Photo Meme = old book list

Being unable to come up with anything original today, I've decided to try this Photo Meme I found at Imagine.

Instructions: Go to the file where you keep photos on your computer, open the fourth file, then choose the fourth photo in the file. Describe.

This is what I found:



It's a picture of my bedside table taken on January 21, 2006. I took it to post on a forum I frequent. I believe we were having a discussion about what we were reading that turned into what our reading piles actually looked like.

In other words this messy pile of books amounts to my "currently reading" list as of three years ago (where does the time go?). I almost always have more than one book on the read at any given time, but I must say the books here are a bit atypical in that I don't normally read so many non-fiction books at one time.

What's there and my thoughts (starting front, left):

• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood was a quick re-read for an upcoming discussion. The Blind Assassin is one of my favourite Atwoods.


• The World Is Flat by Thomas L Friedman is about globalization and the consequences for individuals and the world economy. I only skimmed this as most of it wasn't new to me, but I plan on revisiting it at some time for a more thorough read.


• Ideas: Brilliant Thinkers Speak Their Minds (Bernie Lucht, ed.) is a selection of twenty programs from CBC Radio's Ideas and include thoughts from the likes of Noam Chomsky, Northrop Frye, Hannah Arendt and Helen Caldicott. What can I say, except, brilliant and thought-provoking.


• Shake Hands with the Devil by Romeo Daillaire is a scathing indictment of the non-action of the UN Security Council and the worldwide community for allowing the genocide in 1990s Rwanda. It also deals with Dailaire's own guilt about his inability to do anything to stop it.


• The Danzig Trilogy by Gunther Grass: I have attempted to read this several times and have never gotten past the first one hundred pages or so. It is still languishing in my TBR pile.


• The Peneliopad is another Atwood: not my favourite by a long shot, but an interesting take on the myth of Homer and Penelope in The Odyssey from Penelope's point of view.


• Gods and Heroes was in reference to my reading of The Peneliopad


• Collapse by Jared Diamond was a recent acquisition because I'd just read the same author's Guns, Germs and Steel;


• The Island by Aldous Huxley was a re-read;


• The Penguin History of the World is just a handy reference to have around


• Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith is an old-fashioned spy thriller. It's set in Moscow of the 1980s(?), so reads as a bit dated.

There's also a crossword puzzle book and a couple of shopping catalogues (probably from Land's End).

Please feel free to do this meme. I'd love to see what you find.