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Google tells me that "Memes are contagious ideas, all competing for a share of our mind in a kind of Darwinian selection. As memes evolve, they become better and better at distracting and diverting us from whatever we'd really like to be doing with our lives. They are a kind of Drug of the Mind. Confused? Blame it on memes."
I'd say that they are a common framework where folks get to fill in the blanks pertinent to their own life. And then they get to pass it on for others to participate. An Internet chain letter of a sort, but the juicy details don't get passed on. Only the framework.
Anyhow, Adoro tagged me:
1. One book that changed your life:
“Theology and Sanity” by F.J. Sheed. I bought the book in 1964 at a time when I wasn’t going to Church but had not really abandoned my faith. I figured I’d come back some day. It was recommended to me by a friend who was in the Graduate School of Theology at Marquette University; He later got his PhD from Berkeley and now is a Professor of Theology.
I started the book but couldn’t get beyond the first chapter. But I kept it with me. I even took it to Europe when I went there in the Army, didn’t read it there, brought it back home in 1968, kept it, still not read, dabbled a lot in the 70s in the New Age movement, finally, in September of 1981, upon the completion of yet another New Agey thing, picked the book up at about 3:00 one morning and pretty much read it from cover to cover within that day. Within two weeks I had gone to Confession and Communion and had begun my reversion to God’s Church.
2. One book that you've read more than once:
“War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy. The first time, in high school, just to say I did it because it was so long; then two more times because I enjoyed it; I’m a history nut. I just might pick it up again one of these days.
3. One book you'd want on a desert island:
”How to Swim a Really Long Way” by Johnny Weissmuller
4. One book that made you laugh:
Anything by P.G. Wodehouse; I’ve been searching for a bottle of “Buck-U-Uppo” for over twenty years now. If anybody knows where I can get some, I’d sure be appreciative. His flair for the language can make me stop and read a sentence or phrase many times, savoring it, before continuing his light-hearted tales.
5. One book that made you cry:
”Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt. I’m half Irish from County Kerry near Limerick where the book took place and even though it was 50 years after the time when my ancestors left for America, the sadness of their poverty stricken life in Ireland really hit me hard. And Ireland was that way pretty much until these past 20 years. I visited relatives there in 1967, and you could tell that they were still living a hardscrabble existence. Unfortunately, now that they have a little money, the first thing that they seem to be changing is their faith.
6. One book that you wish had been written:
I’ve spent a great deal of time in the past 30 years researching my family history. I’ve enjoyed the research as I’m a history nut, as I’ve mentioned. But it would have been neat if someone had written a great novel with lots of details on what it was like to be an Irish Catholic in Negaunee, MI, or a Polish Catholic in Duluth in the period between 1870-1900.
7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital” (“Capital”), the economic foundation of the communist movement and most of the misery of the 20th century.
8. One book you're currently reading:
”The New Anti-Catholicism”, The Last Acceptable Prejudice, by Philip Jenkins. Very depressing reading.
9. One book you've been meaning to read:
Something by G.K. Chesterton. I went to the 25th Festivities of the American Chesterton Society over at St Thomas in June and really got hooked and want to be better prepared for next year’s party. I know I read some Father Brown when I was in high school. But I don’t know what to start with now. I’ve been hoping to find an anthology that could expose me to many of his works. And being a blogger, time is at a premium because most of my life is spent with my nose about a foot from the 17” screen.
10. Book that you bought but haven't read:
”Catechism of the Catholic Church.” I’ve had it since it first came out in 1994 and I’ve got it loaded with post-it tabs marking interesting sections, but I’ve read maybe only a couple dozen short articles. I guess I’ll get the Compendium and read that first, then maybe try and tackle the full catechism. And I won a city-wide catechism contest in Duluth when I was about 13. My teachers would be ashamed of me now.
I'm going to tag Terry, the "Doppel-Blogger at Abbey-Roads and Rome-ing Catholics and Georgette at the Chronicle of a Meandering Traveller.
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