Kevin Basil

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Although I have five posts being worked on currently, Bryan Peter infected me with a meme. I want to answer before I forget the correct answers.

1. Total number of books I’ve owned
   What bibliophile could possibly answer this question? I don’t even know how many books I currently own, much less how many I’ve owned over the course of my life!
2. Last book I bought
   Two in tandem: The Priest’s Service Book, by Archbishop Dmitri, and Book of Akathists, published by Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville.
3. Last book I read
   Harder to see, that answer is. Either Beauty and Unity in Creation: The evolution of life by Gayle Woloschak, or Against Heresies Book I by St Irenaeus.

   I can’t really recommend either of these very much. The book on evolution attempts to argue for the compatibility of science and faith, a position I favor, but the arguments felt like a badly edited Star Wars movie: everything went by so fast, with little actual argumentation to bolster her positions, with which I actually agreed. Against Heresies is several books long, and the translation I received from Amazon (which is in the Ancient Christian Writers series published by Newman Press) is merely Book I. I would recommend Proof of the Apostolic Preaching instead.

   Of course, I skip around a lot, so there are a ton of other books that I’ve started in the meantime.

4. Five books that mean a lot to me
   1. The Bible, by the hand of God through the prophets and righteous men and women of the old covenant, the evangelists, apostles and bishops of the new.
   2. Tie: The Orthodox Way and The Orthodox Church, by Bishop Kallistos
   3. The Quest for Community, by Robert Nisbet
   4. For the Life of the World, by Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann
   5. Christ the Eternal Tao, by Priest-monk Damscene (Christensen)
   6. Honorable mentions: Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis; Brothers Karamazov, by Theodore Dostoevsky; The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann, 1973–1983, translated by Matushka Julianna Schmemann; Orthodox Spirituality, by Lev Gilet (alias a monk of the eastern Church); The Catechism of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church (EOC), by Randall Evans (self-published for local use); Christianity and Culture, by T. S. Eliot; The Ragamuffin Gospel, by Brennan Manning; The Shattered Lantern, by Ronald Rolheiser, OMI; The Galileo Connection, by Charles Hummel; Abusing Science, by Philip Kitcher.
5. People I will infect with this meme
   Timothy, Dmitri, Reader Gideon, Reader Theophan, Juliana, DrBacchus, Erich, Dawn, Victoria, Peter Sherry, Philippa, Reader Andrew, Priest Joseph Honeycutt

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