The Books tag.

Derek Melleby has tagged me to answer the Books questionaire...

How many books do you own?
Counting only books on the shelves or on the floor next to shelves (ie, not in cartons in the attic), and only books thick enough to have titles on the spines, we have over 1,400 titles. Keep in mind that we homeschooled four children, so have many juvenile titles (think Newberry titles.)

What was the last book you bought?
I'm not certain, but in the "read next" pile are Lauren Winner's Real Sex, Guinness' Unspeakable, McIntyre's After Virtue, and Nahim's An Imaginary Tale: The Story of i (square root of -1).

What's the last book you read?
The last book I completed was Wendell Berry's The Memory of Old Jack. Almost finished Colson and Cameron's Human Dignity in the Biotech Century.

What are the five books that mean the most to you?
This is really hard. As if one book I will list all the essays of C. S. Lewis, especially those in Weight of Glory and The Problem of Pain. If there is one writer whose thoughts and examples I quote or contemplate most often, it would be Lewis. In fiction, I suppose the Lord of the Rings might be best beloved, together with Paton's Cry the Beloved Country. Very influential in my appreciation of poetry was Carl Sandburg (when I was very young) and T. S. Eliot (especially Four Quartets) when I reached middle age. My favorite Biblical commentator would be C. H. Spurgeon (or possibly Boice), and my favorite book of the Bible would be Ecclesiastes. I realize that I have not specified many titles, but I guess I orient more to authors than specific titles.

I do not have a very wide blog world, and most of those I know of have already been tagged. I'd be interested in hearing from my sons who have public blogs, David and Daniel, and a near-son, Justin Cave.