Posts Tagged ‘books’

Booking Through Thursday: The Best Book You’ve Never Read

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

Booking Through Thursday: The Best Book You’ve Never Read.

We’ve all seen the lists, we’ve all thought, “I should really read that someday,” but for all of us, there are still books on “The List” that we haven’t actually gotten around to reading. Even though we know they’re fabulous. Even though we know that we’ll like them. Or that we’ll learn from them. Or just that they’re supposed to be worthy. We just … haven’t gotten around to them yet. What’s the best book that YOU haven’t read yet?

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

I read the passage from Finnegans Wake by James Joyce in one of the many Norton Anthology books I’d acquired through school. Some of it was lovely toward the end but I didn’t understand what Joyce was trying to say. It was a lot of wordplay with names of rivers and religion. I’ve been officially scared off from Finnegans Wake because I’d need to turn on my critical thinking cap and slog through pages of what reads like pretty nonsense. I know I managed to come up with some analysis in lecture when I read it but that was about four pages and the class never came to a conclusion. It was a very muddled explanation we came up with. I’m still sad I’d forgotten my book when the teacher brought a recording of Joyce reading the text.

how to be a perfect person in just three days!

Friday, March 6th, 2009

Name a book that changed your mind or opened your eyes.

I came across this prompt on Plinky, a nifty site I came across through another blog a few days ago.

How To Be a Perfect Person In Just Three Days by Stephen Manes

How To Be a Perfect Person In Just Three Days by Stephen Manes

How To Be a Perfect Person In Just Three Days! by Stephen Manes.

I read this book during childhood a few times. It had the protagonist doing silly things like tying a broccoli around his neck in a vain attempt at following the steps to be perfect that were outlined in a book he had found. The last step was to stay up all night drinking weak tea. Sounds pretty easy in the age of the Internet, right? Except all he could do was move his arm to bring the weak tea to his lips, anything else would make him fail. He fails and fails hard.

This book made me realize there it is impossible for anybody or anything to be perfect. It’s important to try for your best but perfection would quickly become boring! Would anybody appreciate the good things they have in life if everything was good or would somebody’s good qualities stand out if everything about that person was perfect?

Maybe reading this book worked too well and I never aimed for my best in a lot of things – excepting writing, coding, and English courses – but it kept me from becoming miserable about the fact that I am far from perfect. :P