archy

The dreaded book meme – Part 1
Coturnix at Science And Politics has pegged me to be one of his book meme victims. I’m already the last one to answer, but I have a good excuse. Blogger locks me out every time I try to post this. I just successfully published a tiny post, so I’m going to try breaking this into short posts and see if I can get through.

Without any further whining, here is my first answer:

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

Remember the end of the book (or the movie)? We are each supposed to memorize a book before destroying it, as all good citizens are required. When we are older we teach our book to a young person, thus ensuring the continuation of human knowledge. Most people choose a great work of literature for this one. When I was a teenager I memorized great swaths of MacBeth. I think a play would be rather easy even now. Were I to take that easy path, I would choose Inherit the Wind because it's a good drama, good stylized history, and an important set of arguments. Coturnix points out in his answers, that with so many people going after great literature, there might be shortage of valuable non-fiction. With that advice in mind, I'll choose one of the ancient historians, Herodotus' Histories or, if that's taken, The Jewish War of Josephus.