I’ve just been tagged by my friend Greg at Sinister Thoughts, with the challenge of answering these questions (as has my best friend James):
(1) How many books do you own?
I’m guessing in the range of 300 or more. A third of that is my Doctor Who collection of BBC, Target, and Virgin Publishing novels (also a select collection of Star Trek books and television program guides). The next third are my Canadian, American and UK lit books, and the final third comprises my history and political science books and texts. I’ve amassed a pretty substantial library, now that I think about it.
(2) What is the last book you bought?
WHO’S NEXT - An Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to DOCTOR WHO, by Mark Clapham, Eddie Robson, and Jim Smith
Just in time for those curious about the original run of Doctor Who, after sampling the newest series staring Christopher Eccleston.
It’s the latest revised guide to the original television series, and it’s worth it for some new categories such as Things Fall Apart, as well as some nicely substantial (and often very drool) reviews. It’s certainly a bit stronger and more forthright than some of the other Doctor Who guides, but it was never boring, and I tore through it with pleasure. It’s the kind of book that makes you happy to be a geek. 
(3) What is the last book you read?
Two, actually:
The Return of Sherlock Holmes - The Second Stain
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I read it as part of preparation for my 19th century class seminar, but the Holmes stories are the kind of adventures you can dip into time and again, without losing any entertainment value. The Second Stain is one of his best stories.
Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith
by Matthew Woodring Stover
Dark, gorgeous, insightful, terrifying, thrilling…this novelization of the film is everything that the film IS NOT! If you want to wipe away the horrifying after-taste of the movie, READ THIS. It begs the question why George Lucas didn’t hire this man to write the screenplay! It contains everything that the movie MUST have had (and ended up on the cutting room floor!), and everything the movie SHOULD have had…but didn’t even occur to Lucas to write!
Summer is my binge-reading time. I aim for at least 6 complete books by the end of August. I should start warming up…
(4) Name 5 books that mean a lot to you.
Now THIS may be difficult. Here’s the list of what I came up with:
Doctor Who - Time-Flight, by Peter Grimwade
Picture it: I’m ten years old. For the first time ever, I ride the city bus with only an older friend for company…all the way to the biggest mall in the city. I get my first ever hair cut on my own, and I walk tentatively into Coles book store, ready to buy something I’ve desired for weeks…!
The first book I ever bought, and the book that cemented me as a geek, a Who fan, and a lover of genre reading for all time. The novelization of the story is miles better than the actual episodes, and it marks a far-distant time when videos were non-existent, and the only way to re-live those moments of watching Doctor Who on TV was through Target novels. And I still love the cover!
The Stone Angel, by Margaret Laurence
It was the first novel we had to read in Grade 13 English, and my breath was taken away. Such an all-encompassing history…such an unlikeable protagonist! I didn’t know that main characters could be bitchy, temperamental, selfish, and just plain WRONG in their beliefs, actions and attitudes. But Margaret Laurence was able to take Hagar Shipley and fashion a stunning novel that explored her life of missed opportunities. I raced through this book while the rest of my class found it a chore. They were such tools!
Stones, by Timothy Findley
This was the first book to make me cry, leave me open-mouthed in shock, and make me laugh out loud. It was when my love affair began with Timothy Findley’s words — a man who could take a short story and fill it with so much breadth of emotion, and depth of plot. A man who could introduce us to characters that we could love OR hate in the span of two pages. I’ve read even more powerful Findley works since I discovered this amazing tome at the age of 17, but they don’t carry the same weight of memory, or the sparkle of late-teenage angst. I adore it to pieces.
The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
I didn’t so much discover this as fall into it, head first, forever claimed by its sheer power. At the age of 16, I had never read a novel with swearing, sex, brutal death, or an ambiguous ending that would leave me gasping for air. Damn you, Ms. Atwood, for writing a novel that grabbed me by the throat, and launched me head-long into the depths of adult storytelling, without any warning! It was science fiction…it was kitchen-sink drama…only more! It was a futuristic, anti-Gone with the Wind-style epic…only more disturbing! I read it three times in a row, to make sure it was actually real…and thank god it is!
Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
THE ULTIMATE book, to which you must come back to time and time again. At the age of 31 it reads as fresh and wonderful as it did at the age of 11. It’s as fun and funny and sad and wise for boys as it is for girls…as it is for grown men and women. It’s a wry, dry, beautiful commentary on the lives of children and adults — and the love they seek ? masquerading as a children’s novel…but it is so much more. This is the greatest work of Canadian literature EVER written! There is no excuse for not reading this at least once in your life. It never ceases to inspire warmth and happiness whenever I read it, and I cherish the battered old 1930’s copy I found in a used book store: it smells of history, legacy, and shared adventure. All books should be this good.
