Book Meme

For you to fill out on your own and send to your friends, should you wish. I tried to stick to just one book, but failed miserably. But at least I was able to keep most answers limited to just TWO! Hopefully others will fare better and keep to just one.

I'm tagging Sparki and Honora for their lists. :) (Oops, I just checked and see that Honora already did this one.) I've got to get quicker. I'll also tag Cor Immaculatae.

1. One book that changed your life:
Henri Nouwen’s Return of the Prodigal Son. A book of reflection upon the Rembrandt painting of the same name and upon the well-known parable of Jesus. This is a book that I will read over and over again because it chronicles the journey we all take in our lives of living that parable. We, too, are on the journey from prodigal, to brother, to father. The other book would be The Soul of the Apostolate by Jean-Baptiste Chautard. This book introduced me to the importance of the interior life and how it is reflected in our outer lives and graces we receive and give to others. I first stumbled across it while on a silent weekend retreat in the library of Our Lady of Good Counsel Retreat House. (The website of which, by the way, I just finished adding the 2006-2007 retreat schedule to earlier this week. If you have never taken one, or are considering taking one, I highly encourage it.)

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, and The Christmas Box trilogy by Richard Paul Evans. Ok, so technically the Evans’ trilogy are three books, they all flow so seamlessly together that it’s hard to imagine any of them without the other.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
Well the Bible's a given so I would pick the Summa Theologica since if you can only have one book it might has well be a real big one. And if that’s too heavy to lug along, I’d settle for The Lord of the Rings. Or my multi-volume collection of Chesterton’s columns (click for sample) for the London Illustrated News during the 1910s, 20s, and 30s.

4. One book that made you laugh:
Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories: And Other Disasters, by Jean Shepherd. He’s the author whose works the movie “The Christmas Story” was based upon.

5. One book that made you cry:
The Twelfth Angel, by Og Mandino.

6. One book that you wish had been written:
The one that has been inside my head for the past four years…only partially outlined and one procrastinated on for far too long.

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
I’ve no idea. Probably Harlequin Romance “novels”.

8. One book you’re currently reading:
How about one book per room that I am current reading? I don’t even know where to start, how sad is that? I’m in the middle of about five right now. Ummm….1776, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Wonder Clock, and A Thread of Grace.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor. Flannery is one of my favorite authors, and as with Tolkien’s letters I find that having the opportunity to read the letters left behind by those who wrote well before the art of letterwriting fell into decay, is a fascinating exercise providing insights we’d never otherwise see.