Book meme

I'm in demand. Not, strangely, because Kathy, Gillian, Shania and Sarah have responded as I'd hoped to my picture, but because Marcus and Shuggy have tagged me. So here goes.
1. Name one book that changed your life
Countless have influenced my opinions - most strongly those of MacIntyre, Mill, Elster and Hayek. But for materially changing my life, it's George Sabine's History of Political Theory. In showing me how fascinating political thinking could be - an impression no-one would ever get from listening to politicians - it inspired me to do PPE at Oxford.
2. One book you've read more than once.
Many books of non-fiction. Among fiction, I've read most of Dostoyevsky twice (in translation).
3. One book you'd want on a desert island
How to build a boat and navigate by the stars. Failing, that, the Encyclopedia Britannica.
4. One book that made you laugh.
The Code of the Woosters.
5. One book that made you cry.
The ending of A Hundred Years of Solitude gets me:

...everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.

6. One book you wish you'd written.
John Roemer's Theories of Distributive Justice. I wish I was a fraction that clever.
7. One book you wish had never been written.
I can't agree with Marcus's choice of Mein Kampf. Had it not been for Nazism, I wouldn't be here - because if my grandad hadn't joined the RAF, he'd never have met my nan. So I owe my existence to Mein Kampf. For similar reasons, I can't say the Bible.
So, it's a toss-up between the Koran and Middlemarch. We had to read the latter at school. Christ, it was dull.
8. One book you're currently reading.
Russ Barenberg's Bluegrass Guitar is occupying much of my attention. Also, Douglass North's Understanding the Process of Economic Change and Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell.
9 One book you've been meaning to read
Evelyn Waugh's Scoop.
10. Now tag five people.
If they're up for it: Tom Hamilton, Matt Murrell, Lisa Rullsenberg (anyone with Gram and Jolie on their iPod must have great taste), Tom Freeman and James Higham.

Comments

[emmanuel goldstein]

Middlemarch is *awesome*, it's beautifully observed and the characters stay with you. George Eliot over Jane Austen any day.

[Tom]

Done it - thanks.

[The Moai]

Chris - if bluegrass is your thing (and it is certainly one of mine), come along to the Hemingford Arms on Monday nights. They have free live bluegrass/country and the band are awesome. It's near Caledonian Road/Highbury & Islington. More here. I don't work for them, I'm just a regular!

TM