1) Total number of books owned?
Hmm, not sure, not many given I’m meant to be a ‘booklover’, but seeing as I rarely re-read anything, I tend to give books away a lot. Gave 3 boxes to the Lifeline auction last year. ‘Wow,’ the woman said when she collected them, ‘you keep them in really good condition’. Yeah, I guess I do. I wonder why.
2) The last book I bought?
Um. I found a copy of The Scar for $4 at the Salvo’s store. Haven’t read it yet.
3) The last book I read? Fully or tried?
Dream Dancer, by Janet Morris. What a brilliant book! Why isn’t she more famous?
4) 5 books that mean a lot to me?
Dream Dancer (first read it when I was 18 — yes, a rare exception to my ‘no re-reading rule’)
Mrs Brisby & the Rats of Nimh — my favourite book from when I was a kid
The Birthgrave, Tanith Lee — the book that crystallised my desire to be a writer
Ash, A Secret History, Mary Gentle — the book that made me say ‘ok, I want to be THIS kind of writer’
Norton’s Anthology of Poetry — the version I bought in my first year of English Lit at Syd Uni, & which is now brown & worn with age, with a hundred bristling bookmarks, & which I still pull off the shelf & read out loud to myself when alcohol & chocolate don’t seem to be addressing my emotions.