Just started reading the print collection of Mark Fisher's K-Punk blog posts, which opens with this post from June 2005. Remember blogs? Remember when meme meant any idea disseminated online, including post formats you challenged your friends to do?
1. How many books do you own?
According to my CLZ database: 1,695. However I have several new purchases that I've yet to log and I think some of the ephemera on the bottom shelves (mostly comic trade paperbacks) might not have been scanned in yet. So 1,700 minimum, of which approximately a thousand are fiction.
2. What was the last book you bought?
As well as the aforementioned K-PUNK, I picked up A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders, the audiobook of which I listened to probably back in 2021 when it came out. This September I'll start studying for a Bachelor's in Creative Writing, but I haven't actually written anything besides academic essays in yonks, so maybe re-reading it will make me pull my finger out. (N.B. I've always assumed "pull your finger out" meant that your finger was up your arsehole, i.e. you were too busy manipulating your prostate to get on with what needed to be done. Turns out it's RAF slang or something.)
3. What was the last book you read?
Just this afternoon I finished The Road to Wellville by T. Coraghessan Boyle. I was familiar with the story from the much maligned film adaptation starring Anthony Hopkins, which was among the many age-inappropriate films my dad showed me for "educational purposes". It's very relevant to his (and ultimately my) interests, concerning the early days of the vegetarian movement, which it portrays in a quite sympathetic light for a product of the Nineties, although fair amounts of scorn are deservedly poured on quackery and health fads in general. It probably qualifies as More Relevant Than Ever, as it heavily features two of the current day's defining themes--wellness and gooning. The film is a good laugh, but the book is blisteringly well written; I'll definitely check out more of Boyle's stuff.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me:
Like Fisher, I'll try and stick to books that have meant something to me for over a decade rather than bias recency.
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
I'm sure I benefitted from coming to it on my own rather than having to read it at school as many people who hate it seem to have done. I re-read it once every few years. Certain phrases from it are etched in my brain, like "be a buddy. Be a buddyroo" and Ackley's teeth being described as mossy.
American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
wah edgelord I know, but it's the book that kicked off my interest in transgressive fiction, and I re-read it last year and it's also very much More Relevant Than Ever, being very specifically a satire of Eighties New York Trumpism. It is, as people say, far harder to stomach than the film, but it's also funnier in my opinion.
Bee Season, Myla Goldberg
Definitely due a re-read of this as large chunks of it have faded from my mind, but it's the best book about religion and spirituality I've ever read, and I recommend it to everyone who asks me for book recommendations--as I believe does Robin Ince, on whose recommendation (via podcast) I read it myself.
Jerusalem, Alan Moore
Not quite from a decade ago but give me a break, it's massive. The ultimate literary genre novel. It's about everything, but it's also very specifically about one small area of Northampton. In the wake of the book's release, Moore made a few appearances on the Book Shambles podcast with Josie Long and the aforementioned Robin Ince. That podcast, and those episodes in particular, were vital to my mental health in both the pandemic and the years leading up to it.
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
This one's sort of a cheat too because I only actually read the majority of it over the past few years, but I had read the first 200 pages at least ten years ago and I've been a kind of idle DFW fan since then. The book is yet another MRTE with its foresight of our current societal addiction to entertainment; there's a passage about video-calls that could have been written by a time traveller.
5. Tag five people
I hereby tag Leo Aram-Downs, the only person I know who actively keeps a blog. Anyone else reading this, be my guest!
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