Book meme thingy

Apologies for light posting. It's all change at the McGlumpher household what with a new job for me and school for the boy. I'm vertical before 7 o'clock these days. In the morning. It's unnatural, I tell you.

Anyway, here's a book meme from Norm:

1. One book that changed your life - I don't think I can claim to have read a single book that has changed my life as such but one changed my view of political ideologies more than any other was Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France.

2. One book that you've read more than once - There's quite a few but Catch 22 is one of my favourites.

3. One book that you'd want on a desert island - The King James Version of the Bible. I know this, along with the complete works of Shakespeare are taken as givens on Desert Island Discs but we're bloggers; you can't take it as given that we read books at all.

4. One book that made you laugh - No. 2 above but most recently, Is it just me or is everything shit?

5. One book that made you cry - It'll sound bizarre but one section of No. 1 above reduced me to tears. It's difficult to explain. I was at university at the time as as anyone who has read politics will tell you, many of the 'canon' are fairly turgid and I just wasn't expecting anything on the reading lists to have that kind of effect. The section in question apparently had the same effect on Marie Antoinette but she had the excuse that it was actually about her. I was just tired, I guess.

6. One book you wish you had written - Herzog by Saul Bellow.

7. One book you wish had never been written - By a strange coincidence the same one as Norm's choice - the Magus by John Fowles. It was given to me as a present by my ex-partner. She kept asking me if I'd read it. I thought it was a pile of crap and could barely get beyond the first fifty pages but I didn't want to be rude because we were at the beginning of the relationship so I kept trying to finish it. Eventually politeness gave way to necessity. I wasn't prepared to spend any more of my limited life-span trying to wade through that adolescent drivel.

8. One book you're currently reading - The People's Act of Love by James Meek. Haven't got very far - keep falling asleep. Did I mention how tired I've been?

9. One book you have been meaning to read - The Count of Monte Cristo.

10. Five people to tag - Hmmm, only if they want to/can be bothered but how about Paul, Chris, Snoops, Hak and Kate?

Oops - Marcus has tagged Chris already. Ok Will, finger out...