Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 2:05am

So Many Books

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I assume that all readers of this blog are probably book lovers.  Here are my answers to a favorite book meme that has been floating around the internet for years:

1. One book that changed your life: A Canticle for Leibowitz. An extended meditation on History and the role of the Church in History disguised as a first rate science fiction novel.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Lord of the Flies.

4. One Book that Made You Laugh: Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague DeCamp. A hilarious time travel novel where the protagonist seeks to stop the conquest of Italy by Belisarius in the Sixth century.

5. One book that made you cry: The Bible when reading any of the Passion narratives.

6. One Book You Wish Had Been Written: Joshua, My Life and Times.

7. One Book You Wish Hadn’t Been Written: Das Kapital.

8. One Book You’ve Been Meaning to Read: The latest tomes in the Cambridge Ancient History series.

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Jonathan
Jonathan
Monday, April 4, AD 2016 5:02am

1. One book that changed your life: Doors of the Sea

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Lord of the Rings.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Lord of the Rings.

4. One Book that Made You Laugh: Going Postal.

5. One book that made you cry: Doors of the Sea

6. One Book You Wish Had Been Written: A History of the Outer Banks

7. One Book You Wish Hadn’t Been Written: No Idea

8. One Book You’ve Been Meaning to Read: Personal Knowledge, Polanyi

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, April 4, AD 2016 5:42am

FYI: Erasmus wrote In The Praise of Folly, which I was required to read in college.
.
Sadly, I don’t have good answers for too many of the questions.
.
1. Changed life: The Gospels.
2. One book repetitively: Too Many. Say, The Odyssey.
3. Desert island: Heart of Darkness.
4. Laugh: ?
5. Cry: a Joyce short story from Dubliners, “Counterparts.”
6. Wish had been written: True History of the Democrat Party.
7. Hadn’t been written: None.
8. Will read whatever catches my eye in the Public Library new book shelf.

Philip
Philip
Monday, April 4, AD 2016 7:37am

I am a book lover however the books I’m drawn to are religious in nature. Admittedly, I was a late bloomer to good reading. Here are my picks;

1.) Life changing book. Will to Love. St. Maximilian Kolbe.

2.) One book that you’ve read multiple times.
Death on a Friday Afternoon. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus.

3.) Island read. The entire volumes of Maria Valtorta’s The poem of the Man-God.
This book also counts for question #5. Tears.

4.) Laugh. Small Miracles / and Small Miracles II. By Yitta Halberstam and Judith Leventhal. ( God gets the last laugh and tear in this marvelous collection of stories. One of my favorites when I’m feeling burned out or in need of a pick-me-up.)

6.) Wish had been written. The Lambs Supper by Scott Hahn.

Can’t answer 7 and 8. Yet.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Monday, April 4, AD 2016 7:46am

Canticle for Leibowitz may yet prove to be prophetic. We seem to be at the end of the stage of Fiat Voluntas Tua, having passed through Fiat Homo and Fiat Lux some time ago. Sadly, however, we have no Quo Peregrinatur aboard which we may escape the coming destruction. But that was 3781 and this is 2016. Sic transit mundus.

Philip
Philip
Monday, April 4, AD 2016 8:01am

Hummm. Thanks Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.
I just read the short Amazon review from Paul Hughes. This fiction could become non-fiction, but I hope it never does.
Looks like a good read.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Monday, April 4, AD 2016 9:06pm

Book that changed my life: Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace
Book read multiple times: The Screwtape Letters
Book for a desert island: my college textbook with the complete works of Shakespeare (it was hardbound and weighed about 20 pounds but there’d be no worry about running out of material)
Book(s) that made me laugh: the “Edge” series of Westerns by George Gilman. They were so riddled with cliches and bad puns that my husband figured he could do better — and that’s how we got into the self-publishing business 🙂
Book that made me cry: Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally
Book I wish had been written: The Catholic Church, Slavery and the Civil War. (I may have to write it myself)
Book(s) I wish hadn’t been written: Mein Kampf and Rules for Radicals
Book(s) I’ve been meaning to read: The later works of the American Winston Churchill, including “The Inside of the Cup”.

TomD
TomD
Tuesday, April 5, AD 2016 12:49am

Canticle for Leibowitz is a book that should be more widely read. It is definitely in the top 10 that I’ve purchased as gifts.
BTW, the husband of the woman who introduced me to my wife has a first hardback edition, and so I learned that later editions have a typo that has propagated throughout the years. Most editions near the end have a line where the abbot tells a young monk “Take your oaths on this side of the sign”; the first edition reads “Take your baths on this side of the sign”.

Pedro Erik
Tuesday, April 5, AD 2016 2:33pm

1. One book that changed your life: Orthodoxy, by Chesterton.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Don Quixote, by Cervantes.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Summa Theologica by Aquinas

4. One Book that Made You Laugh: Don Quixote.

5. One book that made you cry: Divine Comedy by Dante

6. One Book You Wish Had Been Written: The Lord of the World, by father Robert Benson.

7. One Book You Wish Hadn’t Been Written: Books by Luther or Calvin.

8. One Book You’ve Been Meaning to Read: The Lord of the Ring.

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