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Usually it's nice to be mentioned in dispatches, but I've been tipped the black spot of the Book Meme by Miranda. We may all end up embarrassed, or something. Let's see:

Total number of books I've owned: How should I know? Do people go round counting their books? It stands at about 3-4 bookcases just now, but I was brought up by librarians and so believe you shouldn't even buy books at all. I did have a rule once which went: If you keep it that means you have to read it again sometime, but now I've lapsed into the usual Well it looks good on the shelf doesn't it, I may even read it later on.

Last book I bought: (ahem) The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell. Well, I work for a small publisher; but I haven't made much of an inroad into it - other people's jargon invented for their books is fairly excruciating. Enhancers? Connectors? It's a bit like reading Carl Sagan.

Last book I read: The London Companion by Jo Swinnerton. It's a little hardback in the rip-off-of-Schott's-Miscellany vein; and it's full of mistakes. I'm saving 'em up to email to the author.

Last book I finished: The Book of Shadows by Don Paterson. Didn't buy it, borrowed it from embleton. A book of aphorisms by a Scottish musician-poet who's only slightly younger than I am. Recommended. Must read his poems some time.

Five books that mean a lot to me, oh blimey:

• Richard Bach, "A Gift of Wings". Well, you did ask. I always wanted to fly in light planes when I was a wee lad, and even went gliding a couple of times before pocket-money ran out, and I'd liked Jonathan Livingston Seagull and even been to the movie, so I bought this book of essays and stories about flying. They're great. I still read them.
• Richard Jefferies, "Bevis". Two boys hang out in Wiltshire in the 1860s. A huge and absorbing book about playing, exploring, learning and getting Close to Nature. Love it.
• Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Predictable choice, but at the time quite amazing. It was a revelation to find out that you could think about stuff outside an educational or academic framework, outside your "subject". Very exciting. I haven't read it much since teenage years, but it's stayed with me.
• Shakespeare, "The Tempest". A play for grown-ups. So is "The Winter's Tale", but I'm not quite grown-up enough for that one yet.
• Wallace Stevens, "Selected Poems". The smart money chooses the Collected, but every time I open it I find a poem I a)don't know at all b)don't understand a word of. So it means much less to me than the good ol' Selected.

Five people I want to see do this: I wouldn't wilfully put anyone through this. Forget it. Either you volunteer it or nothing.

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