Booking through Thursday

Many blogs are providing "memes," which are technically ideas or behaviors which spread from person to person within a culture. In the blogging world, a meme is a writing prompt - sometimes humorous, sometimes thought-provoking - which originates at one blog and then becomes the basis for posting at other blogs. Last Friday, I used a modified form of the meme "Fill-In Friday."


Today, let's do "Booking through Thursday." The home blog is btt2.wordpress.com You may post your responses in the Comments section there, as I hope you will post them in the same place here.


BBT has only one question this week:


What is the best book you have never read? Because I've been dealing with a difficult to treat neurological condition since August, I'm opting for humor. The best book I've never read is yet to be published. It is George Carlin's Parting Shots: Still Laughing, to be published this spring. Yes, Carlin can be vulgar and raw; but he "has a way with words" unlike any other comedian. Others have shown flashes of his brilliance, but Carlin is FUNNY. Sometimes the thing I need most, even from a book, is a good belly laugh.


I would also add in the 'need to read humor' category e. e. cumming's Complete Poems, 1904-62. Again, cummings had a wonderfully imaginative way with words. Have you discovered serious poetry as a 'serious' source of humor?


Finally, I want to acknowledge my love of haiku by mentioning the four volume set Haiku by R. H. Blyth, originally published in English between 1949 and 1952. Blyth had an excellent understanding of Japanese culture. He spent part of WWII in a Japanese internment camp, and was even invited to tutor the Crown Prince. He recognized the dominant influence of Zen Buddhism in Japanese arts. These combined experiences produced fine translations of Japanese poetry.


Among the first to be influenced by Blyth's work were the Beat Poets in San Francisco and New York. Blyth remains a formative source for American haiku poetry today. I've not read the four volume set, but I plan to do so.