treasures

Karen tagged me with a book meme: perfect timing for the post-Katrina work I was doing today for Mom and Dad--finding somewhere to put their many, many books. The library of fifty-one years of married life features such things as old, scribbled-up children's books, mid-20th century books like "Christian Family Finances", various college texts: a Latin grammar used by Uncle Rene at Jesuit High, then by Aunt Maxine at Loyola U and Mom at Ursuline; philosophy texts (how many Kierkegaard anthologies does one family need?); various mystery novels (Dad, naturally, enjoys the legal thriller genre) and old Catholic classics: a leather-bound Imitation of Christ, a stack of titles by Father Raymond, OSCO, a variety of lives of saints (both full-length biographies and collections), a tenth anniversary edition of Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood, and what I think is a first edition of Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain (in very battered shape--but what author wants to see his works in mint condition 60+ years after printing?).

 

Here comes the meme; I tag Lisa, Sr. Julia (who promises she will revive her Best Catholic Books blog--because she has been verbally raving over several new titles that folks will want to know about), Lauren, Rae and Father Jeffrey.

 

1.  One book that changed your life:  Whatever the first board book was that my parents put in my chubby hands, telling me, "Books are our friends."

2.  One book that you've read more than once:  Only one? Try "Ignatius: the Pilgrim Saint" or Joseph Pieper "On Hope" for starters.

3.  One book you'd want on a desert island: Does the Bible count? It's how many, 76 books in one?

4.  One book that made you laugh:  Scientific Progress Goes "Boink" 

5. One book you wish had been written:  "My Life" by Jesus Christ (forward by Mary of Nazareth; epilogue by Paul of Tarsus).

One book you wish had never been written:  Jonathan Livingston Seagull.