Ten books meme

A book that changed your life. May I have two? Karl R.Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies; and Georges Dumezil, Archaic Roman Religion. The former grounded my instinctive love for liberty on a solid foundation of articulate thought, and the latter introduced me to the man from whom I learned everything I know about interpretation. Two that would have, if I had read them earlier, would have been Ernst Gombrich's History of Art and Art and Illusion.
A book that you've read more than once. Many, many... Lord of the Rings. The Father Brown Stories. C.S.Lewis' books of Christian essays. Robert Fagles' translation of The Oresteia. All the Harry Potter books.
A book that you'd want on a desert island. The complete works of William Shakespeare.
A book that made you laugh. Anything by Wodehouse. Or the Don Camillo stories.
A book that made you cry. Dee Brown, Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee.
A book that you wish had never been written. The Kinsey Report - but if he had not, someone else would have. Margaret Mead, for instance, had already unleashed her concoction of lies and misrepresentations upon the world.
A book that you hope someone will write. Epic and Myth: The Indo-European cultural heritage. I hope I will write it myself.
A book that you wish you had written. G.K.Chesterton's History of England. And his astounding passage - in a booklet of war propaganda, yet! - on Frederick II of Prussia.
A book that you're currently reading. I am busy re-examining the Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
A book that you've been meaning to read. Filippo Coarelli, Il Foro Boario, an in-depth study of an important archaeological area of archaic Rome.

Rock my socks meme: hafguk

If there is one person who incarnates every virtue the average person ought to have, it is hafguk. She is cheerful and constructive, apparently fond of her husband and happy in her marriage, adores her child, is funny and extrovert and clear-minded and intelligent. Every time I read a new post by her, I feel like I just had a breath of fresh air. She is even pretty, damn it! What more can you ask?

Rock my socks meme: patchworkmind

patchworkmind is one of those rare disconcerting people who would rather be right than President. He is warm-hearted, a good friend, and very likely a wonderful father, but all these things, important though they are, pale slightly when compared to an integrity so colossal and instinctive that nobody, whether one agreed with him or not (and I disagree with him politically more often than one might imagine, since I detest Libertarianism), could possibly fail to perceive. Such people do not have an easy life; their integrity, their inability to compromise and sell their enormously high standards down the river for any reason, make it a bit hard for them to move in the ordinary world of compromise and half-measures. As often as not, they are rated as failures or disappointments. Yet, in some mysterious manner, it is people like him that keep the world turning. There is a Jewish legend that says that at any time there are 36 righteous people in the world who keep God from destroying it. He might be one of them.

Imaginary fic meme (taken from ilzhilzha

Make up a title for a story I didn't write, and I will respond with details of those non-written stories. You may, if you like, include details, such as pairings or fandom or whatnot. [Warning: people who ask for slash pairings, especially H/D, are in for rude surprises.]

You couldn't make it up dept. no.48: What's on the mind of the world's mightiest legislative body

Forget everything you’ve read about this “do-nothing” Congress. Bills and resolutions are indeed getting passed:

“Resolved, That the Senate recognizes . . . the most famous and successful cereals and characters, including: (1) Tony the Tiger; and (2) Snap, Crackle and Pop.”

In all seriousness, the recent Senate resolution recognizes contributions of Will Keith Kellogg to the people of the world on this 100th anniversary of the creation of the first flaked breakfast cereal. Kellogg founded the Kellogg Co. in 1906 in Battle Creek, Mich.