that shows the act of reading from the perspective of the characters in the story. Funny, challenging, touching.
*The Necessary Hunger by Nina Revoyr--in a gritty Los Angeles neighborhood in the 1980s, an Asian-American basketball player falls in poignant love with the daughter (also basketball-playing) of her father's African-American girlfriend. The interactions between all the characters felt real, and distinctively American: the delicate waltz around and through our differences.
*The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. Two children in a dying underground city come to the disturbing realization that, if they're going to survive, they'll need to leave old ideas behind...
4) Five books that mean a lot to me?
This one's so darned hard to pare down! Some helped shape my emotional life as a child, some were able to move me as an adult... And should I focus more on books that shook/disturbed me or the ones that served as a comforting escape? (Some, amazingly, did both.)
I'm not mentioning books that were assigned school reading, just to make the whittling process easier.
*Ursula K. Le Guin - either A Wizard of Earthsea or The Tombs of Atuan (I'm leaning towards the latter). I first read these (the first and second Earthsea books) when I was around ten. They both taught me a great deal about the complexity of being human, about loss and spiritual growth. [fantasy]
In the first one, arrogant young Ged--intoxicated with his powers as a mage--unleashes a terrible evil on the world and must leave the wizards' school at Roke in order to set things right.
In the second book, the high priestess Arha, dedicated from early childhood to service in the temple, faces unfamiliar choices when she finds a foreigner trapped in the off-limits labyrinth.
*Rosemary Sutcliff - Knight's Fee--A quirk of fate lands Randal, who once slept in the castle kennels, at the manor of a Norman knight, where he's raised alongside the knight's gentle son Bevis. [juvenile historical fiction]
*Rafik Schami - A Hand Full of Stars--a Syrian teenager starts keeping a journal that becomes an impassioned commentary on social and political events around him. [young adult historical fiction]
*Barbara Leonie Picard - One Is One--Timid Stephen de Beauville runs away from the abbey where his scornful family deposited him, and encounters a knight whose words and example change his life. [juvenile historical fiction]
Mary Renault - The Charioteer--Convalescing in a World War II hospital, wounded Laurie Odell meets Andrew, a Quaker conscientious objector serving as an orderly; his feelings for both Andrew and a former classmate--now another veteran--draw him into a new sense of self and uncharted territory. [adult historical fiction]
5) Tag 5 people and have them fill this out on their LJs:
jobiska
bakashoujiki
fish_are_evil
tuuli_chan
cheeky_duckie
...though some of you've probably done it already.
And anyone else who wants to? I'm tagging you too.
::looks around LJ grumpily::
How come nobody fills my requests on fic_on_demand? Are they *that* unpalatable?
::goes off muttering::
::pops head back in::
I meant to give a thoughtful, loving review of the Fruits Basket manga. Being that I have no energy, consider it recommended. I also recommend the 50 Rules for Teenagers manhwa by Na Ye-Ri, but prepare to be frustrated by the publisher's indefinite (and maybe infinite) delay in releasing Vol. 2. *heavy sigh*
::waves a tired goodnight::