Norm snagged me for participation in another meme, and I could hardly refuse since it directed so many of his readers our way. Hence:
1/ Total number of books I've owned:
Owned, rather than own, mark you. I've got around 1,500 to 2,000 scattered around the world, a figure I've managed to keep down by attrition. I try to hang onto the ones I haven't read yet, the ones I might use for research, and the ones that have sentimental value. The rest get shipped off on a twice-annual basis to charuddy (use Smashie & Nicey accent). I suspect I've owned over 3,000, but I've no way of knowing.
2/ The last book I bought:
Everything Bad Is Good for You, by Steven Johnson. My current read. I enjoyed Emergence, Johnson's book that argued the case for a networked anarchistic society (that's how I read it, anyway), and this book supports a case (implicitly) that I've been making for years, namely, that popular (low) culture is just as sophisticated as supposed 'high' culture and that the only difference lies in the codes used to read them.
3/ The last book I read:
Critique of Economic Reason, by Andre Gorz. I'm on a bit of a Gorz binge at the moment. He's a 'good' Marxist, as opposed to a 'good Marxist,' by which I mean he's to all intents and purposes an anarchist. A fascinating book, although it covers some of the same ground as Farewell to the Working Class, and it contains an appendix specifically aimed at trade unionists, which you don't find that often in academic texts.
4/ Five books that mean a lot to me:
The Education of Desire: The Anarchist Graphics of Clifford Harper.
A beautiful, glorious, life-affirming book that I treasured for many years until I encountered a working artist in Chicago, Kathleen Judge, who was responsible for this and this, but who'd never heard of Harper, so, drunk, of course, I promised it to her. It nearly broke my heart to part with it, and I almost never sent it, but a promise is a promise, and I figured she'd get something out of it. I've seen secondhand copies for sale since, so I might get one some day.
Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville.
I read this instead of the Bible. Everything you find in life, you'll find here. As Larry Kramer once said, it shows up Ulysses for the pretentious piece of crap it is.
Being and Nothingness, by Jean-Paul Sartre.
Started reading it when I was 18. Finished it a couple of years ago. Still find it stunning and its theory of consciousness and free will unanswered by determinists. Sartre gave me a materialism I could live with and an explanation of consciousness, "n'importe qui," that made sociobiology look just silly.
Poetic Works, by Percy Shelley.
Bought this 1908 calfskin-bound edition at a book fair at the Mansion House in Dublin about 8 years ago for 15 punts and still feel privileged to own it. You can't be a socialist and NOT have Shelley on your shelves!
W. P. Nimmo edition of The Complete Works of Shakespeare.
Bought in 1982 in a secondhand bookshop in Altrincham for 75p, I got it home to find a couple of inscriptions inside:
"G.M. Robinson. Mitre Court Chambers. Temple. From his father & mother. 29th March 1877."
and
"Lilian Runbaken “Maryvale,” 144 Manchester Road, Wilmslow, Cheshire, 1914"
It has three inscriptions in now. I'm just having a lend of it from posterity.
5/ Tag five people and have them fill this out on their blogs:
Victor (in return for previous tagging), Wilson (out of curiosity), Stuart and Dave (ditto), and any of the guys at Fruits of Our Labour, as if they don't have enough to do!
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6 comments:
Now that I've finished it, I'm misreprsenting the Johnson book here. He argues that popular culture has become increasingly complex over the past 50 years or so, but is explicit that this does not mean The Sopranos is comparable to Middlemarch, which is fair enough, since it's like comparing apples and oranges.
T'is done. You can read it here.
no we can't - "read it here", I mean
Melville the anarchista? Im not sure. It's been some time since I read Moby Dick; one could, I suppose, interpret the crew of the Pequod--though not the officers and Ahab--as somewhat left or anarchistic--but I think Ishmael is cast adrift, isolated, a pure individualist. More Nietzschean than political.
Shelley wrote a lot of dreck. There's some good perhaps but he may represent naivete and a sort of hyperlyrical angst more than anything. He sees more like a Milton on acid (or maybe china white) than a political writer.
If ya are going for a vaguely aristo-labour (or whiggish) model I think B. Russell's cool and rational writings, even with the faults and arrogance, are much preferred to the likes of Shelley--in some of his essays written before and during WWI he shows himself as much an anarchist as about anyone, supporting Kropotkin against the Lenin and bolseviks; Russell also was quite the feminist and anti-corporatist.
Hello- I have meant to comment but never seemed to get around to it- so here goes: It's related to a blog from june 2005 (!!)- you mentioned a book purchased from a shop for 75p -The Complete Works of Shakespeare.(1914) It has the inscription " Lillian Runbaken,Maryvale, 144 Manchester Rd,Wilmslow, Cheshire." She was my great aunt! She lived well into her nineties . If you ever decide that you do not wish to keep it, I would be interested in purchasing it from you should you choose to do so.
My father also had a book of Shakespeare and my sister has it now in her collection.
Thanks for your time!!
Margaret Webb
Hi Margaret--
Wow! It's yours if you want it. Mail me at johngreen62@gmail.com and we'll work out the logistics of how I can get it to you.
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