Meme: books that changed your life at mixed media watch

Meme: books that changed your life

CVK
I spotted this over at Granny Gets a Vibrator, a very cool blog that I discovered just recently. I know you’re usually supposed to be tagged by someone else for these things, but for once I saw a meme that I thought was both interesting and relevant to this blog, so I’m tagging myself! :)

What’s a meme? Yeah I didn’t know until a few weeks ago myself, but here’s an explanation. Okay, here we go. This one is the Book Meme Challenge.

1. One book that changed your life

I couldn’t narrow it down to one, so I’m cheating a bit by listing three here that all changed my life in one way or another.

bookbovary bookgrace bookbride

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. I read this when I was ten years old and was floored by how beautiful language could be. I used to transcribe the passages I loved into a special notebook I kept just for this purpose.

Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation by Jonathan Kozol. Before I read this book, I believed that systemic oppression was a bunch of whiny bull. But Kozol offers such compelling evidence and such moving personal stories that I completely changed my mindset.

Here Comes the Bride: Women, Weddings, and the Marriage Mystique by Jaclyn Geller. I’m one of those rare women who never fantasized (or even gave a crap about) my future wedding when I was little. This book really confirmed my suspicions about how damaging the wedding-industrial complex is for women.

2. One book you have read more than once

bookhesse

The Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi) A Novel by Hermann Hesse. I love it but I have to admit that I have no idea what it all means. More after the jump…

3. One book you would want on a desert island

bookhesse

The Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi) A Novel by Hermann Hesse. Cause I’d have plenty of time to figure it out. ;)

4. One book that made you laugh

bookunder

The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life by Mike Albo. So bitchy, so hilarious. My friend Johnny and I were quoting from it for months. And who knew you could write such an entertaining book entirely in the second person?

5. One book that made you cry

bookprof

The Professor’s Daughter: A Novel by Emilie Raboteau. Go read it now!

6. One book you wish had been written

No, It’s Not Sideways: Debunking Sexual Myths About Asian and Asian-American Women by Carmen Van Kerckhove

7. One book you wish had never been written

booktop

Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers–and How You Can Too by Soo Kim Abboud. Need I say more?

8. One book you are currently reading

bookarnove

Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal by Anthony Arnove. We’re going to have him on Addicted to Race soon!

9. One book you have been meaning to read

I’m cheating again. There are two books I’ve been feeling very guilty about neglecting:

bookshame bookaffirm

The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America by Jonathan Kozol

When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson

10. Now tag five people!

Uh… okay, here goes: reappropriate, TheThink, daddy in a strange land, real men are not, and hiphopmusic.com.

Trackbacks & Pings

real men are not » Blog Archive » Book Meme Challenge on 09 Aug 2006 at 8:20 pm

[…] Carmen at MixedMediaWatch tagged me for the Book Meme Challenge so I now present… […]
TheThink on 09 Aug 2006 at 10:00 pm

[…] In the interim, I must honor Carmen’s meme tag by offering up a list of books that have affected me in one form or another. This should hold you all over until next week. […]
skidknee.net » Blog Archive » Book Meme Challenge on 27 Aug 2006 at 12:38 am

[…] 7. One book you wish had never been written. Any college textbook. Seriously. Especially pertaining to Art History. 8. One book you are currently reading. The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help - Jackson Katz. Thanks Luke. 9. One book you have been meaning to read. 1984 […]

Comments

mtevc wrote:

favorite books of all time

j.m. coetzee’s disgrace, nicole krauss’s the history of love, and ralph ellison’s invisible man, percival everett’s erasure (this man can write anything, from books based on classical literature/myths to modern day parables associated with race, to a western mystery type story), toni morrison’s the bluest eye (before she became the writer’s writer and became so so, and lost her more simple and truest voice…my opinion, and don’t scream), jhumpa lahiri’s the interpreter of maladies, d.h. lawrence’s sons and lovers, and bharati mukerjee’s wife, and james joyce’s portrait of the artist as a young man, Fyodor Dostovevsky’s crime and punishment, james baldwin’s notes of a native son, and david quammen’s the flight of the iguana (yes, this one is nonfiction!)

reread the history of love 4 times in a period of one month!

Posted 09 Aug 2006 at 11:30 am ¶
mtevc wrote:

forgot to mention jerzy kosinski’s being there and kazuo ishiguro’s remains of the day. and btw, everyone should read shame of the nation, as it is such a great book (though i know first hand of what he speaks, from having friends teach in the inner city)

Posted 09 Aug 2006 at 1:17 pm ¶
gatamala wrote:

If you like Kozol you should also read Savage Inequalities. I love the Bluest Eye (early Toni) too mtevc!

I posted mine on freeslave:

1) The Bible

2) T.A. MalcolmX; Alice in Wonderland

3) Atlas Shrugged

4) Persepolis

5) Persepolis, The Rape of Nanking

6) “What I really meant when I said God”, by Thomas Jefferson, Geo Wash et al. AND
“What I’m Trying to Say Is: The Gospel acc to Me” by Yeshua ben Joseph

7)The Bible

8)Satanic Verses

9)America Alone, the Neocons & the Global Order

Posted 09 Aug 2006 at 2:55 pm ¶
Ann wrote:

James Baldwin’s “Blues for Mister Charlie
John Howard Griffith’s “Black Like Me”
Grace Halsell’s “Soul Sister”
Frederich Nietsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”
Lillian Smith’s “Killers of the Dream”
John Dollard’s “Caste and Class in a Small Southern Town”
Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”
Gerda Lerner’s “Black Women in White America”
Paula Giddings’s ‘When and Where I Enter”
Ira Katznelson’s “When Affirmative Action Was White”
Michelle Wallace’s “Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman”
Darlene Clark Hine’S “A Slender Thread of Hope”
Jacqueline Jones’s “Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow”
bell hooks’s “Black Looks: Race and Representation”

And finally, (I had to stop myself after awhile, because my list would have gone on and on), one more which is not a book but an article written for a university law review. This article gives a perspective on how vicious racism during Reconstruction harmed not only the black ex-slaves bodies, but also their minds psychologically:

Lisa Cardyn’s “Sexualized Racism/Gendered Violence: Outraging the Body Politic in the Reconstruction South”, Michigan Law Review, Ann Arbor, Feb. 2002. Vol. 100, Issue 4, pgs. 675-867.

Posted 09 Aug 2006 at 3:07 pm ¶
Ann wrote:

gatamala.

The Bible.

Good choice among your selection.

Posted 09 Aug 2006 at 3:14 pm ¶
gatamala wrote:

I like your choices ann (giddings! wow! read that in college)! I’d be interested in hearing about what your answers to # 6-7 are.

Posted 10 Aug 2006 at 11:11 am ¶
Jennifer wrote:

I’ve never read Here Comes the Bride and yes, having a romantic view of your wedding and alway pining for marriage life can set someone up for disappointment, but don’t let someone wanting to get married be a negative thing. I tend to avoid books that argue a case (I can’t vouch for Here Comes the Bride) because they can seem anti-this anti-that. I hate extremes.

Posted 29 Aug 2006 at 12:45 pm ¶