Double meme whammy

[altariel]

Here are my ten unread books:

1. The Fountains of Paradise, Arthur C. Clarke: My brother told me to read this when I was a kid. But I haven't.


2. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell: It looks kind of big, and I'm afraid that if I read it, I'll never bother writing again.


3. King Lear: Yeah, yeah, whatever.


4. The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer: You sort of feel like you should have.


5. The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell: After I saw A Very British Coup for the first time I got this out of the library but I wasn't reading fiction at the time and so I didn't read this either. I got a copy on some Penguin Classic 3 for 2 thing a month or two back.


6. Roverandum, JRR Tolkien: You sort of feel like you should have.


7. A Whistling Woman, AS Byatt: Shit, I'd forgotten I had this.


8. The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie: I thought I'd do a bit of background reading first so that I'd have a clue what was going on but that has never quite happened either.


9. Crowds and Power, Elias Canetti: I picked this one because it was on the original list that went around. Sounds right up my street, doesn't it?


10. Oh I don't know, there are bloody hundreds around here I haven't read. Othello. Ulysses. The Third Rumpole Omnibus.

And here are seven pieces of music that are stuck in my head:

1. Adieu Adieu, Fairport Convention: Very cheerful and sing-a-longy for a song about a robber about to get hanged.


2. Time of No Reply, Nick Drake: Nick Drake released three excessively beautiful folk albums in the late 60s and early 70s. This song is autumnal and calms me in the disappointment of the late afternoon.


3. Goodbye Caroline, Going Through the Motions, I Can't Get My Head Around It, Aimee Mann: Yes, that's three tracks, but they're back-to-back on The Forgotten Arm so I just play them through. These have been stuck in my head since I got the CD, which must be at least 18 months ago now.


4. Beat Surrender, The Jam: Because I made a playlist for some characters to listen to while they were driving along a motorway, and this is exactly the kind of thing they would have on.


5. New Amsterdam, Elvis Costello and the Attractions: And this. Oh, and Oliver's Army too.


6. Fifty Years After the Fair, Aimee Mann: Aimee-centric this list, isn't it? Well, she shouldn't write such bloody brilliant songs.


7. The heavens are telling the glory of God, Haydn, The Creation: Because communicator had a post about intelligent design the other day. Only now I'm thinking of Bloody Stupid Johnson as I sing it.