Nosemonkey over at Europhobia has nominated me to pass on the book meme that’s doing the rounds. He seems to be worried about my blood pressure. Here goes:

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
I’ve never read the book, I’m afraid to say and didn’t understand this question at first. A quick google tells me that the dissidents preserve the books under threat by memorising them - excellent plot device.

Anyway, I’d want to be 1984 by George Orwell. I only read it for the first time last year and it’s no understatement to say it was a life-changing read. It’s probably a cliche to say this but I really feel the book is more apposite as time goes on. And to think that it’s not considered by many to be Orwell’s best work and he wrote it while seriously ill, makes it doubly wondrous for me.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Well, I did have a thing for Bathsheba Everdene in Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd when I did it for my English Lit o-level. Why? Because we were shown the film before starting the book so ever after I saw Bathsheba as Julie Christie. Blimey.

I remember reading The Spear by James Herbert when I was about 12 and there being a naughty minx in it whose name I can’t now remember. Disturbingly for my then fragile psyche, about two thirds through the story she’s revealed as an hermaphrodite who’s hung like a horse.

The last book you bought is:
Two together: Jon Snow’s Shooting History and Andrew Marr’s My Trade.

I’m a big admirer of Snow and probably would have bought the book anyway but I was lucky enough to interview him briefly over the phone last year. I was shitting a brick but he couldn’t have been nicer or more patient.

Marr I admire less, particular after his facile statement about Blair after the fall of Baghdad:

…it would be entirely ungracious, even for his critics, not to acknowledge that tonight he stands as a larger man and a stronger prime minister as a result.

…but I’m a fan of insider accounts of jounalism and this one got good reviews.

The last book you read:
So Now Who Do We Vote For? by John Harris. A cracking read and one I recommend everybody try and squeeze in before May 5. As anybody who’s visited Chicken Yoghurt more than once will know, I pretty much share Harris’ sense of disappointed betrayal at the New Labour project but not his conclusions at how to deal with it.

What are you currently reading?
I’ve read non-fiction almost exclusively for the past five years. Firstly because I was writing some fiction and didn’t want to absorb other people’s ideas by accident, and then because I was blogging for the first time and wanted to do proper research. So, I thought I’d have a break and read some quick and easy cheap thrill: Stephen King’s It which I picked up second hand. I read it when I was much much younger and it left an impression. The plot’s not up to much but I think he does characters you can connect with very well.

Five books you would take to a desert island.
Shite. I hate list questions. Here goes then.

1. I’m a massive comics fan so it’d have to be Garth Ennis’ Preacher series (i’m cheating slightly as the whole run is reprinted in nine volumes). Watchmen is the holy grail of comics but I just think Preacher has characters it’s easier to empathise with and the anti-God plot appeals, naturally. It works on so many levels that I never get tired of dipping in.

2. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Read it twice: first for the comedy, second for the horror. And then read it again to appreciate it’s still vital, terrible beauty.

3. London Fields by Martin Amis. Of course, it’s a black comedy populated by monsters but its emotional pay off has stayed with me. It’s a book that I have fond memories of reading.

4. The Pope’s Rhinoceros by Lawrence Norfolk. It’s a thick, dense tome that I raced through in a fortnight. To try and sum it up would do it an injustice, but roughly: it’s set in Renaissance Italy where a troupe of monks - along the two other central characters - set out for decadent Rome to plead for funds for their crumbling monastery, and get caught up in the Pope’s quest to fill his menagerie. Told you I couldn’t do it justice.

It’s hard going at first - the descriptions are dense, poetic word-paintings - but once you’re engaged with the characters you’ll be hooked. And by the end, heartbroken.

PS. I’m the only person I know who liked this book. Somebody else please read it so I can rave about it with you.

5. Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald. I very much regard my love of the Beatles as a fantastic gift from my father. This book served to deepen that love, to give me a fuller understanding of every single magical tune - another gift. Of course, without the music to hand it’s less of an experience but I’ll just have to hum the songs to myself as I thumb the book on my island.

Ian MacDonald killed himself a couple of years ago. I can’t remember ever being so saddened by the death of a stranger.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
Bloody hell, I don’t half go on, don’t I? If you’ve been indulgent enough to get this far I hope you’re one of these three guys to who I’d like to pass the torch:

Rochenko at Smokewriting. I think he’s one of the smartest and wittiest - when he’s not being the laziest - bloggers out there. He has a vocabulary the size of a planet and yet his site gets about six visitors a decade - get over there and kneel before him.

Jim Bliss at Where There Were No Doors. Not only is he a thoughtful and passionate blogger, he also has impeccable taste in just about everything. He read and understood Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. I’d like to take him for a pint.

Alex, The Yorkshire Ranter. I remember trying to champion TYR under my previous incarnation as a blogger when he first started out. And then like an obscure, but much loved, indie band he got popular and now everybody likes him. I was into him ages ago.

Posted on April 4th, 2005 at 7:28 pm

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