1) What author do you own the most books by?
Agatha Christie
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
In addition to the 12 versions of the Bible and one copy each of a Haitian Creole New Testament and and English/Arabic New Testament I own, the following 5 books are tied at two copies each: 1) Catholic Catechism on Consecrated Life, 2) The Brown Scapular of Carmel, 3) If by Amy Carmichael, 4) The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods, and 5) Breaking Free: 12 Steps to Sexual Purity for Men.
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Not in the slightest.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Edmund Bertram in Mansfield Park and Dicken in The Secret Garden.
5) What book have you read the most times in your life?
Individual book of the Bible: Genesis, which I've read at least 12 times; non-biblical book: The Mysterious Affair at Styles which I've read at least 8 times.
6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
I don't know which individual book it was, but I loved the Happy Hollisters series.
7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 10. It's a collection of short stories. Some were good.
8)What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
The Habit of Being: The Letters of Flannery O'Connor. I will probably read this book once a year, every year.
9) If you could force everyone you know to read one book, what would it be?
Hmmm. There are so many good ones to choose from (not including the Bible): Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, the above-mentioned The Habit of Being, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Eternity in Their Hearts by Don Richardson, Phantastes by George MacDonald, An Introduction to the Devout Life by Saint Frances de Sales, Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses, A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning by Father James V. Schall, and many more. I wouldn't know how to choose!
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Haven't the foggiest.
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Asimov's Foundation series. It would have to be a TV series, though, because it's too big to be a movie.
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Everybody Poops.
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Don't know that I've had one.
14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
Green Eggs and Ham and James Howe's Bunnicula series.
15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Difficult as in hard to understand would be Epiphany: A Theological Introduction to Catholicism. It uses words my 1900 page dictionary cannot define. I have set it aside until I get either a better education or a better dictionary (preferably both).
Difficult as in emotional is Mysterious Skin.
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
Alas! I've never seen one! The closest I've come is Dickens A Christmas Carol put on at the Bonstelle at Wayne State.
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Haven't read the Russians at all, and the only French I've gotten to is Madame Bovary.
18) Roth or Updike?
Haven't read either.
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Haven't read Eggers, but love Sedaris!
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Once more, haven't read them. I just started working on the classics.
21) Austen or Eliot?
Austen!
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I haven’t read a lot of the classics.
23) What is your favorite novel?
Pride and Prejudice.
24) Play?
Don't have one.
25) Poem?
Either Poe's "The Raven" or Carroll's "Jabberwocky".
26) Essay?
"Christians and Conspiracy Theories: A Call to Repentance."
27) Short story?
Don't have one.
28) Work of nonfiction?
A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning by Father James V. Schall.
29) Who is your favorite writer?
How about favorite authors? C.S. Lewis, Amy Tan, Agatha Christie, Jane Austen, Isaac Asimov, Flannery O'Connor, P.G. Wodehouse, and more.
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Don't know.
31) What is your desert island book?
How to Survive on a Desert Island while You're Working on Your Escape from Said Island.
32) And… what are you reading right now?
1) The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2) Mariannehill and Its Apostolate, 3) Memorize the Faith (and Almost Everything Else) by Kevin Vost, 4) the Gospel of Matthew, 5) the book Daniel (the biblical prophet), 6) The Divine Office for Dodos: A Step-by-Step Guide to Praying the Liturgy of the Hours by Madeline Pecora Nugent, 7) The Orthodox Church by Kallistos Ware, 8) the book of Psalms, 9) The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis, 10) The Complete Rosary by William G. Storey, 11) The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden, 12) the book of Proverbs, 13) David Copperfield, 14) The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc, 15) the book of Sirach, 16) Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger: The Untold Story of the Lost Books of the Protestant Bible by Gary G. Michuta, 17) The Search for Christian America by Mark A. Noll, Nathan O. Hatch, and George M. Marsden, 18) The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs, 19) The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life by Armand Nicholi, Jr., and 20) Tom Brown's Body by Gladys Mitchell.
