The Online Dictionary defines the word “meme”:
A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.
So I get this email from Paul Sand at Pun Salad informing me that I’ve been “tagged” with a “bookish blog meme.” My first response was, “Huh?” After a few clicks, I realized that a blog meme is a series of questions/thoughts/beliefs passed from blog to blog, much like a chain letter. A reader should click forward and back from link to link to see how different bloggers answered the questions. I’m sure long-time practitioners of this medium have seen this before, but for me, it’s something new. Looking back at how this progressed to me here at GraniteGrok,, I take it as a compliment to have been chosen…
Ten Questions
1. One book that changed your life?
The book that changed my life in the literary sense, leading to my heightened political and cultural views is Shelby Foote’s trilogy, The Civil War: A Narrative. A voracious reader from a young age, to that point I had always read fiction. Laid up with a multi-week illness, I had the time to read the three lengthy volumes. I have not really read a book of fiction, other than a Tom Clancy or two, since. Non-fiction and book-length histories, biographies, and news-documentaries fill my “library.” This led to politics, column-writing, and finally, this blog. Thanks Shelby! His books were so informative and interesting that my wife and I, when the opportunity arose, visited Arlington National Cemetery where many of the people brought to life by Mr. Foote now reside…
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I know it’s cheating, but other choices include The Prince by Machiavelli- his advice on leadership, the wielding of power, and dealing in reality is applicable in all of life’s affairs. David Herbert Donald’s Lincoln biography taught me that politics, despite what we are led to believe by those wishing “the people” to remain apathetic, is not bad in and of itself. Lincoln was above all else a master politician. He knew mastering the art of politics was the road to the implementation of the ideas he saw as right. My guess is that Lincoln studied Machiavelli at some point. The E-Myth defines to this day my view of how a business should be run. Reading this book, recommended by a fellow entrepreneur caused sea-changes in my business operations (especially my role as owner), without which our companies probably would not exist today.
2. One book that you have read more than once?
It’s actually three books- JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy (hmmmm- I detect a pattern here). I was originally turned on to what remain my favorite books to this day by my eighth grade science teacher- he organized an after school book group with the Trilogy as the designated read. I’m pretty sure I’ve read them about 22 times or so. Every read brought new details to light. It worked out good in high school because each year, we had English teachers who assigned “independent reading” for extra credit. They would open the book at random and ask questions about whatever was on the page. I always got an A. The teachers apparently didn’t communicate to each other because Tolkien’s work was good for three quarters’ worth of extra credit across four years of high school. It’s not like I wasn’t reading, though. I’m not sure who I “tricked,” now that I think about it…
3. One book you would want on a desert island?
This one’s easy- the Bible. It’s action, adventure, intrigue, the blueprint for civil society, and God’s Word all in one. True sustenance for the mind.
4. One book that made you cry?
Cry? Like with tears? That might have been the ending (?) of The Last Battle in CS Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles (there’s that pattern again), or when Frodo left Bag End for the last time in The Return of the King– particularly when he boarded the boat with the last of the Elves leaving Middle Earth.
5. One book that made you laugh?
Scott Adams’ The Dilbert Principle. Anybody who works in the real world can totally relate to Dilbert. Ann Coulter books have brought me many laughs as well.
6. One book you wish had been written?
Why Rome Fell. The Full Story Can Now Be Told. Critics call it the book that “finally tells the whole story of how it happened.” Historians note, “Mystery solved.”
7. One book you wish had never been written?
Anything by the Bronte sisters. Subjecting a fifteen year old boy to this in high school was nothing less than torture. If John McCain really cared about peoples’ treatment, he would look into high school courses that force Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre on otherwise mentally healthy young boys…
8. One book you are reading currently?
Terrorism: How the West Can Win edited by Benjamin Netanyahu.
9. One book you have been meaning to read?
1776 by David McCullough
