The whole booky truth and nothing but the booky truth.

Ok, so here goes. I've been tagged by the wonderously revived as a blogger Kelly over at Onthefence in this whole book thing. I welcome the distraction, and was getting worried that no one loved me (shades of high school gym class during team sports all over again).

Without further ado:

Number of Books That You Own:

Using the IKEA shelf method (we are EXPIDIT people, not BILLY) I'd say somewhere between 550 and 700 books (I'm too lazy to go and do a proper count) ..... this is counting both my and Christine's collection.

Last Book Bought:

It was a skillz to pay the billz kinda purchase More Eric Meyers on CSS. I've restarted working doing design and implementation so I need this kind of thing. Meyers, unlike virtually every other computer how-to guy has an actual voice to his writing. It's conversational, jargony only when needed and extremely easy to read. The subject matter is still kicking my ass a bit, but that is a function of me, not Myer's writing.

Last Book I Read: (for the first time)

Ok, so I have 10 answers to this question.

A buddy who is a teacher in Toronto scored me the complete (to date) Lemony Snicket collection (this is the last one I've read). As a reader (even one older than the target audience) I found them very engaging and fun to read. They reminded me of Jacob Two Two. As an education geek I am awed by the way that the author works new vocabulary into the story, providing a definition and context for it... it is like a tiny little situated/just in time learning deliverable in every chapter. The sarcasm and satire also make me happy.

As for the other book I've read recently: We got Lucas this book called Mouse and Kat and The Evil One, based mostly on the insane graphics and typography. He actually loves it and demands to look at it constantly. It is so cool as to be painful.

Five Books that mean a lot to me:

Shake Hands With The Devil: The Failure Of Humanity In Rwanda by Romeo Dallaire. I think about what is right and what is easy and how they are not often the same thing a lot. Dallaire shows what doing the right, hard thing can do to you. I'm not sure I've ever wept reading a book before. I know I did reading this.

Way Of Chuang Tzu translated by Thomas Merton. A poet monk translating the work of a poet monk. WTF more do you want in life? Seriously, the basis of Taoism as presented in English by Merton is thoughtful, thought provoking and beautiful.

A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and North America in the Nineteenth Century by Witold Rybczynski. I would read a Rybczynski book about toliet paper (I read one about the screw so mb I have). Both the subject matter (Olmsted was a god and a facinating human) and the writing (OMG to be able to write like this) are awesome.

Dispatches by Michael Herr, new journalism, Vietnam... the book that made me want to be a journalist. Probably also the book that made me realize that I probably never would be that good. Also the book (combined with Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun) that ended the idea of war as romance for me.

The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. My CEGEP teacher was right this book, and the movie based on it are some of the finest religious work ever done. Period. Maugham is probably viewed as gauche or some bs now. But the man could write. Oh the man could write.

There are a million more, but that is 5.

I'll come up with some people to tag tomorrow.