Another meme doing the rounds of the blogosphere, Facebook and Live Journal, sent to me courtesy of Liam Proven…. Simply list fifteen books that have affected you most, will always stay with you, etc. Off the top of your head – well, in less than fifteen minutes. Here’s mine, in order of year of publication…

1 The Undercover Aliens, AE van Vogt (1950)
2 Starman Jones, Robert Heinlein (1953)
3 The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell (1957 – 1960)
4 the Dorsai trilogy, Gordon R Dickson (1959 – 1971)
5 Dune, Frank Herbert (1965)
6 Dhalgren, Samuel Delany (1975)
7 The Ophiuchi Hotline, John Varley (1977)
8 The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe (1979)
9 The Space Mavericks, Michael Kring (1980)
10 Where Time Winds Blow, Robert Holdstock (1982)
11 Kairos, Gwyneth Jones (1988)
12 Metrophage, Richard Kadrey (1988)
13 Iris, William Barton & Michael Capobianco (1990)
14 Take Back Plenty, Colin Greenland (1990)
15 Coelestis, Paul Park (1993)

Many of these books are my favourites, and I’ve read them several times. In fact, I reread a bunch of them a couple of years ago as a reading challenge – see here.

Others…. The Heinlein is the first true sf novel I recall reading – a friend lent it to me at school. So it’s effectively the book that turned me into a sf fan. And The Alexandria Quartet is the book that turned me into a fan of Durrell’s writing – for evidence of this see here and here.

Although I recently reread the Dorsai trilogy and was disappointed, I still remember loving it as a young teenager. Iris was the first book I read by Barton and Capobianco. I went on to read their solo novels, and Barton has remained a favourite sf writer ever since.

As for The Right Stuff… well, I’ve read it several times, the film adaptation remains a favourite film, and it eventually led to me starting up my Space Books blog.

The Space Mavericks is the novel which kicked off the whole Turkey Shoot thing. Turkey Shoot was a short-lived fanzine dedicated to sf “turkeys” – i.e., really bad sf novels – which I wrote and published back in the early 1990s. It was almost celebrated in its day. I can still remember some of The Space Mavericks‘s more memorable lines – “you can never mistake a museum building because of the way they build them” and “the green fur more than anything made it look like a Terran gorilla”.

… but it’s book related, so that’s all right. I saw this on Omphalos’ blog.

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?
Depends. Hardback for my favourite authors, paperback for others. Not too keen on trade paperbacks, but if that’s the first edition of a book by a favourite author then that’s what I’ll buy.

Bookmark or dog-ear?
Bookmark. If dog-earring books isn’t a sin, it damn well should be.

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random?
Alphabetical by author, and titles by year of first publication within each author. I’ve never been entirely sure what to do with anthologies edited by authors – should they be placed chronologically, even though they probably contain no fiction by the author, or should they be shelved separately?

Keep, throw away or sell?
I never throw books away. Books I don’t want I either sell on eBay, give away on BookMooch, give to friends or donate to charity shops.

Keep dust jacket or toss it?
Who throws dust jackets away? That’s just plain stupid.

Last book you bought?
The last book to arrive since this lot is The Twist in the Plotting: Twenty-Five Poems by Bernard Spencer, a chapbook published by the University of Reading Arts Department in 1960. The last book I actually bought, but it has yet to arrive, is a signed edition of Louisiana Breakdown by Lucius Shepard.

Last book someone bought for you?
Would probably be one I received for my birthday. On the one hand, it’s easy to buy presents for me: just get a book. On the other hand, I tend to buy the books I want myself, so there’s a danger I might already have it. Wishlists, FTW.

What are some of the books on your to-buy list?
My wants list is huge. Let’s see… there are a few new books I want, like Chris Beckett’s The Turing Test or Paul McAuley’s The Quiet War; some books which will be published in the next six to nine months, such as Gwyneth Jones’ Spirit or Bruce Sterling’s The Carytids or Gary Gibson’s Nova War; various titles I need to complete an author’s oeuvre; and the odd book that looks interesting, both fiction – for example, Élisabeth Vonarburg’s Dreams of the Sea – and non-fiction – Personal Landscapes by John Bolton (about the Cairo poets of WWII).

Collection (short stories, same author) or anthology (short stories, different authors)?
Both. But not all anthologies. It depends on the theme. The New Space Opera and The Space Opera Renaissance are both good. But I’m not into steampunk so steampunk anthologies are not going to appeal to me. Year’s best anthologies are a good way of keeping up with what’s been published in short fiction, but it’s difficult to find the right one to buy. It’s unlikely you’ll agree that all the contents are the “best”, but each of the different ones usually have some overlap so there’s not much point in getting all of them…

Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, or the velvety embrace of Death?
Death, definitely.

Morning reading, afternoon reading, or nighttime reading?
Usually night-time, although on the weekends I’ll also read in the afternoon.

The books you need to go with other books on your shelves?
I still have one or two series missing installments, but I’m slowly completing them. But not at any cost. I wait until I see a copy going cheap.

Do you read anywhere and anytime you can or do you have a set reading time and/or place?
I read on the tram to and from work. Like a lot of people, I also read on the loo. Sometimes I read while I’m watching telly – but not foreign films: it’s impossible to read and watch subtitled films. And I read just before I go to sleep.

Do you have seasonal reading habits?
No.

Do you read one book at a time or do you have two or more books going at once?
Uusually one at a time, but on occasion I’ve read two or more concurrently. Depends. Usually it only works if the second book is one you can dip into at intervals.

What are your pet peeves about the way people treat books?
Not looking after them – breaking spines, putting creases in the cover, scribbling in them, etc. Well, except for author’s signatures, of course. Some of the paperbacks I’ve sold on eBay are twenty-five years old but looked brand new. Admittedly, they were in storage for fifteen of those twenty-five years…

Name one book you surprised yourself by liking.
The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott. I’m currently reading it as part of my 2008 Reading Challenge. There’ll be a blog post going up about it in a few days. Given that I’ve not really enjoyed most of the classic novels I’ve picked to read this year for my challenge, I was delighted to discover that Scott’s writing is the sort I enjoy most, with the added bonus that The Jewel in the Crown is about expat Brits (a topic which always resonates with me). I fully intend to read more Scott – after I’ve finished the Raj Quartet.

How often do you read a book and not review it on your blog? What are your reasons for not blogging about a book?
Other way round: I blog about a book for a reason. Because of all the reviews of Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, I posted a review of Andrew M Stephenson’s Nightwatch. A discussion on various blogs about optimism in sf prompted me to post a review of the most miserable – but still excellent – sf novel I could find, DG Compton’s Chronicules. Niall Harrison reviewed Gwyneth Jones’ Kairos on Torque Control, so I reviewed her earlier Escape Plans. I worked my way through some, but not all, of the novels shortlisted for the 2008 BSFA Award. The publication of a new Culture novel is an event, so I had to review Matter. And, of course, there’s my annual reading challenge…

EDIT: and I should thank John at SF Signal for coming up with the meme in the first place. Although his original questions have altered somewhat as they’ve propagated through the blogosphere…

… or, Yet Another Blog Meme. I saw this on Kev’s The Arcane Model. Basically, list ten books you own that none of your friends also own. I’m guessing here, of course, although with some confidence…

Priddy Barrows, John Jarmain (1944)
Jarmain was killed during World War II. This is his only novel. I reviewed it here. A collection of his poetry was also published posthumously, and I own that too. Both books were difficult to find.

Middle East Anthology of Prose and Verse, edited by John Waller and Erik de Mauny (1946)
The title says it all: this is an anthology of prose and poems by people stationed in Egypt during World War II – both the Oasis and the Personal Landscape groups – including GS Fraser, Sidney Keyes, Lawrence Durrell, John Jarmain, John Pudney, Olivia Manning, Herbert Howarth, Bernard Spencer, and many others.

Zero and Asylum in the Snow, Lawrence Durrell (1947)
I own a few small press chapbooks by Durrell, but I picked this one as representative of them. Zero and Asylum in the Snow was originally privately printed on Rhodes by Durrell himself, but this edition was produced a year later by Circle Editions in California.

The Life and Works of Jahiz, edited by Charles Pellat (1969)
After reading Robert Irwin’s The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature, I decided to learn more about the subject. Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri, or Al Jahiz, was born in Basra around 781 AD, and wrote a number of books, such as Kitab al-Hayawan (Book of Animals), Kitab al-Bayan wa al-Tabyin (Book of Eloquence and Demonstration), Kitab Moufakharat al-Jawari wa al-Ghilman (Book of Dithyramb of Concubines and Ephebes) and Risalat Mufakharat al-Sudan ‘ala al-Bidan (Superiority Of The Blacks To The Whites).

Collected Poems, Bernard Spencer (1981)
Another World War II poet, like Jarmain; and also, with Lawrence Durrell, a co-founder of the Personal Landscape group of poets and writers in Egypt during World War II. Spencer was not very prolific and died relatively young, but he was generally considered to have been capable of greatness.

Yellow Matter, William Barton (1993)
A short story published as a small press chapbook and, I think, Barton’s only small press offering. Barton has not had a novel published since 1999’s When We Were Real, but he continues to write short fiction. It’s about time someone put together a collection of his stories.

Wingless Flight: The Lifting Body Story, R Dale Reed (1997)
I have several space-related books which I doubt my friends own. This is one of the more obscure ones. It’s about, well, lifting bodies – those strange-looking aircraft, one of which crashes so spectacularly in the opening credits of The Six Million Dollar Man television series.

Dune: Fremen Justice, Brian Herbert & Kevin J Anderson (2001)
After the Dune House prequel trilogy was published, small press Wormhole Books published two short stories by Herbert Jr and Anderson as limited edition hardbacks. I bought both (this one and Dune: Hunting Harkonnens). They’re actually not very good. Neither are the Dune House books for that matter.

Swedish Death Metal, Daniel Ekeroth (2006)
Some of my friends do listen to death metal, but I don’t believe any of them own books on the subject. This one is only available through Ekeroth’s MySpace page.

Dreams of a Nation, Hamid Dabashi (2007)
One of my favourite films is Divine Intervention by Palestinian director Elia Suleiman. After watching a few other recent films by Palestinian directors, I decided to read up on the subject, and found a cheap copy of this book.

Now someone just has to prove me wrong…