Book Meme

I was tagged with the "Book Meme" by Jessica, so it appears I have no choice but to follow the inexorable demands of the meme will.

1. Total number of books I own:
   Hard to say. Certainly it is in the many hundreds. I wish the number of books I continue to read was as great.
2. The last book I bought:
   Defending Middle Earth by Patrick Curry. Watch for a review here soon.
3. The last book I read:
   The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde by Joseph Pearce. See my thorough, detailed, and insightful review in the "Book Log" entry below.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me:
   I'll fudge this a little and list several series that mean a lot to me.
   
   • The Children of the Last Days series by Michael O'Brien. This series starts with Father Elijah and continues with a number of prequels. His portrayal of the lives of poor and suffering spiritual giants is amazing. The books are amazingly edifying.
   • The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. (A negative reviewer on the Amazon site said that most of the positive reviews of the series were "undoubtedly written by overweight, sarcastic, 'intellectuals' who spent their youth playing 'Dungeons and Dragons', watching 'Star Trek' and 'Dr. Who' and dreaming that some day a woman might actually look at them." Let me shatter that negative stereotype by noting that I have never watched an entire episode of "Dr. Who".)
   • The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. For those of you who have never read it, let me give you this word of advice: In the past few years, the publishers have re-issued the series with the numbers changed to follow the chronological order of the story, rather than the order in which they were written. Read them in the order they were written! (You can tell which ordering you have by the first book. In the original series, the way I think you should read them, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is the first book.) Get an old set from a used book store. It really is better this way.
   • Theology and Sanity by Frank Sheed.
5. Tag five people, and have them do this on their blog.
   This is a little difficult, since my circle of blogging friends is rather small, and some of those have already been tagged. I tag Emily and Greg.