Failure

Oooooo... I've been tagged by Lynne for this book meme. This is the first time I've been tagged. It's quite exciting!

So...

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

Ok, um, I've never read Fahrenheit 451. I know. It's embarassing. But, I read a plot sypnopsis online and juding off of Lynne's answer, I need to be memorized so I can survive, right? I'm going to go with Beowulf. In Olde English. Great story, easy to memorize and not only would the literature be preserved, but the history of the language would be as well.

The last book you bought is:

Well, one trip to the book store, 3 books purchased.

Red Sorghum by Mo Yan (as a gift)
Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend by Graham Russell Gao Hodges
Republic of Wine by Mo Yan

The Last Book you Read:

Changing Places by David Lodge. Hilarious.

Currently Reading:

Republic of Wine by Mo Yan
Gendering the Spirit: Women, Religion, and the Post-Colonial Response edited by Durre S. Ahmed

Five Books You Would Take With you to a Deserted Island:

Some sort of survival guide
Complete Works of Jane Austen
The Colombia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature
For the 5th one I'm torn between a Norton Anthology of American Lit or the Bible. I think I'm going to go with the Bible.



Sometimes I feel that my high school education cheated me. I don't know. But there are lots of books that I got to college having not read, and, given that I didn't major in English, a lot of books that I graduated from college having not read. I have a hard time comprehending how someone who went to the schools I did could have gotten this far reading certain titles. For instance, I have never read To Kill a Mockingbird. Seriously.

Books I didn't read:
Fahrenheit 451
Nothing by Austen
Nothing by any of the Brontes
Nothing by Dickens
To Kill a Mockingbird
Red Badge of Courage

Now, to be fair, it's not that kids in my school district didn't read such titles, but that kids who took top-level English all through high school didn't read these titles. We read such stuff as:

The Crucible
Things Fall Apart
As I Lay Dying
Hamlet
MacBeth
Romeo and Juliet
Huckleberry Finn
Killer Angels
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Dandelion Wine
Sula
Beloved
Their Eyes Were Watching God
The Great Gatsby
Oedipus Rex
Antigone (by Anouilh, not Sophocles)
Lord of the Flies
Cat's Cradle