Fire and Knowledge

I got "tagged" for a "meme" by Amanda at Foreword. I don’t normally do anything like this, but I’ll make my first life exception because it is about books. And I like books. Too much.

Number of Books I Own

I would guess somewhere between [update: 600-800], but I don’t have them counted at this point. A little over five large bookshelves worth. But I’m still young and have time to accumulate many many more.

Last Book I Bought

Last week I picked up The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe by Elizabeth L. Eisenstein.

Last Book I Read

I finished my second reading of The Lord of the Rings (this time in the beautiful 50th anniversary edition) and my first reading of All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes about the same time (two days ago).

Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me

• The Bible. This triggered the "first revolution" in my life, and I became a Christian in 1998.
• Desiring God and The Pleasures of God by John Piper. These books triggered the "second revolution" in my life, and I embraced the doctrines of grace in 2001. For those who don’t know, that means I’m a card-carrying Calvinist.
• Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. I read this book for the first time last November (2004), and it triggered the "third revolution" in my life, when the bias of mediums were finally revealed to me. I think of almost everything differently now, and am better for it (although that depends on who you ask).
• Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp. Even though I am not a parent (yet!), this book heavily influenced my thinking about how to parent, shepherd, and discipline.
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I had to include one fiction book. This book began my journey of reading and enjoying Dickens and other great novelists. I plan to re-read it sometime this year.

Who’s Next?

I hate spreading this virus to someone else, so I give my apologies in advance to Justin Taylor.