It seems that I’ve been ‘tagged’ by Kimbofo of Reading Matters to do a book meme. This is not painful but still it is new to me: a newfangled invention beyond the powers of my jaded wit to criticise. Memes are part of the clutter of blogging that I have up until now hesitated to engage with, seeing them as an overly-cute method of communicating, and preferring always the direct, old-fashioned approach in my writing. They simply seem like a quick way of filling up space with short, direct sentences. But now that I’ve been tagged by one whose blog I esteem so highly, I’ll humbly comply. Here are my responses to the meme:

1. One book that changed your life?
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov

2. One book you have read more than once?
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

3. One book you would want on a desert island?
The Norton Shakespeare

4. One book that made you cry?
Bleak House by Charles Dickens

5. One book that made you laugh?
Ludmila’s Broken English by DBC Pierre

6. One book you wish had been written?
Whatever Nabokov was working on or thinking about when he died in mountainous Montreux when I was fifteen and growing up, unaware of his very existence, in sunny Sydney

7. One book you wish had never had been written?
There are lots of bad books, but much worse than that venal crime is censorship itself (i.e. the more the merrier)

8. One book you are currently reading?
Somersault by Kenzaburo Oe

9. One book you have been meaning to read?
The Embarrassment of Riches by Simon Schama

10. Now tag five people
Perry of Matilda, Kerryn of A Fugitive Phenomenon, Georg of Stack, Meredith of Marrickvillia, and Sharon of Bibliobibuli