Since I've been tagged by Scottyd...

I've completed the form, but not in triplicate.

Number of Books I own:

At the time of posting, 308, not including my phone books.

Last Book(s) I bought:

Theological Worlds: Understanding the Alternative Rhythms of Christian Belief by W. Paul Jones

From the back cover:

By exploring five common Christian perspectives ("theological worlds"), this volume helps readers understand the basis of their own Christian attitudes, identify the sources of their confusion about life and the church, and come to a deeper appreciation of the assumptions and motivations of others.

Last book(s) I read: see above

Five books that mean a lot to me:

This was difficult, so I have grouped pairs of books into five categories. Perhaps this will offer a snapshot into the person I am.

1. Modern Malaises:
   
   The Way of the (modern) World by Craig M. Gay
   
   In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life by Robert Kegan
   
   from Review by Michael Waters:
   
   Craig Gay has penned one of the most penetrating analyses of the mutual reciprocity involved in the interplay between faith and culture. He is especially astute in delineating the subtle effects popular culture has on faith and practice. Even though he analyzes the faith-culture milieu through the lens of Christianity, many of the conclusions he makes are valid whenever faith clashes with the tidal wave of culture, such as we have in the West.

   ---

   from the back cover:
   
   As parents and partners, employees and bosses, citizens and leaders, we constantly confront a bewildering array of expectations as well as a confusing assortment of exptert opinions on what each of these roles entails. Surveying the expert "literatures", Robert Kegan brings them together to reveal, for the first time, what these many demands have in common.
   
   
2. Involving Interactions:
   
   Care of Persons, Care of Worlds: A Psychosystems Approach to Pastoral Care and Counseling by Larry Kent Graham
   
   Women Caught in the Conflict: The Culture War Between Traditionalism and Feminism by Rebecca M. Groothuis
   
   Book Description:
   
   Care of Persons, Care of Worlds constructs a comprehensive social and systemic foundation for pastoral caretaking, which will be an invaluable guide for the activities of parish ministers and counseling practitioners. Graham's model better interprets and responds to the interplay between individuals and the larger cultural and environmental realities which contribute to their distress and its transformation.

   ---

   This is a well-documented, carefully argued, and civil discussion of the relationship between Christianity and feminism. The author convincingly shows that not all feminism is alike, and that biblical feminists (or egalitarians) have not capitulated to secular trends. She outlines how egalitarians can base their thinking squarely on the Bible itself. She continues her analysis in the sequel, Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender Equality (Baker Books, 1997), which addresses the theological issues in more depth.
   
   Reviewed by Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, Denver Seminary
   
   
   
3. Close Conversions:
   
   Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism by Merold Westphal
   
   Skeptics and True Believers: The Exhilarating Connection between Science and Religion by Chet Raymo
   
   Card Catalog Description:
   
   While skepticism directs its critique to the truth or evidential basis of belief, suspicion asks two different, intimately intertwined questions: what are the motives that lead to this belief? and what function does it play, what work does it do for the individuals and communities that adopt it? What suspicion suspects is that the survival value of religious beliefs depends on satisfying desires and interests that the believing soul and the believing community are not eager to acknowledge because they violate the values they profess, as when, for example, talk about justice is a mask for deep-seated resentment and the desire for revenge. For this reason, the hermeneutics of suspicion is a theory, or group of theories, of self-deception: ideology critique in Marx, genealogy in Nietzsche, and psychoanalysis in Freud.--

   ---

   from the Publisher's Weekly review:
   
   Responding in part to the rise of millennial-driven New Age spirituality, Raymo (Honey from Stone: A Naturalist's Search for God) writes along the tender edges of mystery that bind off objective science from religious faith. Using a light journalistic style, Raymo seeks to find some common ground upon which to construct mutual appreciation between science and religion. Sources diverse as John Donne, Charles Darwin, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Albert Einstein enliven the discussion.
   
   
4. Abstract Adventure:
   
   Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
   
   The Atlas of Experience by Louise van Swaaji, Jean Klare, David Winner (Translator)
   
   from Amazon.com's review:
   
   Twenty years after it topped the bestseller charts, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is still something of a marvel. Besides being a profound and entertaining meditation on human thought and creativity, this book looks at the surprising points of contact between the music of Bach, the artwork of Escher, and the mathematics of Gödel. It also looks at the prospects for computers and artificial intelligence (AI) for mimicking human thought. For the general reader and the computer techie alike, this book still sets a standard for thinking about the future of computers and their relation to the way we think.

   ---

   Book Description:
   
   An illustrated guide to the most adventurous journey there is: Life.
   
   Human beings have long been addicted to maps: they tell us where we are, how we got where we are, and where we are going next. But The Atlas of Experience is no ordinary book of maps.
   
   While adhering to the conventions of cartography, this atlas invites the traveler to follow routes through familiar-looking topography into hitherto uncharted realms of imagination, ideas, feelings and experience.
   
   Cradled by the Ocean of Possibilities, the Sea of Plenty and Still Waters, this strangely familiar place has its capital Boom, its airports Escape and Freedom. It encompasses beautiful regions like the Peninsular of Pleasure as well as desolate wastes such as the Swamps of Boredom and the Bay of Melancholy. Then again there are the well-known Mountains of Work and the Safe Harbour of Home. And what about the Volcanoes of Passion and the border towns of Challenge and Doubt? That's The Atlas of Experience the very special travel book that takes you on the long journey to where you are.
   
   [related link: World of Experience]
   
   
5. Perspective Possibilities:
   
   Since I have a very small fiction collection, I included these two because they have inspired both my analytical and creative sides.
   
   The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
   
   Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
   
   From the Inside Flap:
   
   From “A Scandal in Bohemia,” in which Sherlock Holmes is famously outwitted by a woman, the captivating Irene Adler, to “The Five Orange Pips,” in which the master detective is pitted against the Ku Klux Klan, to “The Final Problem,” in which Holmes and his archenemy, Professor Moriarty, face each other in a showdown at the Reichenbach Falls, the stories that appear in The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes bear witness to the flowering of author Arthur Conan Doyle’s genius. “The plain fact,” the celebrated mystery writer Vincent Starrett asserted, “is that Sherlock Holmes is still a more commanding figure in the world than most of the warriors and statesmen in whose present existence we are invited to believe.”

   ---

   From Amazon.com:
   
   When Marilla Cuthbert's brother, Matthew, returns home to Green Gables with a chatty redheaded orphan girl, Marilla exclaims, "But we asked for a boy. We have no use for a girl." It's not long, though, before the Cuthberts can't imagine how they could ever do without young Anne of Green Gables--but not for the original reasons they sought an orphan. Somewhere between the time Anne "confesses" to losing Marilla's amethyst pin (which she never took) in hopes of being allowed to go to a picnic, and when Anne accidentally dyes her hated carrot-red hair green, Marilla says to Matthew, "One thing's for certain, no house that Anne's in will ever be dull."
   

Tagged:

Supposedly I'm supposed to tag 5 people...so, if you want to,

• Been There...Still There
  
• Menopausal Bi-Polar Witch Babbling
  
• Reflective Musings
  
• The Cathy J Weblog
  
• Paranoid Left-Wing Ranting