Booky Meme

My Charming and Patient Husband tagged me with this book meme, so let's go to the library!


1. One book that changed your life?
The Gospel of Matthew. I was at a crossroads, having been inactive in my faith for several years, and beginning to feel a little guilty about it. I was in an invalid marriage, and like so many who would rather make excuses than own up to what they've done, I began to question my faith instead of questioning my decisions. I began deciding that the Church was wrong about divorce, and from there, about a number of other things. Then I read Matthew. One by one, my convictions that other faiths had it more right than my own were shattered, as I saw Church teachings laid out in black and white by Jesus Himself.

2. One book you have read more than once?
The winner would have to be Jane Eyre, at 7 times. It was my first "grown up" novel, back in fifth grade, and it was like pulling teeth for my mom to talk me into getting past a difficult passage in the first chapter. But when I finished (late one night, past bedtime, in the light streaming in from the hallway), I cried: not for the story, but because it had ended.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?
A very, very long one? Ok, maybe one of the poetry volumes from the Harvard Classics, or the complete works of John of the Cross.

4. One book that made you laugh?
Planet Idiot by Lindsey Stokes. Suffice it to say that if Dave Barry had been a housewife...

5. One book that made you cry?
Besides Jane Eyre? Clan of the Cave Bear.

6. One book you wish had been written?
A final book in the Earth's Children series that tells who Ayla's people are. And without that nasty habit Ms. Auel has fallen into of stressing proof of research over story. And where she leaves out the sexual details.

7. One book you wish had never been written?
The Kinsey studies. Even though it's now widely known to be fraudulent, people still quote and copy from it. Because of these made up studies, psychologists now feel justified in performing any manner of perversion, as long as it is in the name of research. I remember reading one psychology textbook that quoted extensively from Kinsey, and also went on to talk about infant orgasm research. Yes, infant. Now, the question of whether infants are capable of orgasm isn't what matters... it is the fact that some adult felt justified in molesting a child too small to protest, and instead of jail time got publication.

8. One book you are currently reading?
The Well-Educated Mind, by Susan Wise Bauer. A very good book about how to study great literature and get a lot out of it.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?
A River Runs through it. I've seen the movie and loved it. It also influenced my ideas about education.

Tagged: GOP Soccer Mom, Happy Catholic, and Paragraph Farmer.