Another book meme thingie

I has been tagged again for one of them meme thingies, this time by Kay Sexton. So, here we go:

One book that changed your life.

Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5. This novel was pivotal in the transition between my early teenaged reading habits (Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, lots of hard sci-fi) and the wider world of serious literature. Slaughterhouse 5 was so important because it showed me that literary fiction could be funny, sad, thoughtful, playful, experimental yet accessible all at the same time. Vonnegut's writing taught me the most valuable lesson that any aspiring writer can learn: anything, absolutely anything goes.

One book that you’ve read more than once.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - all five books in the inaccurately labelled "trilogy". Douglas Adams was just so damn funny and had a gift for using language to spin out increasingly absurd flights of fancy. He left us too soon, goddamnit.

One book you’d want on a desert island.

Hmm, tricky. I think if I was on a desert island then I'd want something really meaty and long, a novel that I'd have to return to again and again in order to work it out. In which case, I could do no worse than James Joyce's Ulysses. I haven't even read it yet but its reputation precedes it. It is sitting atop my bookshelf as we speak, drumming its fingernails, arching its eyebrows, silently questioning me as to when exactly I intend to finally gather myself and start reading it.

One book that made you laugh.

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien. A beautifully absurd book. Whenever I am feeling blue, I flick to the part about how atoms are swapped between men and their bicycles. Just hilarious.

One book that made you cry.

Martin Amis has a reputation for being a bit of a literary brat, a writer whose outstanding prose style outweighs the intellectual or emotional content of his books. However, his 2001 memoir Experience managed to be both typically stylish and emotionally engaging. Amis Jr. writes candidly about the loss of his cousin Lucy Partington, who was a victim of serial killer Fred West, and also about emerging from the shadow of a famous literary patriarch. I do love Martin Amis' novels but Experience may be the best thing he has ever written.

One book that you wish had been written.

The sixth book in the Hitchhiker's trilogy.

One book that you wish had never been written.

As much as I despise Frankenstein, there is no denying its influence on the horror and science fiction genres and its place in literary history, so I will say Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch

One book you’re currently reading.

Deadfolk by Charlie Williams, ennit.

One book you’ve been meaning to read.

Apart from Ulysses, another big ol' brick of a novel sitting on my shelf waiting to be tackled is Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. I did once start reading it but gave up after 75 pages. This will not do. I've read other books that have a reputation for being hard work or "difficult" so I simply cannot allow this novel to defeat me. Even if I never grasp what the hell the thing is about, I am determined to finish it one day.

Wasn't that fun? I suppose I'd better tag somebody with this now, as is the convention. Very well, I tag the Sleep Evangelist because I know she welcomes any aid to procrastination and Jai Clare (although she is an extremely busy woman and may never get around to doing it).