{"id":219,"date":"2005-04-15T14:54:48","date_gmt":"2005-04-15T14:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=219"},"modified":"2005-04-15T14:54:48","modified_gmt":"2005-04-15T14:54:48","slug":"book_talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2005\/04\/15\/book_talk\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh, no, it’s another meme! No worries, though — this one is pretty short, only five questions about books…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You’\u0092re stuck in Fahrenheit 451<\/i>. Which book would you be?<\/span>
    \nTwo things before I answer: first, in case you don’t know, Fahrenheit 451<\/i> is a Ray Bradbury novel set in a near-future world where books are illegal and firemen are duty-bound to destroy them whenever any are found. Second, I would guess, given the premise of F451, that this question really ought to be “which book would you save<\/i>?”, since “which book would you be<\/i>?” doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. My answer to the question is appropriately high-minded and literary: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare<\/i>. While I don’t particularly enjoy reading<\/i> ol’ Wild Bill — his words were intended to be read by actors on stage, not people in wing chairs — I do believe his work addresses just about every major theme there is in an absolutely unique voice, thus giving it the artistic merit a “book-to-be-saved” requires. Also, Shakespeare formed the basis of our modern literature once; it could do so again following the collapse of whatever tiny-brained regime that would be so monumentally ignorant as to declare books illegal.<\/li>\n
  2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?<\/span>
    \nAssuming this question refers only to literary characters, i.e., someone in a book, no. I have, however, developed crushes on plenty of movie and TV characters. Maybe some afternoon when I’m feeling really exhibitionistic, I’ll do a blog entry on that<\/i>…<\/li>\n
  3. What is the last book you bought?<\/span>
    \nNot counting a diet book I picked up for my mom, the last thing I bought was the Revenge of the Sith<\/i> novelization by Matthew Stover. (No, I haven’t read it yet. It is safely locked away until after I see the movie, so as not to reveal any secrets I don’t want to know about.) Prior to that, I bought Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34<\/i> by Bryan Burrough.<\/li>\n
  4. What are you currently reading?<\/span>
    \nSteve Hodel’s Black Dahlia Avenger<\/i><\/a>, a true-crime story that reads much like a Raymond Chandler detective novel. It’s a half-memoir, half-investigation by a former LAPD detective who has come to believe that his own father was responsible for an infamous Hollywood murder that occurred in 1947.<\/li>\n
  5. What five books would you take to a deserted island?<\/span>
    \nIf I was taking this question literally, I’d have to include the U.S. Army Ranger’s Survival Manual<\/i>. However, I think the idea here is to list my favorite books of all time. This is a tricky one. I consider myself a pretty well-read and literary chap; however, when I think about the books I’ve really, really<\/i> loved, the ones I’ve read multiple times and suspect I will one day want to pick up again… well, it’s not such a distinguished list:<\/p>\n
      \n
    • The Anubis Gates<\/i> by Tim Powers (a really nifty — and literary! — fantasy novel involving time-travel, ancient Egyptian magic, and werewolves, among other things)<\/li>\n
    • Han Solo at Star’s End<\/i> by Brian Daley (one of the first Star Wars<\/i> spin-offs and still among the best, as far as I’m concerned)<\/li>\n
    • Star Wars<\/i> by George Lucas (yes, I know he didn’t really write the novelization of his own movie — it was actually Alan Dean Foster — but Lucas’ name is on the cover)<\/li>\n
    • Christine<\/i> by Stephen King (admittedly not his best work, but it is my favorite among his canon, for reasons I won’t go into here)<\/li>\n
    • The North and South<\/i> trilogy by John Jakes (sprawling soap-opera set against the backdrop of the Civil War, much better than any of the three TV miniseries based upon it; also long enough to eat up lots of desert island downtime)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      With these answers, I guess I’ll never qualify for the International Association of Literary Snobs. Still, it’s not like I never<\/i> read the good stuff… no, really, it’s not. Really.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Oh, no, it’s another meme! No worries, though — this one is pretty short, only five questions about books…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memes-and-quizzes","category-the-bookshelf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}