Anonymous asked: What are your favourite books?
This is a difficult question. My vision has made it difficult for me to read bodies of text for long periods of time, so I’ve read a depressing few books over the past decade. That being said, I think I’d list (including childhood, but excluding comics): House of Leaves, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Rainbow Goblins, Men of Tomorrow, The Information, I Claudius, The Martian Crystal Egg, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch… um…
If I think about it too much, it makes me cry. How sad it is that most people can’t understand how heartwrenching it is to no longer be able to read voraciously? When I was very young, perhaps five or so, I saw Finian’s Rainbow. It was a ridiculous musical made in the 70’s about leprechauns and cigarettes, and it starred an aged Fred Astaire. Having spent many an afternoon at my Gramma’s watching old movies, I was horrified to see the graceful and agile man I’d recognized now turned into an old shuffling geezer. I decided at that point that I’d never ever pursue a future as a dancer or athlete of any sort. How terrible, I thought, it would be to build your life and love and passion upon something that you’d invariably have to watch deteriorate with age?
By age 22, my vision was double and my dominant hand started to ache. Touche, life.
These days I tend to listen to BBC World Service radio, non-fiction audio books (Hitchens, Dawkins, etc), WFMU, and Doctor Who radio plays to fill the great big gaping and heart-wrenching place where obsessively reading used to live.
