{"id":3987,"date":"2005-04-18T09:16:10","date_gmt":"2005-04-18T13:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3987.html"},"modified":"2005-04-18T09:16:10","modified_gmt":"2005-04-18T13:16:10","slug":"succumbing-to-peer-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/succumbing-to-peer-pressure\/","title":{"rendered":"Succumbing to peer pressure…"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was only a matter of time. The dreaded book-list questionnaire had been making the rounds and I knew it’d reach me eventually. Yesterday, my friend Dr. Laniac put me to the challenge<\/a>, which I have accepted. I hope no one is too terribly disappointed with my selections.<\/p>\n

1. You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?<\/b><\/p>\n

I’ve seen a variety of explanations for what this question is really asking. Some suggest it’s about the book one would literally memorize, others not. If it’s the prior, I’d go with John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government<\/a>. It’s not only brilliant, it’s short. If memorization isn’t part of the exercise, the first book that comes to mind is Original Meanings<\/a> by Jack Rakove. If I’m stuck in this dystopia, I figure it’s a good idea to have an excellent book on the Constitution, and this is one of my favorites.<\/p>\n

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?<\/b><\/p>\n

Sorry, but the idea has never even occurred to me.<\/p>\n

3. The last book you bought is?<\/b><\/p>\n

It’s been a couple of months because I’ve been catching up on some books that have sat on the to-be-read shelf for a while. This may seem silly, but I’m fairly certain the last book I bought was America: The Book<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4. What are you currently reading?<\/b><\/p>\n

I just wrapped up a few, including the paperback version of Cicero<\/a> by Anthony Everitt, Clinton & Me<\/a> by Mark Katz (a very funny autobiography by a Clinton\/Gore speechwriter), and Cassandra French’s Finishing School for Boys<\/a> by Eric Garcia (a terrific novel written by a friend of mine from high school). Next up: Rick Perlstein’s Before the Storm<\/a>. I know, I know, I’m getting to it about two months after it was the buzz of the blogosphere, but better late than never, right?<\/p>\n

5. Five books you would take to a deserted island?<\/b><\/p>\n

This was a tough one. Honestly, my first thought focused on books pertaining to survival techniques, first aid, and how best to build a sea-worthy raft. That, however, didn’t seem to keep with the spirit of the exercise. My second thought was on what I’d hope to get from these books. Should I take texts I haven’t read? Funny books to keep up my spirits on during desolate isolation? Thought-provoking books to help give me something to do? In the end, these are the five that I came up with:<\/p>\n

* Bleak House<\/a> by Charles Dickens
\n* Catch 22<\/a> by Joseph Heller
\n* The Years of Lyndon Johnson<\/a> by Robert Caro (Yes, combining all three volumes into one choice. Can I do that?)
\n* A Preface to Morals<\/a> by Walter Lippmann
\n* Dante’s Inferno<\/a> (the Robert Pinsky translation, of course)<\/p>\n

6. Who are you going to pass this (questionnaire) to and why?<\/b><\/p>\n

It’s not really my style to embrace the whole chain-meme thing, but I wouldn’t mind seeing what Morbo, my weekend guest poster, has to say in response to these questions, in addition to thoughts from you, my dear readers, in the handy-dandy comments section below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was only a matter of time. The dreaded book-list questionnaire had been making the rounds and I knew it’d reach me eventually. Yesterday, my friend Dr. Laniac put me to the challenge, which I have accepted. I hope no one is too terribly disappointed with my selections. 1. You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}