I'm Always Ready to Talk about Books

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Book Meme

1. One book that changed your life: Honestly, I'm not certain there are any, the closest might be Tom Sawyer or Winesburg, Ohio.

2. One book that you've read more than once:
See above and add to it Turn of the Screw by Henry James

3. One book you'd want on a desert island:
(excepting the Bible) Tom Sawyer or perhaps Robinson Crusoe (might be something useful there).

4. One book that made you laugh:
The Wit and Wisdom of Oscar Wilde

5. One book that made you cry:
The Kite Runner and I was on the plane-trip home--how embarrassing.

6. One book that you wish had been written:
A really good ghost story like those of M.R. James--either a collection or a novel.

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
The Kinsey Report

8. One book you're currently reading:
The Book of the Dead

9. One book you've been meaning to read:
Gilead--tried three times now to get enough of a running start to get through it--failed miserably.

And I pass this on to TSO, if He's willing, Brandon S., who could answer in the comments, and Zippy, if he has the time and inclination.

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3 Comments

Do you mean me? (S is my middle initial). I was out of town last week, and I'm just plowing through last week's emails, aa task which is complicated by the fact that my campus email service is upgrading equipment this week. But if you do mean me, let me get to it later this morning.

(I've never been tagged before; this is quite an honor).

Okay, here goes. (I didn't think I'd ever be picked for one of these, seeing as I don't have a 'blog)

One book that changed my life: I'd have to say Tao Te Ching translated by John Wu. Three reasons: (1) this book was what got me into spirituality when I was in high school, (2) one of the blurbs on the back by some guy named Thomas Merton, and so I started looking at his stuff in the religion section, and (3) I found out much later that John Wu attributed his conversion to Christianity to St. Therese of Liseaux, my wife's patron saint. Around the time that I had picked up this book, my wife's teen club priest had told her that she should pray for her future spouse, and she started doing that. I suspect her prayers (and St. Therese's) were what got me to pick up the book in the first place.

One book that you've read more than once: The Secret of the Rosary by St. Louis de Montefort. In fact, a while back, Tom posted something about a "spiritual companion book" that you re-read every so often along your spiritual journey, and I think this is the closest that I've got currently.

One book that I'd want on a desert island: Hmm... How about something along the lines of a Boy Scout Survival guide? I never was a Boy Scout, so I don't know if such a thing exists.

One book that made you laugh: All of the Peanuts strip collections that I own. I'm an avid follower/reader of comic strips, and Charles Schultz is one of the greats.

One book that made you cry: I can only think of two books that have made me actually cry. The first was Our Town by Thornton Wilder, when Emily says the bit about "Why don't we just look at each other?", and the second was The Notebook by Nicholas Spark, (at the "Who are you?" part) which my mother bought for everyone in the family when my grandfather was dying of Alzheimer's disease. (I saw a lady reading this in an airline terminal, and she started crying in the middle of it).

One book that you wish had been written: Hmm... I've got several ideas for books that I'd like to write, but I've got no idea whether or not publishing houses would agree.

One book that you wish had never been written: What to Expect in the First Year. <rant> A horribly wishy-washy approach to dispensing parenting advice that ends up saying absolutely nothing and giving parents a lot of garbage passed off as workable advice. Apparently the What to Expect When You're Expecting was mostly biological/medical information that was correct, making this follow-up even worse because then the authors were passed off as experts. (How being a medical expert makes you qualified to be a parenting expert is beyond me.) <⁄rant&rt;

One book you're currently reading: Patrick in his own words translated by someone Duffy (an Irish Bishop, I think). I picked it up for €5 from a used bookstore when I was in Ireland this summer, and it includes the original Latin and a translation to Gaelic in the appendix.

One book you've been meaning to read: Albert and Thomas by Simon Tugwell. It's huge, and so I haven't wanted to bring it with me anywhere, so it's still sitting barely started on the bookshelf in my living room.

This includes a lot more extraneous information that strictly requested, but this is far enough down Steven's main page that I don't think it's in danger of being read by many.

Here goes as well:

1. One book that changed your life: Halakhic Man by Joseph Soloveitchik

2. One book that you've read more than once: Halakhic Man by Joseph Soloveitchik

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: The Talmud

4. One book that made you laugh: Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book by Walker Percy

5. One book that made you cry: Cyrano De Bergerac

6. One book that you wish had been written: The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson

7. One book that you wish had never been written:

8. One book you're currently reading: Selected Poems by Robert Duncan

9. One book you've been meaning to read:
Collected Poems of William Wordsworth

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This page contains a single entry by Steven Riddle published on August 2, 2006 1:36 PM.

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