My pal Kevin Smokler wrote a book called Bookmark Now: Writing In Unreaderly Times, which I talked about a while back. Now his publishers are sponsoring a contest where they’re giving away a library of books recommended by the authors featured in Kevin’s book. The contest entry asks you to recommend a book as well, so there should be a pretty good list compiled somewhere.

I’ve been watching the latest “tag” meme float around and I’ve been desperately hoping to avoid it, but Johnny has tagged me. So here goes:

Number of Books I Own:

This is why I was hoping to avoid this one. You see, nobody knows exactly how many books I own. They’re spread all over the known universe. In my current living space, I’d estimate around 1,000. But between books stored in our storage locker, at my old apartment (thanks Brent!), my dad’s, and a friend’s parents’ place, it’s closer to 2,000 and might very well exceed that. You see, I used to have a bit of a problem. I loved books. I still love them. But I’m getting used to the idea that I don’t need to own every book ever printed. There are things like libraries. And now, when I finish a book, I try very hard to give it away or sell it. It’s tough, though. Don’t even get me started about my wife. She loves books, too. She buys them. She just doesn’t read them. So, we have a lot of books. (Whew!)

Last Book I Bought:

It just happens to be the book I’m reading right now. It’s called What Just Happened? and it’s by film producer Art Linson. It’s a short sharp account of some of his Hollywood adventures. It looked funny and it was on sale. I bought it along with a whole bunch of books on learning Italian.

Last Book I Read:

I just finished Craig Unger’s book House of Bush, House of Saud which is a pretty damning indictment of America’s (and in particular, the Bush family’s) relationship with the undemocratic, authoritarian and fundamentally brutal rulers of Saudi Arabia.

Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me:

• Traveling Mercies — Anne Lamott
• The Sacred Journey — Frederick Buechner
• The Seven Storey Mountain — Thomas Merton
• A Wrinkle In Time — Madeleine L’Engle
• The World According To Garp — John Irving

(Five is a very tiny number, though…)

Who’s Next?

• Brent (he has been around books a lot and has great taste, except for his sci-fi/fantasy nerd streak)
• Paul (because he needs some new content!)
• Lia (new to blogging!)
• Lissa (because she’ll say something kooky!)
• Brad (needs new content and actually works in the book business)