1. Total number of books I've owned.
The answer to this question is truly frightening. The current accurate census is about 15,000 this does not include last week's bookstore runs. Or the nearly 200 children's books I have waiting for me to bring home. In my life, given the very high turnover rate of my library previously I would guestimate that I have owned very close to 25,000 books.
I should note that a goodone third or so of these are my wife's collection of contemporary Romances/romantic thrillers, etc. Catherine Coulter, Amanda Quick, Jude Devereaux, J.D. Robb, etc. etc.
2. Last book I bought.
A Jesuit study of the books of Luke and Acts, the name of which escapes me at the moment.
3. Last book I read.
Captiva
4. Five books that mean a lot to me.
The KJV
The Riverside Shakespeare
The two-fold gems of the English language--unsurpassed and perhaps unsurpassable. Sorry GBS.
Ulysses James Joyce--for two reasons--the professor who taught the course said one very provocative thing that sent me in search of the truth he knew (The Catholic Church), and Joyce himself convinced me absolutely of the truth of the Catholic Faith in the context of the novel. He didn't mean to, but he couldn't really help it--grace always prevails.
Wilfrid Stinissen's Nourished by the Word: Reading God's Word Contemplatively
Carter Dickson Night at the White Priory Not because it was the best of the Sir Henry Merrivale but because it is the only one I own in a first edition signed copy.
And what provative thing was that?
Dear Jeff,
I had said one stupid thing or another about Joyce's attitude toward the Church and how I agreed with what he had to say about it. And this teacher (a Dubliner) said in his inimitable lilt, "Well, then, but we haven't come to the end of it yet." It in this context meaning life.
Sure, a toss-off comment--but here was Joyce's compatriot disagreeing with the genius. Here was a man for whom I had the greatest possible respect saying that perhaps one ought not to take Joyce's view quite as written. And then, I began to discover that as much as Joyce wrote and fought against the Church it informed his entire life and all of his work. His work is a monumental struggle to justify his life, and ultimately it fails. (Not the work, the justification.) Just as, at the end of the work Molly Bloom ends up saying "Yes, yes, yes," to the staid and dull Leopold Bloom, Joyce could only write "No" to the Church, he could not escape it. In this way he was the real Hazel Mote--Christ-haunted, Church haunted.
shalom,
Steven
Thanks for answering and very intesting that he was Christ-haunted, Church haunted. I have never read Joyce - I should add him to my list.
He sounds a bit like Oscar Wilde who also fought with the Church, though I believe converted on his deathbed.
Hey Steven,
I just began reading your blog, and noticed that you list The Riverside Shakespeare as a book that means a lot to you. I had listed the same on my blog, so we have that much in common :-).
Unrelatedly, I started reading the Spanish translation of a book by E. W. Trueman Dicken; the Spanish title is "La mística carmelitana" (Carmelite mysticism). You heard of it?
Dicken is an Anglican priest, but he writes very devoutly of Sts. Teresa and John of the Cross, and seems to very familiar with both Carmelite history and current Carmelite scholarship, at least in England.
Dear M. Thakur,
Thanks so much--that was a source with which I was not acquainted. If I can find it, I shall take a look at it. Thank you.
shalom,
Steven