I was tagged for this heinous thing a while ago by Tony G at the Milkriverblog and then again more recently by Hungry Hyaena. Despite the fact that Organic Matter hasn’t featured much personal content, I like the fact that this meme brings out bloggers’ intellectual and literary influences.

All the dirt is below the fold.

1. Total number of books I've owned.

I honestly have no idea, though probably fewer than most of the people who’ve already responded to this meme. It’s hard to say for sure since most of my books are in boxes at my folks’ house, but definitely hundreds, though probably not in the high hundreds.

Why don’t I own a massive library that even dedicated bibliophiles covet? I have a tendency to read books at bookstores (in installments, I’m actually a pretty slow reader), never going to the trouble of actually purchasing them.

2. Last book I bought.

The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide. I have to make several embarrassing admissions at this point: First, I mostly read fiction. Second, I’m a closet geek. Third, I’m not a very good geek, since I had not, until only a couple weeks ago, read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Prior to driving to Northern California and back with my parents I decided I needed a good book to take with me, and so made a bookstore run. While there I saw this beautifully bound edition of all of the Hitchhiker novels (plus extras!) I thought it would be a nice way to read the books, but would probably be prohibitively expensive. Then I looked at the price tag: $16.95. Sold.

3. Last book I read.

The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan. For a man who specialized in astronomy he had some surprising insights into evolutionary psychology.

4. Five books that mean a lot to me.

I’m gonna be selective here so as to maximize cross-genre representation:

The Trees in My Forest, Bernd Heinrich – If you have even a cursory interest in woody plants this is a must read.

Full House, Stephen Jay Gould – I could easily list any his books, but I happen to like this one because of the novel analogies that Gould employs. Who would have thought that baseball and drunkenness could be harnessed to explain the relationship between evolution and biological complexity?

The Lord of the Rings (if you need a byline for this one you’ve got issues) - The best work of fiction ever. Period.

House of Leaves, Mark Danielewski – It’s a book about a manuscript about a movie about a house that’s larger on the inside than it is on the outside. I first picked this book up on a recommendation, read the prologue, and was scared out of reading the rest of it for over a year. When I finally sacked up and read it, I was blown away. Confused, but blown away.

The Republic, Plato – Probably everyone with a four-year degree was assigned this book at one point or another. I was one of the maybe ten or fifteen people that actually read it.

5. People who I'll infect with this meme.

This thing is spreading like an evil, evil virus, so I’m not going to hurt anyone else with it. Instead I’m going to ask a related question to any readers out there and ask for responses in the comments: What is your literary guilty pleasure? That is, what book or books do you own that you keep out of sight so no one sees them? If you don’t go to such extremes, is there something in your bookcase that you hope others don’t see or ask about?