I've Been Shot! No, Tagged!

Mary Louisa tagged me for a book meme. You list 15 facts and personal preferences about books. I'm a meme virgin. This is hard to admit, but I am. Really, it's not because I can't get memed, it's just that I'm saving myself. Yeah. That's it.

Okay. I guess I have to do these fifteen facts. I don't know if anyone will want to talk to me after this...Maybe I'm weird.

1. I love the smell of a place where books have been for a long, long time.

2. I once tried to make a secret compartment in book by gluing the pages together and cutting out the centers. It didn't work. Being the bibliophile that I am, I mourn the loss of that book to this day. Did I mention that this was fifteen years ago?

3. I love hard covers if they are not the size of a cinderblock. If I can steal the tires off a car and prop it up using your hardcover, it's too long and uncomfortable to read as a hardcover. It's my fault. I have small hands.

4. I like long books.

5. I have a very large collection of books. I was an English major in college. My shelves often go three books deep. Someday when I settle permanently, maybe I'll buy more shelves.

6. I have eclectic taste in books. My favorite authors include, but are not limited to, Michael Chabon, Stephen King, James Joyce, Jack McDevitt, Vladimir Nabokov, and Allen Steele. There are others, but I can't think of them. I anticipate adding Anne Frasier, J. A. Konrath, Robert Gregory Browne, and Mary Louisa to this list of books I buy without reading the backs all because I like their blogs.

7. When I was younger (maybe twelve), I wrote a story about America bringing back dinosaurs in order to use them for war. I was disappointed to find out that Michael Crichton did it first. I would have sued him, but he could have afforded better lawyers than me.

8. I love rare books. I have a first edition of Faulkner’s Light in August, a signed edition of poetry by Ogden Nash, several very old books with beautiful bindings, two volumes of Kipling’s work done in red leather with swastikas on the covers. Of course, in this case it is the Indian symbol for luck and is reversed from the Nazi emblem. It’s still weird.

9. I read several books simultaneously. I’m usually in the midst of at least three novels at any one time. I have no trouble keeping them separate and picking up where I left off.

10. I’m a painfully slow reader. This may have to do with #9. Although I read slowly, I have a very good memory. I tend to remember minute details and where they were in the book.

11. My wife and I spend at least $100 on books a month. That’s with her discount from the store.

12. Our idea of family fun is walking around a bookstore browsing for several hours on the weekend.

13. My daughter is six but can read on the seventh grade level. Even though she’s in gifted, her teacher insists on every reading in her grade level. That’s like the librarian forcing you to read See Spot Run when you have no problem reading James Joyce.

14. Cracked spines drive me nuts. I hate it when books fall apart.

15. I tend to read books more than once. I’ve read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man at least five or six times. I’ve read The White Hotel at least three. Stephen King’s first three books of the Dark Tower series at least four or five times each. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.

Phew!

I tag Dawno and Ray!