Whilst I am awaiting the inspiration to write something more sensible I shall try and come up with suitably Laurentian answers to this parlour game to perplex and annoy.
So leaving out the Bible, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica as one is supposed to do when one lands on the desert Isle, in Roy Plomley's classic Desert Island Discs, here goes. Be prepared for books you have never heard of.
One book that changed my life
Well it is not books that change lives but what one does after one has read them, maybe the first book I ever read, was the one that changed my life most, changing me from an illiterate dyslexic to a child on the path to discovery
One book that you've read more than once
How about two books I've read more than twice, that would have to be something like Le Corbusier's la Ville Radieuse, and Ivor de Wofles (sic) Civilia I guess :)
One book you'd want on a desert island
A survival manual what else? With lots of spare pages you can use as tinder.
One book that made you laugh
DSM IV what else?
One book that made you cry
Books don't make me cry, onions do, maybe a textbook on onions if there is such a thing might make that cognitive leap.
One book you wish you had written
Well how do you know I haven't? I do not wish I had written other peoples books, I wish I had written my own.
One book you wish had never been written
I suppose the Empty Fortress by you know who:(
Other than that…
Anything by Fred Volkmar
One book you're currently reading
Er, I am reading the screen at the moment, anyway a recent blog will tell you one book I have recently read, currently I am attempting to wade through a swathe of books, including Hello Americans, which is a biography of Orson Welles by actor Simon Callow. I ordered the book after seeing him promote it at a literary event in Brum. Like as not it is so thick it will end up like the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbons, a book I shall never finish.
One book you've been meaning to read
Majia Holmer Nadesan (2005) Constructing Autism: Unravelling the 'truth'
Apparently it is a Larry sort of book, not a Kirby or a Lathe take on autism but a book about how the whole notion is socially constructed. I have managed to get the School of Education at Brum Uni to order it for the library, you see I have started being subversive at Birmingham already and I am not even onto the course yet :)
Oh yes and before I end let me add one of my own
One book you found particularly challenging
William Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, being as I was only seventeen when I read it in its original first edition dated 1655 in Latin, not having had the benefit of a public school education where one learns Latin at the end of a stick. Lots of fine pictures in it though and I do own a book of these being prints by Wenceslaus Hollar.
Now who shall I tag next?
Nobody that is far too social an activity for me to get my mind round:)
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4 comments:
Have met Nadesan and would like to know what you think of her book.
I didn't think of the DSM IV when I was tagged. Great choice!
"I have managed to get the School of Education at Brum Uni to order it for the library, you see I have started being subversive at Birmingham already and I am not even onto the course yet :)"
Heh... my experience at Brum has been that the subversive autie is kinda favoured, in a way... they look at what you say and how you back it up, rather than whether you toe any sort of party line in an issue. I'm out of the loop a bit, though... which award are you going for there? Last I knew you were on the UnivCert course, and you'd some interesting postings based on the work you did for that. Me, I'm about to submit my MEd thesis, and it is definitely a subversive piece of work... Kymenlaakso polytechnic isn't going to like it... and it's going to show the Finnish Psychological Association for the huan-qurs that they are (referring here to organising the profession), and the whole of the educational research establishment here will be somewhat fuh ktoff by it... since it is likely to show how hopelessly inadequate the Finnish system is when it comes to working with and for students experiencing specific learning difficulties and/or autistic difficulties as adults in educational settings.
All the best with your studies, Larry; my experience with Brum is that they like having us there... we're a breath of fresh air to them, and they are very interested in hearing what we say. With that approach, they are one of very few places in the world where that happens and I really do respect them for that.
David N. Andrews BA-status, PgCertSpEd (award pending, due to its subsumption into MEd degree to be awarded in Dec 2006, subject to submission of thesis),
Applied Educational Psychologist,
Kotka, Finland
Well they might be better than most Uni's with autism and best of the bunch of the others I applied to but they are still wanting.
It really annoys me that a colleague with the same qualifications as me (and less in other fields) is currently doing an Med at UCL but Brum were sticking to protocol. Of course my colleague is NT (not that I think that is the issue at all)
It comes down to finances in the end and I frankly I think that a certain Brum Uni owe both me and my colleague a fair amount more remuneration than they were prepared to offer for a certain deal.
I am really pissed off with the attitudes I have already met at Brum, in that I probably have a lot more ability than the average undergrad, but they keep to the ancient traditions and self serving exclusionary tactics that institutions such as Brum have always practiced against my class.
No it is not an autism issue at all, but a rank class one in my reckoning.
Those that have, get rewarded for it, those who don't have to pay and there is a limit to what I can afford. Academic equality, merit, no way, it is classist, ageist, and above all wealthist.
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