Another meme. DK is getting tedious...

DK tags me. Again. Oddly enough, it was a book meme that got me into this mess in the first place .

1. One book that changed your life - the hardest question first.
To be honest, I am generally a despicably contented bourgeois lackey whose life has not been through much in the way of upheaval. I've always thought that most of the ideas of the "Left" do not survive contact with the real world so haven't even had the benefit of an epiphany in the way of a sell-out to mammon. That said, I don't really think my very first job was in quite the right field and I wasted a considerable number of years before changing the emphasis of my working life to something a little more in line with my natural talents. For that I think I must blame the eponymous " What colour is your parachute?". Like the world renowned " Atkins Physical Chemistry", there is a new edition of this book produced pretty much every time you blink.

2. One book that you've read more than once
"A day in the life of Bob, the man on the moon ", by Simon Bartram. And I've read this one a good deal more than once. In fact I have read this book every day, and sometimes twice a day, for the last 18 months or so. Worse still, the edition we were given came with a CD. A CD of the author reading the book. So we can listen to it in the car.

3. One book that you'd want on a desert island
The "Desert Island discs" premise is that you are actually condemned to live out the rest of your life, alone, on this wretched island and that attempts to escape are forbidden and/or inevitably doomed to some sort of "Groundhog Day" failure. That would clearly colour one's choice of reading material. In the absence of this premise, I'm opting for the hope of survival and escape. So something like this is order of the day. The whole series is generally diverting. That or indeed anything as long as it is not "Bob, the man on the moon" (see q2 above).

4. One book that made you laugh
Round Ireland with a Fridge. Simply absurd premise, but somehow manages to touch on the more important things in life, especially the random kindness of strangers.

5. One book that made you cry
Norm never cries and he is a sissy lefty. I'm not going to admit to this either...

6. One book that you wish you had written
Saki's short stories . His prose is exquisite, his plotlines beyond compare in intricacy and originality, his wit razor sharp. I remember one English lesson when I must have been aged about 11 when our teacher came in, sat down and just read "The Stalled Ox" to us. That was the point at which my eyes were truly opened to the power of the English Language and I recall thinking to myself "If only I could write like that...". I still think that.

7. One book you wish had never been written
In terms of the generally disastrous consequences of any given piece of writing, it would be hard to beat Marx's " Communist Manifesto". (Actually, one could say much the same for the last 3 Tory party manifesti). I note that our ruthless dog-eat-dog world has ascribed a value to this particular tome - you can buy it used for a penny...

8. One book that you are reading at the moment
Lady P-G's latest magnum opus. I shall revisit this page and insert the relevant amazon link following publication. Watch this space.

9. One book that you've been meaning to read
I am hideously badly read. One could fill a library with important material that I really ought to have read but haven't. Let's start with " The Welfare State We're In" and hope that no-one tells James that I obviously haven't bought it yet.

10. Five others that you'd like to do this
1. Seaty!. Obviously.
2. Timmy! Surprised that DK didn't nail him whilst he was about it.

3. Timmy! (A different one, but a smashing chap and a good choice as I doubt that there is much else to do on Sakhalin Island except read. There might be some other things to distract you that might involve your delightful new wife, but this is a polite blog so we won't mention that)

4. Timmy! Yet another one. Three of everything: that's what we need. Even if it is just "people called Tim".
5. I would love to nominate the Zombie, but i doubt, if you will pardon the pun on his not-a-blog name, that he has "time"

There we are. It took a while, but we've got there.