Blogs > Liberty and Power > the "one book" meme

Oct 5, 2006

the "one book" meme




I've been tagged! Here goes.

1. One Book That Changed My Life: It's hard to choose just one, because there have been so many. I'll go with The Limits of State Action by Wilhelm von Humboldt, the book that introduced me to aesthetic individualism.

2. One Book I've Read More Than Once: Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, with its Professor Bernardo de la Paz, who was based on Robert LeFevre, founder of the Freedom School. "May I ask this? Under what circumstances is it moral for a group to do that which is not moral for a member of that group to do alone?" And there's TANSTAAFL as well, of course.

3. One Book I Would Want on a Desert Island: Escaping from a Desert Island for Dummies, maybe?

4. One Book that Made Me Laugh: Besides everything by Douglas Adams? Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

5. One Book that Made Me Cry: Cherokee Editor: The Writings of Elias Boudinot. It's the Kobayashi Maru, nineteenth-century style.

6. One Book that I Wish Had Been Written: Whatever Emily Brontë might have written next if she hadn't died so young.

7. One Book I Wish Had Not Been Written: I tend to be pro-book, as it were, so this one is rather hard for me. If any of Harold Bloom's more recent books disappeared, though, I'd still sleep soundly (okay, and probably point and laugh, too).

8. One Book I'm Currently Reading: A 19th-century collection of short stories by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué translated from the German.

9. One Book I've Been Meaning to Read: Red Prophet by Orson Scott Card for an alternate history perspective on Tecumseh.

I won't tag anyone else. Please feel free to jump in if you haven't yet done this.



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Aeon J. Skoble - 10/6/2006

Excellent answer to #6. I hadn't thought of approaching the question from that angle. RE #4, I stil haven't read that one yet, but I will. RE #3 - yes, good call! :-)