Tagged by Kate

I stumbled, bleary-eyed and still half-asleep to the computer this morning to discover that Kate had tagged me.

Now that I'm slightly caffeinated:

Total number of books I own (I'm not going to count the DH's as well):

• 300 or so costume and textile books
• 300 0r so novels and a few non-fiction in the living room
• a stack of probably 100 category/series romances in a cupboard
  
• about 150 children's and YA books in another cupboard
• 200 or so academic history books
• 200 or so boring management/leadership etc books in a box in my car (I ran out of bookshelf, so they've been in the car for a month or so.)

Space is a bit of a premium around here, so I've culled the book collection several times in the past year. I've also been very broke, and haven't bought as many books as I'd like. But today is the first day of the Rotary book sale, and I'm going into town shortly, and can probably afford to actually spend about $30 on books ;-)

Last Book I bought: On Wednesday I bought Sharon Sala's Bloodlines and Merline Lovelace's The First Mistake. (No, not you, Miskate.)

Last Book I Read: You mean the one I started reading at the gym the other week and have put down somewhere and now can't find??? It's a romantic suspense. By What's-her-name. Big name. Came out a few years ago and I've borrowed it from the library. Must be in my car somewhere - the car DH refers to as the movable office.

Five books that Mean A Lot To Me: Only 5??? How am I supposed to pick 5 books from 40 years of reading???

Mister God This is Anna, by Fynn

Maid of the Abbey, by Elsie Oxenham - the first Abbey Girls book I ever read (aged about 9) and a lovely romance

Any book by Michael Leunig, Australian cartoonist/poet and beautiful soul

The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Le Guin

The Shiralee, by Darcy Niland - he worked in rural Australia in the 1950s and wrote evocatively of the time and the people. His male characters in particular are brilliantly drawn; tough, hard-working rural men - real alpha heroes with flaws written by a man who was one himself. (Author Ruth Park's two-volume autobiography of her life with husband Darcy Niland is also wonderful.)

Five people I'm tagging:
Amy, Claire, Joanna, Rae and Carrie

Edit: Darn, Kate already tagged Amy. So, Janice, if you've got a blog, you're tagged!