Friday Book Meme

1. One book that changed your life: The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Wait, before you dismiss me as a total nerd (which, of course, is entirely true), let me explain. When I was around 17 or 18 years old, I opened my dad's college copy & found the poem "Ozymandias" by Shelley. I was so enthralled with the idea that you could transmit history via the written word that I decided then & there to major in history.
2. One book you have read more than once: I have worn out my copies of Pride & Prejudice and The Blue Castle.
3. One book you would want on a desert island: Without a doubt, Anne of Green Gables. It was my favorite when I was small and it reminds me of my family & PEI.
4. One book that made you laugh: Anything by Bill Bryson, really. However, I particularly love Notes from a Small Island and A Walk in the Woods.
5. One book you wish you had written: No Great Mischief, by Alistair MacLeod. It's a novel about a tight-knit Scots-Canadian family that is by turns moving, funny & sad.
   
6. One book you wish had never been written: To be completely honest, Middlemarch. I was given it as a present from dear family friends & thus felt compelled to have a crack at it. I never made it more than 100 pages in. It's just . . . meh (even though it's considered a classic).
   
7. One book that made you cry: Night and No Great Mischief.
   
8. One book that you are currently reading: Sailing Alone Around the World, by Joshua Slocum. I'm just getting into it now, but with a title like that, how can an ocean-loving, occasional loner with a bug for travel & adventure like myself say no? :)
   
9. One book you have been meaning to read: To the Lighthouse. I bought it more than 5 years ago and have yet to sit down with it. I'm sorry, Virginia Woolf!
   
10. One book you wish everyone would read, and why: This was a really tough one. In the end, I decided that the most important books I've read (from a global perspective) would probably be: Black Dog of Fate, Reading Lolita in Tehran, and Ordinary Men. All of these books deal with how ordinary people handle oppression, murder, corruption, and war. Each one will force you to re-think your world & realize how close we all are to the edge.