Meme?

books
Originally uploaded by mincaye.

I have no idea what a Meme is, but since Sivin tagged me, I shall respond. OK, he tagged me on 9th August, so this is really late... sorry!


1)Total number of books you own

I don't know the exact number, either, but I'll let the photos do the talking. Behind each book is another book, to conserve space. Nowhere near Sivin's number, at any rate!

2)The last book you bought

Hmmm... let me see. I think it was C.S. Lewis' Poems, a rather extensive collection edited by his ex-secretary Walter Hooper, an American residing in Oxford.

Discovered it in MPH Jusco Taman Maluri, Cheras. It includes some of the works written before he became a Christian.

3)The last book you read

I, too, tend to read several books at once.

At the moment, I'm working on Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie and T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Other Poems, with some of C.S. Lewis' The Weight of Glory and other Addresses thrown in now and then.

The last book I finished reading, if I'm not mistaken, was Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven.

4)Five books that mean a lot to me

First, the ones that didn't make it:

C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man and Brian McLaren's Finding Faith. Great books, but not in the top five.

I choose the following because of the pivotal role they played in challenging not only my thinking, but also (and perhaps more importantly) my writing:

Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. Written so inventively that the most important points are made indirectly. A great source of encouragement. (Presently with Tee Ming).

Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. A work of much simplicity, and yet it's evident that most of the great thoughts from his other works appear within its pages.

T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. Probably the finest work of poetry I have read thus far, and a great influence on my own poems.

Max Lucado's He Chose the Nails. The first book I remember buying from the Christianity section, and one of the best. I still owe whatever writing skill I have to Max. (Presently with Tee Ming's friend).

Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy. I haven't finished reading it yet, but it got me thinking about righteousness and living not just a good life, but the God-life. Presents a very compelling case for a godly sense of ethics.

5)Tag five people and have them fill this out on their blogs

OK, here goes:

Soo Tian
David
Su Lin
Li-Shia
Denise