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Thursday, September 07, 2006

Revels in Literary Nerddom

I normally don't like most online tagging procedures. You know, when you receive random questions and you must turn around and answer those random questions with revealing answers. However, my friend Jovan just sent me one....on books. And being a lover of books I couldn't help but cooperate. His list is at www.jovanbarrington.blogspot.com . And my list is going to be below. However, I'm gonna bend the rules a bit and allow myself the freedom to exceed the specified number. Where else can I show off my nerdiness?

1. One book that changed your life:
Ralph Waldo Emerson's Essays...I remember reading them at 17. A certain light seemed to dawn on my me then. His words seemed to resonate with certains truths and impressions that were pounding within me...but I never saw these truths placed into words until I read Emerson. This should be the definition of greatness.
That...or Dosteovsky's Brothers Karamazov. I don't know if I would've ever gone to live in Russia if I would've never opened this book. And this is my answer when people ask me what my favorite book is.

2. One book that you've read more than once:
I think out of all novels...I've read The Hobbit the most times. That is if you exclude any books of the Bible or the plays of Shakespeare.


3. One book that you'd want on a desert island:
I think that I'll borrow G. K. Chesterton's idea and say, "Dummy, why what other book but The Complete Guide for Getting Off Desert Islands....?

4. One book that made you laugh:
Jerry Seinfield's Letters from a Nut.

5. One book that made you cry:
The Divine Conspiracy. The first chapter where Dallas Willard writes about the supreme joy of God.

6. One book you wish you'd written:
Cervantes Don Quixote. It would almost be considered my autobiography....or perhaps, the book of Genesis. As a writer, I wonder what it would be like to sit before a blank page thinking how to start the whole thing off. " Once upon a time...Nope, that won't do. Too trite. How about...It all started with a....Uggh. Scratch that out." And then suddenly that divine inspiration hits and your hand is writing...In the beginning...and so on and so forth and that inspiration doesn't relent before you've got one great masterpiece before you.

7. One book you wish had never been written:
Dare I write The Da Vinci Code? ...but while I'm on that line...probably any work by Nietzche or Betrand Russell...the world would be in a much better state I'd betcha.


8. One book you are currently reading:
Petrarch and His World. It's a biography on the Italian Renaissance poet, Francesco Petrarco.

9. One book you've been meaning to read:
G. K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man. It's a book on Christ's role compared to all historical religions and cultures. It's claimed to have had a great hand in converting C.S. Lewis to Christianity.

10. One book that if possible you could be a main character in:
Dumas' The Three Musketeers or Lord Byron's Don Juan.

11. One book that if possible you could hang out with the main character:
Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn.

12. One book that if possible you could make out with the main character:
Jane Erye of course! What sort of idiot wouldn't.

13. Tag Others: Will Dockery, Flavil Yaekley, Jonathan Towell, Herb Tarlic, Adam Newby, Hugh Hefner, Don King, and Kareem Abdul Jabar




11 Comments:

Blogger Jovan said...

I can't believe you tagged Hugh Hefner and Flavil Yeakley together. Flavil deserves to be on list all by himself! And Herb, Herb deserves better as well!

Good list though. I'm suprised I think I might actually like to read three of those books on your list: #4, #5, and #9.

Grace and Peace!

1:14 PM  
Blogger Jess said...

You would make out with Jane Erye? She was suppose to be homely? Have you actually read that book? (which is by far one of my top 5 books of all times)I would totally make out with Jacob, you know, from the bible. Dude, that guy had tons of wives and lots of kids, you know he had lots of practise. Not to mention he was sort of a bad ass, we could totally get it on.
A good book I've read: Blue like jazz By Donald Miller
Book I am reading now:What's so amazing about grace? By Yancey

11:09 PM  
Blogger Brian Harrison said...

No, I've actually never read "Jane Eyre". But I think there would be something original in kissing the quintessential 19th Century British woman. But this is my own strange opinion. No one has to agree with me.
So you would kiss Jacob? Just curious....does it have anything to do with the fact that he was willing to work 14 years for Rachel's hand and nothing else? A trickster and liar...but one heck of a romancer.

11:30 AM  
Blogger Jesi said...

Impressive list. I really hope Kareem gets back to you.

Steven would be quite an asset in a lot of your operations. The tiger pit was just the tip of the iceberg.

2:27 PM  
Blogger Brian Harrison said...

As an English major, you're gonna have a very impressive list also. (if you haven't already)

Steven may carry the trophy for deliberate acts, but I'm afraid your dad beats them all in the involuntary category...do you remember the pole that he side swiped in you guys' van years and years ago? I was in the van when it happened. It was quite the spectacle.

8:25 PM  
Blogger arwen said...

i would have made out with Johnathan before we were both married to other people, but somehow his friends told him it was creepy that I sent a resume and a picture... some people...

I also think I'd make out with Dominic Monaghan. He's pretty.
Oh... wait... book people you say? Well, crap... I think I'd make out with Steven King. There. I said it. Now What.

5:27 PM  
Blogger arwen said...

p.s. I didn't actually read you post. Sorry. Jess just told me to post a comment about making out.
Don't Stop Believin...

5:28 PM  
Blogger Brian Harrison said...

I didn't know that you sent a resume to Jonathan. That's very interesting.

Stephen King...now that's creepy. You should have placed it on your "resume" that you kissed Stephen King. It would've been a lie but who doesn't stretch the truth a bit when they make a resume. Who knows, he might have given in...with such an accomplishment behind you.

Side Note: I once kissed a girl named Bambi Bigham. (that goes on my resume...and its the honest truth...no stretches here.)

10:00 PM  
Blogger Jesi said...

I do remember that incident--the van was brand new when he scraped it against that pole. Not that I cared at the time, but years later, I was glad it happened, because when I put my own dent in the van, he couldn't be mad at me...

5:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You may have tried to tag me, but I never respond to these things. Not it!

By the way, you remind me of Huck Finn so I fond it totally appropriate that you would want to hang out with him.

Hey I know, you could write "The Adventures of Brian Harrison" and it would be the next great American novel. I could be "Cracker Will".

3:40 PM  
Blogger Brian Harrison said...

We'll call you Pudd'n Head Will, even though I'm probably more Pudd'n Headed than you. And we'll get this raft and set off on the banks of the Hudson River right between Manhattan and Jersey...that is when you move to New York City. You are still moving there, right?

6:02 PM  

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