Viral literacy

Brandon was considerate enough to send this my way.

* What book in Fahrenheit 451 would you want to be?

Hmm. Earlier versions of the question have it as "apart from" rather than "in."* Oh, well. "In" makes more sense to me. I choose the Book of Ecclesiastes; the irony of 12:12 is particularly applicable here.

* Have you ever been really struck by a fictional character?

I got pretty wrapped up in the fate of the title character of Jane Eyre when I read it at age 10 or 11. She was probably the first one.

* What was the last book that you bought?

Excluding accessories like textbooks, I think that would be Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.

* What was the last book you read?

A whim during the papal election led me to put in an ILL request for The Jeweler's Shop: A Meditation on the Sacrament of Matrimony, Passing on Occasion into a Drama, by Karol Wojtyla. I read it on Saturday instead of studying for finals. Just before starting that, I finished off Isaiah Berlin's Crooked Timber of Humanity.

* Which books are you reading?

I still claim to be reading Purgatorio in The Divine Comedy; finals week should give me a chance to get back to it and finish it off. I may start back in on the second half of The Dialogic Imagination (Bakhtin) while I'm at it.

* Which five books would you take to a desert island?

Do volumes count separately? 'Cause if not, Encyclopædia Britannica would be one.

The Bible (ESV, probably).

T. S. Eliot: Complete Poems and Plays: 1909-1950.

A Norton anthology of something or other.

US Army Survival Manual.

* To whom are you going to send this erm... let's say confession...and why? (three people)

Let's keep this going in undergraduate circles. How about Wheeler the literature and history person, Gallagher the computer and math person, and Michaela the newspaper and elementary high school education person?

* Update: I've done a little background research. This survey has been mutating quite freely during its circulation in the blogosphere. My version has been mangled by translation into and back out of Portuguese. Here's a version closer to the original:

You are stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

What is the last book you bought?

What are you currently reading?

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

Who are you going to pass this book meme baton to and why? (only three people)

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