Lara Glenum, from Hounds of No, tagged me. I'm quite terrible at thinking up books at the right moment so this might seem random.


1. A book that changed my life
Patricia Bosworth’s biography of Diane Arbus. The biography itself is completely schlocky and terribly written, but it put ideas in my impressionable, teenage head on what kind of person I wanted to be and what kind of career I wanted. Needless to say, I achieved none of these goals.
Doubtful that a book of poems changed my life. But if I had to choose: Paul Celan’s Collected Poems. Theresa Cha’s Dictee comes in a close second.

2. A book I've read more than once?
Well, I’ve read the Diane Arbus biography to rags and then I lost it.

3. What is a book I'd want with me on a desert island?
Does an i-book count?

4. What is a book that made me giddy?
The Official Dictionary of Dance Hall Slang.

5. What is a book that has made me sad?
Any number of children’s books. Recently? Jared Diamond’s chapter on Easter Island in his book “Collapse.” It gave me sad dreams.

6. What is a book I wish had been written?
I wish Osamu Tezuka wrote a manga version of Ulysses.

7. A book I wish had never been written?
At the risk of facing the wrath of many young aggro-emo males: Fight Club? Ok, the book has its place. I’ll have to think about it…

8. What is a book I'm currently reading?
Bertolt Brecht’s Collected Plays. Lisa Jarnot’s Black Dog Songs. Susan Stewart’s Poetry and the Senses. A Prose Poetry Anthology. Richard Greenfield’s A Carnage in the Lovetrees. Paul Virilio’s Speed and Politics. Terry Eagleton's Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic.

These all vaguely have to do with my own writing or teaching. None of these are beach reads except for maybe Brecht.

9. One book I've been meaning to read? I have a shelf of them glaring at me right now.