Another MEME thingy (favourite books)
Sep. 15th, 2009 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
philosoraptor42From ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
curriejean
Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. List fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. Pick the first fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.
Also - an important point before you start! This doesn't have to only include novels. Naturally I thought of mine before looking under the lj-cut at curriejean's selection only to find many of their favourite non-fiction selections were included. - Gah! (As someone who is quite thinly read, this would have been very VERY helpful to know.)
Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About by Mil Millington There's even a website linked with this one. I've put some funny parts from the website below.
Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Nightwatch (I think the whole series should only count as one) by Sergei Lukyanenko
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (Inventive sci-fi action. I'm surprised no one's adapted it yet.)
The Time Machine by HG Wells
Colony by Rob Grant
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Natural Born Killers (original screenplay) by Quentin Tarantino (I read this before watching the horrific Oliver Stone version. I can only presume that Stone never saw this version of the script. Either that or he was messing it up on purpose out of a personal vendetta against Tarantino.)
Non Fiction Selections because dammit I want to include some!
Antichrist - Friedrich Nietzsche
In Defence of Atheism - Michel Onfray
Faces In The Clouds - Stewart Guthrie
Letting Go Of God - Don Cupitt
Bad Science - Ben Goldacre
Clips from the Thing My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About website:
Margret doesn't like to watch films on the TV. No, hold on - let me make sure you've got the inflection here: Margret doesn't like to watch films on the TV. She says she does, but years of bitter experience have proven that what she actually wants is to sit by me while I narrate the entire bleeding film to her. 'Who's she?', 'Why did he get shot?', 'I thought that one was on their side?', 'Is that a bomb' - 'JUST WATCH IT! IN THE NAME OF GOD, JUST WATCH IT!' The hellish mirror-image of this is when she furnishes me, deaf to my pleading, with her commentary. Chair-clawing suspense being assaulted mercilessly from behind by such interjections as, 'Hey! Look! They're the cushions we've got.', 'Isn't she the one who does that tampon advert?' and, on one famous occasion, 'Oh, I've seen this - he gets killed at the end.'
It's getting worse. I've mentioned this, in passing, before, but it's getting worse. We were watching Hannibal on DVD the other week, and Margret was sitting beside me, looking at the screen, right from the moment I hit 'play'. This, incidentally, is because before we watch any DVD or video we have this ritual.
Mil - 'Are you ready?'
Margret - 'Yes.'
Mil - 'No you're not, you're clearly not. Sit down here.'
Margret - 'I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm just cutting out this magazine article and putting the kids toys away in an order based on the psychological warmth of their respective colours and making a cup of tea and wondering if we should move that mirror six inches to the left, but I'm ready - go ahead, start the film.'
Mil - 'No. I'll start the film when you're sitting here. If I start the film now, you'll sit down in three minutes time and say, "What's happened?" and I'll have to do that thing with my mouth. Not going to happen. You sit here right from the beginning.'
[Margret makes an injured pantomime of dragging herself over to the sofa and sitting down beside me.]
Mil - 'Thank you.'
[I press 'play'. The FBI copyright warning comes up and, knowing full well it won't work, I repeatedly try to fast forward through it for the annoying amount of time - precisely long enough for me to fully hate the FBI and the entire motion picture industry - it takes to fade. A logo swirls around the screen. Darkness. A single, threatening, bass note rumbles low. Swelling in volume as the first image seeps into life.]
Margret - 'I've just remembered, I need to phone Jo.'
Mil - 'Arrrrggghhheeeiiiiiieeeeerrrrgghhhhhhhhgkkkkk-kkk-kk-k!'
Margret - 'I only need to ask if she has a text book - carry on.'
Mil - 'No. Make the phone call. I'll wait.'
[Three hours later. Margret returns; I am still on the sofa, remote control poised in my hand, but now visibly older and covered in a light film of dust.]
Margret - 'OK, done.'
Mil - 'Right.'
[I wind back four or five seconds to have the moody intro again, Margret complains we've already seen this bit and - as it's getting late now - there's no need. I reply it's important for setting the mood, she thinks it's a stupid thing to do, the exchange degenerates into a twenty minute row about foreplay, and then we finally begin to watch the film.]
So, that's what happens, every time, and thus on this occasion as with all others, Margret has been sitting beside me since the very beginning of the film. Which, casting your mind back, you'll recall is Hannibal.
Titles. Silence. A face appears.
Margret - 'Who's that?'
Getting worse. I was watching the Davis Cup on TV and, as the players are sitting down for a of change ends, the camera idly pans round the crowd, pausing on a woman eating an ice cream. Margret says?... Louder - I can't hear you... Yes, yes she does.
I'm here to make an appeal for the population of the Earth to wear name tags at all times, three tags if you're an actor: your character's name, your real name and a list of things you've been in before. Please, do it. They only cost a few pence - please don't make me beg.
curriejean Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. List fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. Pick the first fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.
Also - an important point before you start! This doesn't have to only include novels. Naturally I thought of mine before looking under the lj-cut at curriejean's selection only to find many of their favourite non-fiction selections were included. - Gah! (As someone who is quite thinly read, this would have been very VERY helpful to know.)
Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About by Mil Millington There's even a website linked with this one. I've put some funny parts from the website below.
Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Nightwatch (I think the whole series should only count as one) by Sergei Lukyanenko
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (Inventive sci-fi action. I'm surprised no one's adapted it yet.)
The Time Machine by HG Wells
Colony by Rob Grant
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Natural Born Killers (original screenplay) by Quentin Tarantino (I read this before watching the horrific Oliver Stone version. I can only presume that Stone never saw this version of the script. Either that or he was messing it up on purpose out of a personal vendetta against Tarantino.)
Non Fiction Selections because dammit I want to include some!
Antichrist - Friedrich Nietzsche
In Defence of Atheism - Michel Onfray
Faces In The Clouds - Stewart Guthrie
Letting Go Of God - Don Cupitt
Bad Science - Ben Goldacre
Clips from the Thing My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About website:
Margret doesn't like to watch films on the TV. No, hold on - let me make sure you've got the inflection here: Margret doesn't like to watch films on the TV. She says she does, but years of bitter experience have proven that what she actually wants is to sit by me while I narrate the entire bleeding film to her. 'Who's she?', 'Why did he get shot?', 'I thought that one was on their side?', 'Is that a bomb' - 'JUST WATCH IT! IN THE NAME OF GOD, JUST WATCH IT!' The hellish mirror-image of this is when she furnishes me, deaf to my pleading, with her commentary. Chair-clawing suspense being assaulted mercilessly from behind by such interjections as, 'Hey! Look! They're the cushions we've got.', 'Isn't she the one who does that tampon advert?' and, on one famous occasion, 'Oh, I've seen this - he gets killed at the end.'
It's getting worse. I've mentioned this, in passing, before, but it's getting worse. We were watching Hannibal on DVD the other week, and Margret was sitting beside me, looking at the screen, right from the moment I hit 'play'. This, incidentally, is because before we watch any DVD or video we have this ritual.
Mil - 'Are you ready?'
Margret - 'Yes.'
Mil - 'No you're not, you're clearly not. Sit down here.'
Margret - 'I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm just cutting out this magazine article and putting the kids toys away in an order based on the psychological warmth of their respective colours and making a cup of tea and wondering if we should move that mirror six inches to the left, but I'm ready - go ahead, start the film.'
Mil - 'No. I'll start the film when you're sitting here. If I start the film now, you'll sit down in three minutes time and say, "What's happened?" and I'll have to do that thing with my mouth. Not going to happen. You sit here right from the beginning.'
[Margret makes an injured pantomime of dragging herself over to the sofa and sitting down beside me.]
Mil - 'Thank you.'
[I press 'play'. The FBI copyright warning comes up and, knowing full well it won't work, I repeatedly try to fast forward through it for the annoying amount of time - precisely long enough for me to fully hate the FBI and the entire motion picture industry - it takes to fade. A logo swirls around the screen. Darkness. A single, threatening, bass note rumbles low. Swelling in volume as the first image seeps into life.]
Margret - 'I've just remembered, I need to phone Jo.'
Mil - 'Arrrrggghhheeeiiiiiieeeeerrrrgghhhhhhhhgkkkkk-kkk-kk-k!'
Margret - 'I only need to ask if she has a text book - carry on.'
Mil - 'No. Make the phone call. I'll wait.'
[Three hours later. Margret returns; I am still on the sofa, remote control poised in my hand, but now visibly older and covered in a light film of dust.]
Margret - 'OK, done.'
Mil - 'Right.'
[I wind back four or five seconds to have the moody intro again, Margret complains we've already seen this bit and - as it's getting late now - there's no need. I reply it's important for setting the mood, she thinks it's a stupid thing to do, the exchange degenerates into a twenty minute row about foreplay, and then we finally begin to watch the film.]
So, that's what happens, every time, and thus on this occasion as with all others, Margret has been sitting beside me since the very beginning of the film. Which, casting your mind back, you'll recall is Hannibal.
Titles. Silence. A face appears.
Margret - 'Who's that?'
Getting worse. I was watching the Davis Cup on TV and, as the players are sitting down for a of change ends, the camera idly pans round the crowd, pausing on a woman eating an ice cream. Margret says?... Louder - I can't hear you... Yes, yes she does.
I'm here to make an appeal for the population of the Earth to wear name tags at all times, three tags if you're an actor: your character's name, your real name and a list of things you've been in before. Please, do it. They only cost a few pence - please don't make me beg.
