I Too Iz Award-Winnin!

I am delighted to have been singled out for an award, or possibly awards, by fellow local blogger and book enthusiast Rose City Reader.  I was not able, on a casual perusal, to determine the exact nature of this award, or possibly these awards, but no worries.  I'm definitely an award winner, and that's enough for me.

It seems that my responsibility, as an award winner, is to share with all y'all a list of ten bookish things about myself.  Something like that, anyway.  So here we go:

10 Bookish Things About Me

1. One of several reasons that I left my academic career is that it did not allow me enough time to read fiction.  That's an oversimplification, probably, but it really cuts to the heart of the issue.

2. I think of my 2005ish "discovery" that I could listen to books on an ipod while exercising, driving, and doing chores to be among the most significant turning points in my life.

3. Because the Multnomah Public Library only allows 15 items to be on reserve at one time, I frequently have a "reserve reserve" list.  Currently there are about 15 items on this backup list, waiting to go on the reserve list.

4. Beyond my college general eduation classes, I have never had any particular training in literary theory.  But, since I've read David Lodge's little book "The Art of Fiction," I feel pretty able to keep up with those who have.

5. I will read pretty much any detective tale set in a cold climate: Kurt Wallander!  Inspector Rebus!  Harry Hole!  Detective Erlendur!  The Girl Who Got Tedious After the First Book!

6. I love me an epic space opera.  If not for certainly technical difficulties, I would happily change my citizenship to that of Iain Banks' "The Culture."

7. For a long time, I felt poorly read (see #1, above).  Recently, though, I went through a list of the top 100 books of the 21st Century as selected by GoodReads users, AND one of the more chin-stroking "Most Important 100 Novels of All Time" list, and found that for almost every book on each list I have either read it, actively plan on reading it, or could articulate a reasonable reason why it's not something I need to read.  I liked that.

8. I tend to be a literary conservative, in the sense that I believe that there is merit to the existance of a loosely defined "canon," that most of the "great books" (although not, to be sure, The Brothers Karamazov) turn out to be genuinely great, and that attempts to escape from what is perceived as the confines of the canon often lead to the overselling of second-rate books.

9. I think well of myself for liking difficult books and for liking books that are considered more than usually literary or intellectual in nature.  I realize that this is merely vanity.  However, I also like the way it makes me a more ambitious reader.  However, perhaps being an "ambitious reader" is merely another manifestation of vanity.  It's a real pickle, but fortunately it doesn't matter very much.  Still, I like myself just a little bit better for having been able to read and partially process Ulysses.

10. I spent the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school reading everything I could get my hands on of two authors: Kurt Vonnegut and James Michenor.  Weird.