petronia

Results of the experiment: ...I went off and watched a handful of Futurama eps with

dipping_sauce, actually. It was a lot more interesting. >D I'm glad they tossed me before I got back, as that removes any obligation (or ability?) on my part to make further responses. What, me short attention span? Surely you jest.

Ah vell. As Charmian (didn't quite) put it, hate the sinner, love the sinner's books. I know quite a few people who're using the comm as a compendium of rec lists now. XD

I've been wondering, though - and I know I'm not the only one - about the peculiar dissatisfaction incurred by the act of drawing up these lists. It's like it's never quite representative, somehow, and yet one knows there are books that ~~warped one for life~~ affected one's paradigm to a great degree. Maybe that's the thing. Is your Top 20 Books That Changed Your Life the same as your Top 20 Books You Would Gladly Re-read Right Now, and is that the same as the Top 20 Books You Would Rec To Your Flist Without Hesitation? How about Top Twenty Books You Most Enjoyed Reading, versus Top Twenty Books You're Most Glad You Read? I know for me those are five very different lists.** So how long would the list have to be for the cut to be representative? Top 50? Top 100? I know, though, that any time I try to read a Top 100 List of anything my eyes start to cross at about #60 (there's that attention span again!), so there's also a point beyond which the list loses usefulness. If indeed they ever have any usefulness beyond bold-the-ones-you've-read type lj memeage. (Incidentally the ShonagonBlog link the other day finally made me realise the point of her lists: proto-memes! It was probably "list ten things you find elegant, then copy this question into the next pillow book" week at court.)

** This is, of course, your cue to ask me about my Top 20 Books Featuring (Or Written By) Hawt Redheads.

EDIT -- And now as a corrective, I'm going to purchase enough trashy ghei fantasy novels on Amazon Japan to last me through a winter of subway-riding. By the way, if you look at the Amazon rankings of Kuwabara Mizuna's works, it seems rather like many people buy just the novel equivalent of episode 7. >D

EDIT2 -- I hate the fact that Amazon Japan turns 5$CAN books into 12$CAN books with shipping charges. The fact that a roughly analogous book in English would be 12$CAN - or printed on cruddy paper just this side of newsprint, or even both, and let's not even talk about how much your typical poetry collection costs - doesn't change the fact that, well, shipping charges. =_=