A List, For Our Mutual Amusement

[howeird]

I have a form of targeted memory loss which one of my LJ friends reminded me of, which I will call biblioamnemonia. I'll buy a book or series of books, start reading, and realize I have read this book before.

Unlike many of my Sci-Fi fan friends, I don't like re-reading a book, or seeing a movie more than once. So many, so little time, etc.

However, on further reflection, I have on my bedroom bookshelf a handful of books I keep because I enjoy reading from them from time to time.

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (and what Alice found there) and Jabberwocky and Hunting of the Snark all in one volume, by Lewis Carroll aka Rev. Charles Dodgson
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Red Dwarf by Grant Naylor, aka Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Boy Scout Handbook (circa 1963), Boy Scouts of America
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, W.W. Norton & Co.
Write Your Own Horoscope, by Joseph F. Goodavage
and a Thai palmistry book, written in Thai and profusely illustrated with line drawings, circa 1976. I used it as a primer for learning to read Thai, with the fringe benefit that I learned a little about palm reading as well.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien is on the shelf, not really because some day I may re-read it,  but to remind me that a simpler tale is usually the better tale. And also because of an amusing coincidence. A long-time theater friend/librarian with whom I sometimes exchange books sent it to me at the same time I sent the same edition to her.

Until very recently Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein was up there, but I cheated and listened to the audio book after not being able to remember anything except the martyr scene towards the end when I was talking about the book with a Fan. In college I was very impressed with that scene, laughed out loud as it struck me how many religions' martyrs  he was lampooning. But the audio book reminded me how horribly wordy the whole thing is, and on a second pass that scene was not nearly as powerful. I've learned a lot more about religions and language since college.