Cribbed from Angel at The Itinerant Librarian.

1 The book I am currently reading. Like Angel, I usually have more than one book going. I am currently reading the following: The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore; Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces; Hermann Melville’s Billy Budd and other stories; and about a half dozen others that I have been stopped on for a while now.

2 The last book I finished. Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. Last night. My comments are here.

3 The next book I want to read. Again, ditto Angel, “there are all sorts of books I want to read next.” There are two books from the Library Thing Early Reviewer Program that need to be read so that I can write reviews: Delavier’s Stretching Anatomy and Gerhard Klosch’s Sleeping Better Together. I will probably take the stretching book with me on our trip to DC to visit family for Christmas. Then there are the books on my Two-Thirds Book Challenge list: Transformations (poems) by Anne Sexton is near the top of the list due to my Grimm’s Fairytales class starting in early January. Not on that list but recently purchased is Voltaire’s A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary, which I’d like to read prior to Enlightenment Lit in the Spring term. I could go on and on here but I’ll stop. My goodread’s to read shelf would give you a small inkling of possibilities.

4 The last book I bought. On the 10th I bought Voltaire’s A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary (Oxford World’s Classic ed) in a Kindle ed. and I ordered a used copy of Tzvetan Todorov’s A Defence of the Enlightenment from England via abebooks. I have been wanting that book for quite a while now and it is already out of print. I foresee wanting/needing it for Enlightenment Lit for whatever paper topic I choose. I adore Todorov even though I don’t always agree with him. And Voltaire is simply delectable!

5 The last book I was given. Not counting Library Thing Early Reviewer books or books weeded from the collection at BCU, it appears the last book I was given was a copy of Jeni Bauer’s Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams by my daughter for Father’s Day. Eat Jeni’s ice cream! Support Jeni’s! Buy this book and make your own Jeni’s! Did I mention you should eat Jeni’s ice cream? It is beyond awesome!

6 The last book I borrowed from the library. Public: Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Traveled, which I did not finish but put on my wish list. University: Nobel Prize winner Tomas Tranströmer’s Selected Poems, and Truth Barriers.

8 The last translated book you read. Lysistrata, and the Tranströmers just before that, in November.

9 The book at the top of my Christmas list. Like Angel, the list is not exactly specific to one title but the short list I culled from my Amazon wish list for the more immediate family included: Barbara McAfee’s Full Voice: The Art and Practice of Vocal Presence (seen in GradHacker); James Attlee’s Nocturne: A Journey in Search of Moonlight; Sarah Bakewell’s How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer; Douglas Thomas’ A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change; Gloria Ambrosia’s The Complete Muffin Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide To Making Great Muffins; Borges’ Selected Non-Fictions; Tolkien on Fairy-Stories; Mircea Eliade’s Myths, Dreams and Mysteries. These are all titles both Sara and I would like to read. If I were compiling that list today instead of just a couple of weeks ago it might be quite different as we both have added several (or more) titles to our wish lists. ::sigh::

10 The so-far unpublished book I am most looking forward to reading. Normally, I rarely know about books before they are published unless Amazon manages to send me a timely pre-order email. But. Kickstarter! We helped fund a book on Kickstarter recently so we are looking forward to Kio Stark’s, Don’t Go Back to School: A handbook for learning anything.

Uh, not you. Me. Or maybe you but you have to take the scientific test to find out.

Found at the Academic Librarian, of all places, because even ALs need to have a little fun.

You Are Sexually Powerful

Your attitude toward sex is healthy, safe, and sane. You enjoy sex as much as (or possibly even more than) the average person. You’re open minded, intelligent, and adventurous when exploring your sexuality. And while you never take things too far, you take them far enough!

No comment on whether or not this one is accurate.

But for those who may not get the results they desire I’ll just say that life can change one in the most intriguing ways. Youth is not necessarily all that it is cracked up to be.

Actually, during the last 2 years of high school my nickname (given to me by others) was Cookie Monster.

Found at The Itinerant Librarian.

You’re sweet (but not too sweet) and you fill other people’s lives with tasty bits of awesomeness. You’re no perfectionist – in fact, you’re a bit disorganized – but your friends find your easygoing personality irresistible. You’re so popular and loveable that even when you’re having a bad day, people still like having you around.

This is kind of funny because it is representative of me in some ways, but also wrong in so many others. Perhaps this misperception is what led to last week’s weirdness.

And where the heck are the walnuts on top of that cookie?

Via jennimi

I’m a Mandarin!

You’re an intellectual, and you’ve worked hard to get where you are now. You’re a strong believer in education, and you think many of the world’s problems could be solved if people were more informed and more rational. You have no tolerance for sloppy or lazy thinking. It frustrates you when people who are ignorant or dishonest rise to positions of power. You believe that people can make a difference in the world, and you’re determined to try.

Talent: 26%
Lifer: 41%
Mandarin: 74%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTP)

Your personality type is goofy, imaginative, relaxed, and brilliant.Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 6% of all menYou are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

Blame or credit for this one goes to Jennifer.

Hard to trust a 12-question personality test, but I think this is my “normal” Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Not that I need a quiz or test to tell me that I’m an oddball.

Of course, if I could let the goofy relaxed guy out a bit more often I could cement that view in other minds, too.

P.S. I only like my steak somewhat rare, too.

Found at in the hoosegow back in early April

Not sure what’s up with the red bars which should be in the boxes … nor do they really match up cause social nerd should only be about 3/4s across and the rest correspondingly less so. The last 2 were blank, though.

You’re The Sound and the Fury!

by William Faulkner

Strong-willed but deeply confused, you are trying to come to grips with a major crisis in your life. You can see many different perspectives on the issue, but you’re mostly overwhelmed with despair at what you’ve lost. People often have a hard time understanding you, but they have some vague sense that you must be brilliant anyway. Ultimately, you signify nothing.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Whoa, Nelly! Finally a quiz that gets it right; well, descriptively anyway. Seeing as I haven’t read it I can’t say regarding the work itself.

People often have a hard time understanding you, but they have some vague sense that you must be brilliant anyway. Ultimately, you signify nothing.

Found at Life as I Know It, who found it at John Miedema, who gets to be Siddhartha. Chilling out under a tree and believing in ferries. Now that is the life. Seeing as this is the only one of these three books that I’ve read I get those references.

Your Score: Loser- INTP

33% Extraversion, 66% Intuition, 66% Thinking, 40% Judging

Talked to another human being lately? I’m serious. You value knowledge above ALL else. You love new ideas, and become very excited over abstractions and theories. The fact that nobody else cares still hasn’t become apparent to you…

Nerd’s a great word to describe you, and I seriously couldn’t care less about the different definitions of the word and why you’re actually more of a geek than a nerd. Don’t pretend you weren’t thinking that. You want every single miniscule fact and theory to be presented correctly.

Critical? Sarcastic? Cynical? Pessimistic? Just a few words to describe you when you’re at your very best…*cough* Sorry, I mean worst. Picking up the dudes or dudettes isn’t something you find easy, but don’t worry too much about it. You can blame it on your personality type now.

On top of all this, you’re shy. Nice one, wench. No wonder you’re on OKCupid!
Now, quickly go and delete everything about “theoretical questions” from your profile page. As long as nobody tries to start a conversation with you, just MAYBE you’ll now have a chance of picking up a date. But don’t get your hopes up.

I am interested though. If a tree fell over in a forest, would it really make a sound?

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If you want to learn more about your personality type in a slightly less negative way, check out this.

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The other personality types are as follows…

Loner – Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving

Pushover – Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Criminal – Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving

Borefest – Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging

Almost Perfect – Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

Freak – Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging

Crackpot – Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Clown – Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving

Sap – Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Commander – Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving

Do Gooder – Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging

Scumbag – Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

Busybody – Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging

Prick – Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

Dictator – Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Your Score: Semicolon

You scored 30% Sociability and 64% Sophistication!

Congratulations! You are the semicolon! You are the highest expression of punctuation; no one has more of a right to be proud. In the hands of a master, you will purr, sneering at commas, dismissing periods as beneath your contempt. You separate and connect at the same time, and no one does it better. The novice will find you difficult to come to terms with, but you need no one. You are secure in your elegance, knowing that you, and only you, have the power to mark the skill or incompetence of the craftsman.

You have no natural enemies; all fear you.

And never, NEVER let anyone tell you that you cannot appear in dialogue!

Found at LibraryTavern

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: The Very Reverend Mark the Profuse of Nether Wombleshire Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Or:

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Count-Palatine Mark the Nimble of Greater Sodbury Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Take your pick!

I kind of like them both. Me a Reverend; now that is funny! But I’ll happily take “the Profuse.” As for “Count-Palatine,” well, I’ve lived in the Palatinate twice now, and my son was born there. I practically deserve to be a Count-Palatinate. Look at all the cool toys one would get to play with. And the dress clothes are far better than any interview suit and tie get-up. One’s kitchen might even come with flowery pots and pans; what more could a nimble knight of the Palatinate desire?