Tagged by Penny Shagwell (books)

1. Total Number of books I've Owned: I kid you not when I say that the number has been in the thousands. I used to be a very prolific reader in school and would force my folks to shell out money every time the Scholastic book pamphlet came out. For the Read-A-Thon, I was always top reader with triple figures read each time (costing my sponsors much coin on a per book basis). The test of whether I read the books were always passed as I recalled details in all of them. We have several boxes of catalogued books in the basement coming to a garage sale this summer.

2. The Last Book I Bought: I bought the book for LB, not for me. The complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy five part trilogy in a single volume. Imagine that he lives in Ottawa, passes the "Zaphod Beeblebrox" bar often and did not know it was not just a funny name. This travesty has to be corrected.

3. Last Book I Read: I am sadly still trying to read it. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (book five in the Harry Potter series). Yes, I am hooked.

4. Five books that mean a lot to me (hard one):

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (entire trilogy)- (naturally) by Douglas Adams. Simply one of the best series ever written, if one enjoys off-beat humour and can stretch your imagination. Arthur Dent used to be my nickname in the original bulletin boards. Also, sadly, I played the computer game (text-based on a Commodore 128) and could not advance past the Vogon starship until a friend in summer school pointed out that I needed to stick the Babel fish in my ear to understand the commander. "What?", I asked. "You did read the book, right?", she inquired. "Books?", I answered stupidly. So, off to Bridlewood Mall she dragged me at lunch and made me buy the book. I have been hooked since then and should still have my original copy in one of those boxes.

The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit series - J.R.R. Tolkien. Not just some books, but an entire platform of imagination and wonder and fantasy. I grew up with Dungeons and Dragons and guys who painted the figures for that and Rings so it was a great pleasure to reread the books before watching the movies.

A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle. I derive extra pleasure from this book as life came full circle with my daughter's wide-eyed astonishment that I had read and loved the book and the sequel. To this day, when I am distracted and doodling, I still attempt to draw Tesseracts of varying sizes.

Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke. Okay, this is a strange one to list as it is one of the few books that I started and never finished. I lost the book many moons ago and just have never bothered buying a new one. What I did read though still has a hold on me and it is on my list of to-do things before I die. (Note: I just learned that a movie is coming out in 2006.)

A Splinter in the Mind's Eye - Arguably one of the best Star Wars books ever written. It was the first one I decided to buy (some time ago now). I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it and the name has always stuck firmly in my mind. I think that is definitely a measure of the impact someone's writing has on you.

There are many more but thankfully we have been limited to five. I will, of course, have to tag MsMittens. I would also like to tag Famine if he would so indulge me (simply paste your response here and I will post it since you do not blog...yet!)

Ciao.