rob mclennan's suggested book survey

One book that changed your life:

By changed my life does that mean changed my mind for a little while? I think it's impossible for one book to completely change a life. It takes a collection (something to be absorbed slowly over time, turned over, and applied uniquely--an investment in distinct personal theorums--the span of a lifetime). Besides, I might begin brushing my teeth with my left hand, say, if I'd read it improves memory. So, habit changing, maybe. Perhaps the question should be one book that has strongly influenced. In which case I have many.

Top of the list: Shakespeare

A few more:
Reasoning and Critical Thinking
Plath's The Bell Jar (situated me in exactly the place female writers, females, can/need for inner reflection/discovery)
Hesse's Siddhartha
Bach's Illusions
some Rilke
some Thomas Mann
anything Jack Spicer has ever written
anything Dostoevsky has ever written--particularly The Gambler
Zamyatin's We
Atwood's Robber Bride and Cat's Eye and Surfacing, and some earlier poems
Recently, Scottish writer Alasdair Gray's Poor Things, and
Neitzche's The Birth of Tragedy
Henry Miller's stuff
Charles Olson
Albert Camus stuff
postmodern critical theory, in general

I'll stop there.

One book that you've read more than once:
Bach's Illusions
Oscar Wilde stories/plays/quotes
D.H.Lawrence Selected Poems
Zamyatin's We
Anais Nin, Henry and June
lots of philosophy/meditations/plays/poetry collections/etc.

One book you'd want on a desert island:
dictionary

One book that made you laugh:
Can't remember them all. But right now, Miller's Tropic of Cancer has its laugh out loud (mostly at the raw bits of indiscretion and boldness) moments.

One book that made you cry:
The Phantom, by Susan Kay (bet noone else has ever read that book, hey?)
and,
Judith Fitzgerald's Beneath the Skin of Paradise (the Edith Piaf poems)

One book that you wish had been written:
how to write good poetry

One book that you wish had never been written:
how to write good poetry
(among others)

One book you're currently reading:
I always read several at once. I get bored easily and like to switch. Here is the current list:
Barthes Mythologies
Charles Olson's Selected Writings
The Bacchae of Euripides
Either/Or, Kant
The Colossus, Plath
Beat Roots, Anne Waldman
The Illiad, Book XXII, Lisa Jarnot
Victory, Judith Fitzgerald
Tropic of Cancer, Miller
Birth of Tragedy, Neitzche
and,
Under the Tuscan Sun

One book you've been meaning to read:
Everything on my book shelf and more... and, Candide. It's been with me for years. But was given to me by an old boyfriend who died. Can't crack the spine yet. Still. Soon.