Book tag!

Theresa Kiihn, Minnesotan extraordinare has tagged me. And so has one UK Confessional.

Number of books I own.
Being at the start of my book collecting days, I'd say we own about 400 or 500 books. I should own more, but for some reason I left books with my old roommate and sold back books to the bookstore that I should have kept. That darned hindsight...

Next book to buy:
The new Book of Concord. For sure. How can we call ourselves Lutherans without one? Plus I want to be certain that Olivia grows up knowing not only what we believe, but why it is so important. Thus, I think that Rob and I both need to know, even more so, why it is so important.

Currently Reading:
Nothing! Can you believe it? But, I guess in the summer an English Major needs to take a break. I'm planning on reading a couple of books any day now, though, and those are:

The Skystone, Jack Whyte. This was recommended to me by my friend Rachelle, it's historical fiction about pre-Arthurian Anglo-Saxon Europe.

The Iliad, Homer. That's right. I haven't read this yet. That's pretty bad. I keep picking it up and putting it down over the years. I am committed to reading it by the end of the year though.

Getting Things Done, David Allen. This is the book that has been eating all of Rob's time lately. He's actually "getting [more] things done" though, so I thought I'd better become more productive and stress-free myself.

Last book I read:
I'll give you two books. One I read for class, and the other I read because I know nothing about money, and it was a gift from Rob's mom.

The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke, Suze Orman. It was a bit "trendy" and almost tried too hard to make the reader feel like they deserved to be rich. But, it did a great job of teaching me about FICO and IRA and 401k, which was the ultimate goal of the book. I recommend it to young singles, the group it is actually targeted to. We weren't "fabulous" I suppose since we're married and have a baby and all.

A selection from Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory. It was great, and I recommend reading it in the original language since it is an easy transition to Middle English. The dialect is almost modern since it was written so late and after the printing press had really begun to standardize language. On a side note. When they teach you in school about the printing press, and why it was such an important invention, they don't explain the half of it. No one ever mentioned that the printing press played a vital role in the reformation, or in the standardization of language. All they ever said was "Now books were more common, and they didn't have to be written by hand anymore." Woohoo. That doesn't mean anything to kids. Then again, maybe the rest wouldn't either.

Books that have meant a lot to me:
There are so many.

The Bible, of course.

The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis. These books had me on the edge of my seat as a child. I wasn't from a very Christian family, though, so I had no idea. Then I read them again after becoming a Christian as an adult and I was shocked. Now I can't wait to read them to Olivia. I am purposely not reading them yet until she is old enough to understand. I really want to cheat though since the movies are coming out and I want to double check their accuracy.

The Spirituality of the Cross, Gene E. Veith. This was the first place that I saw a good reason to believe what the Catholics believed (at least in part) about the sacraments. I was raised Catholic, and even though every spark of faith that was in my family had fizzled out, when I returned to Christianity in the Modern Evangenerical church I knew something wasn't right about the purely memorial viewpoint on the supper and baptism. That was exactly what made it ok for me to be a Lutheran. I kind of already wanted to be one anyway, but that was the great excuse I had for making the leap.

Rob's journal. I don't know if he knows I've read this, but when I was hugely pregnant and feeling like junk, I was finishing moving in to our apartment and I came across the journal he was writing in when we met. He had a crush on me, but I was crazy. He also was slightly interested in this other girl we both knew. I was way too hot, though, so he picked me. No, I'm just kidding. He had said very shortly after meeting me that he was afraid and excited that I might be "The One" but he didn't know how it would work because I was so confused and not ready to date. I got to read through the process of my sanctification from his perspective. I got to see how his love for me grew, and how I grew to truly love him as well. It was truly moving, and it helped me feel a lot better about myself in my whale-state of pregnancy.

Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis. This book was loaned to me by one of the best friends I've had in my life. She loaned it to me for two years, in that time I read it twice. It was a good change to the Christian literature that I had read previously. It was the most meaningful to me because I realized that a book from a Christian perspective does not have to be "out-reach" oriented. A Christian can take the themes of their faith and write a great book about the state of humanity. I hope that I can write a book this good one day.

The Creighton Method of NFP. That's right. We do NFP. This was one of the most difficult decisions of our lives. (I couldn't find a good link to the book we use with our doctor, so this website I've never seen before will have to do. ) I have a fertility problem, and so I went to the doctor and we talked about the Creighton Method. We talked about birth control and we talked about what it really means to be pro-life. After reading this book we decided that we were definitely not using the pill, and we then further decided not to use any other method of contraception. That has made a huge impact on our marriage, it has changed the way we view sex, the way we view family, and the way we view vocation.

A book that changed my view of the world:
Go Ask Alice, Anonymous. I read this book as a confused teenager. It was frightening and comforting all at the same time. It was the personal journal of a teenage girl in the 60s. You can imagine what happened to her. I would say that it meant a lot to me because it changed my view of the world, but probably not for the best. After reading it I decided that I should run out to the west coast and open a jewelry boutique and become a hitch-hiker. The closest I ever came was selling my own jewelry at a Christian art show, and hitch-hiking on Nantucket Island for one day. That was fun, but not exactly what I had planned after reading this book. That probably is for the best.

Funny and Regional:
Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson. I grew up reading these. John H. reminded me of them. Watterson lives about 15 minutes from us, and as far as I know he always has. So there you go, Two topics with one book.

Western Culture:
The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer. How can you not love the English language after reading this? It's vital to the history of our language, and Chaucer did such an amazing job of proving it was worth being revived. Mmmm. Plus the Parson is an awesome character when juxtaposed with the Pardoner. That's a great view of the extremes of medieval Catholicism.

The Norton Anthology of American Literature. I love anthologies. This was specifically important in my life because it has tons of work by Jonathan Edwards. While Rob and I were briefly skirting Calvinism I was extremely put off my how many Reformed love Edwards. I think he's a crazy mystic and legalist. That is one of the factors into why I couldn't be Reformed.

This anthology also has Emerson, Poe, Hawthorne, Dickenson, and Melville. All of this will come in handy if I ever homeschool or teach literature in a charter school, both of which are possibilities for my future.

Embarrassing:
I don't have anything that I can think of that I am embarrassed to have as a favorite. But I do have a ton of books that I am embarrassed to have in my library, so that is what I will make a list of.

The Purpose Driven Life
A Max Lucado Collection
3 copies of My Utmost of His Highest
2 copies of I Kissed Dating Goodbye
Every Man's Battle

I'm not going to go through trouble of making those hyper-links. If anyone is interested in finding them, I'm sure you can figure it out.

And the topic that I want to add...
My favorite book as a child:
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll. My mom had an old leather bound copy which I have stolen. I have read this book more than 30 times. I will definitely read it to Olivia. This is on the top of the list for me when it comes to fantasy. Well, I guess LOTR is pretty top notch, too, but I didn't read that until after I met Rob.

Now I have to tag people. I was going to tag John, but it's too late now, so I tag...
Andy Stager
Twylah (If you don't think you should do it on HWS then you can post it here, or completely avoid the issue)
Erica Olson

Hope my response wasn't too boring, and I can't wait to read the next people's answers! This is such a good idea.