Blogmemes are the new tags— e.g., the latest thing LiveJournal has been doing for years but "real" bloggers are only just now getting excited about. Can emoticons and fey movie-quote-graphics be far behind?

A bookish meme-plague recently seen circulating amongst the DC blogosphere has now been passed to me, and so I post my replies here.

A book that's changed my life? I can't point to any one book that has had any one specifically-measurable affect on my life. But I'll credit Stephenson's Cryptonomicon with pretty significantly affecting a lot of how I approach the world.

A book I have read more than once: Infinite Jest.

On a desert island it's Lipstick Traces, Greil Marcus' rambling meditation on Dadaism, witchcraft and The Sex Pistols, which is sufficiently huge and nonsensical to stay interesting for a long long time.

A book that made me laugh: M. John Harrison's Light is stunning. It made me laugh, for starters.

A book that made me cry: Fables And Reflections is my favorite of the Sandman books. It mostly ignores the epic meta-narrative in favor of these quick elegant ad-hoc fairy tales. One, called Ramadan, really flipped me out.

A book that is overrated: Ken Goffman's Counterculture Through The Ages: From Abraham To Acid House finally explains to the world why Martin Luther King is Good and Fascism is Bad. The answer is Counterculture! Who knew?

What I wish had not been written: I don't have an answer for this one.

One book I am currently reading: The Guns Of August. The reading of which was inspired, I'm embarassed to say, by a Washington Post editorial. I am completely engrossed.

What I've been meaning to read: I've been meaning to finish both The Looming Tower and Night Draws Near. I've gotten halfway through both before stalling.

And now- propagation! I hereby transmit this meme to DKP, Michael and Jason.