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Tagged with the Book Meme

June 8th, 2005 Leave a comment Go to comments

Dale has tagged me with the Book Meme, so here goes …

1. Total number of books I’ve owned.

Oy. I have no idea — I tend to count this in terms of “number of bookshelves required” or “number of boxes needed on moving day.” I keep purging, but there doesn’t seem to be much more room in the house.

A quick visual SWAG says about 2,000 downstairs, plus probably another 500-1,000 upstairs (this counts the kid’s library and homeschooling materials).

I’ve probably given away or sold almost this much previously, so let’s say a lifetime total of around 4,000 books.

I have said before that my Dances With Wolves name should be “Reads Too Much.”

2. Last book I bought.

My last book purchase was a career-related twofer, The Basics of FMEA and Building Embedded Linux Systems.

Due to space and time limits, I’ve learned to make good use of the library, so my bookbuying is well off the pace that it was at B(efore) C(hildren).

3. Last book I read.

Not Dies the Fire, but that’s because I’ve moved on while desperately awaiting publication of The Protector’s War. (Remember what I said about “Reads Too Much”?)

This is tough, because I tend to juggle a few at once. The last two books I completed are All Flesh Is Grass: The Pleasures and Promise of Pasture Farming and The Contrary Farmer’s Invitation to Gardening, both by Gene Logsdon. Other books I am currently working through are Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationshiop with God by Dallas Willard, Good and Angry: Exchanging Frustration for Character … in You and Your Kids! by Turansky and Miller, Is This Your Child’s World? How You Can Fix the Schools and Homes That Are Making Your Children Sick by Doris Rapp, and The Java Developer’s Guide to Eclipse by Shavor, et al.

Why yes, there was a reason I named this blog Eclectic Amateur …

4. Five books that mean a lot to me.

Aside from the Bible, which gets to be at the top in a category of its own, here are some that come to mind:

  1. The Lord of the Rings. Read umpteen times in sixth grade and then some after that. It’s still one of my regrets that I haven’t learned to write in tengwar.
  2. The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis. Heck, everything by C. S. Lewis.
  3. By What Authority? An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition by Mark Shea. Sorry, Mark — I don’t rate you quite up there with Professors Tolkien and Lewis. But, this little book was very helpful to me in articulating my view on sola scriptura, which of course has had other ripple effects …
  4. The Imitation of Christ. I would be a much better person if I reread this more often.
  5. The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry.
  6. Anything by G. K. Chesterton.

OK, so that’s more than five. 🙂

5. Next!

Hey Bubbles, you there?

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