Book Challenge

DownLeft has passed on to me the book questions thing making the rounds in the blogosphere. Here's what I came up with:

Total number of books I've owned:

I guess about 200-300 over my lifetime. That would include many college text books that I would later sell back to 710 Bookstore for 10 cents on the dollar. I like having books around and (outside of most textbooks) find I really don't like getting rid of them. Also, I've read a lot of books that I never owned (borroweded, library, etc).

The last book I bought:

I assume this means a book I bought for me and not as a gift or some kid's book for my almost two year old. But even assuming that, this is actually hard because I often get books as gifts.

I think the last book I purchased for myself was Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France by Earnest R. May. It's an in-depth analysis of the 1940 invasion of France by the Germans during WWII. I'm into history and specialize in the Second World War. Which reminds me, I've been wanting to post about the continuing (and wrong) notion that the French are somehow hapless militarily (i.e. cheese-eating surrender monkeys for you wingnuts). Maybe this will motivate me.

The last book I read:

Well, that would be The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time ,although there is some controversy in my own mind about whether I really read it.

Five books that mean a lot to me:

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut - I've read a number of Vonnegut's books but this is my favorite. I actually saw the movie before reading the book in high school. Vonnegut incorporates his experience as a prisoner of war in bit of light science fiction. I'm still fascinated by the Tralfamadorian view of life.

Dispatches by Michael Herr - I read this (twice) when I was 18 and trying to come to terms with the Vietnam War, a war I had just missed by a decade or less. Coming out in the late 70's this book was among the first to examine the war and American experiences in it. It was written in a rock'n'roll style that had a lot of appeal to me at the time. Herr went on to write the narrative running through the movie Apocalypse Now parts of which were lifted directly from Dispatches.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair - This is another book I read twice. It had a huge impact on me. Written and set in the early part of the last century, it also had a huge impact on food safety in this country. After graphic descriptions of meat packing plants appeared in The Jungle, laws were enacted to ensure cleaner and safer food products. Sinclair was trying to spotlight the plight of workers in the country but people at the time only saw how gross meat packing was.

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller - What can I say, funny and tragic. The title has entered the American lexicon.

Citizen Soldiers by Stephen E. Ambrose - Ambrose pulls no punches in this examination of Americans troops in France from D-Day until the end of World War II. This book isn't all about glorifying heroes, rather, as the title suggests, it's about everyday humans thrown into the hell of war and how they react to it. A lot of good is on display here but Ambrose is not shy about examining the ugly side men at war.

Special mention: All reference books, especially atlases (I love maps)

I'm not going to tag five more bloggers (per the rules) cuz almost everyone has already done this and I'm not willing to go searching for who hasn't. However, WMAY's Jim Leach has threatened to start a blog so I guess I can tag him in advance. Also, I don't think Marie over at Disarranging Mine has done this, so she should now consider herself tagged.