I don't know if I will tag anyone. I'll be an annoying little boy who subverts and ruins the whole game of tag by getting tagged and then promptly walking home.
1. One book that changed your life:
For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann
What can i say, it sounds cliche coming from an english speaking Orthodox Christian who attends an OCA church, but it's true it changed my life. God is truly among us. That is to say, God truly loves us. I don't think I really believed it before reading this book. Perhaps I should also give an honourary mention to existentialist canon - Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Kierkegaard, Hiedegger and of course everyone's favourite, Nietzsche. I suppose change does not necessarily mean positive change and these guys had a profoundly negative and positive effect on me. Merleau-Ponty and Kierkegaard are among the best because there is an understanding of mystery in them. For Kierkegaard there is the mystery of love and one's movement toward God and in Merleau-Ponty there is the mystery of the visible and the invisible. It was these chaps who both tore down my faith in God and also moved me toward an appreciation and love of the physical body. In a very round about way, these guys taught me more about the incarnation than any evangelical theologian I had read up until that time.
2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
A short and powerful book about light shining in the darkness.
3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
Let me be completely honest here - I would want the Gospels AND the SAS Survival Handbook.
4. One book that made you laugh:
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. As is the case with all the books I've which happen to be authored by Russians, I have yet to finish it ... and I've started it 5 times.
5. One book that made you cry:
The Chronicles of Narnia by Mr. Clive Staples Lewis. There's something about being transported back into childlike imagination that opens the heart to what is real.
6. One book that you wish had been written:
Living The Faith: How to Live the Fulness of the Faith without Becoming Full of Myself
7. One book that you wish had never been written:
The Gospel of Thomas
And all the other pseudo-spiritual misrepresentations of our Lord that came after it.
8. One book you’re currently reading:
Orthodox Psychotheraphy by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos. Yes, Phil and Biss, it's your copy.
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Ante-Nicean and Post-Nicean Fathers
1. One book that changed your life:
For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann
What can i say, it sounds cliche coming from an english speaking Orthodox Christian who attends an OCA church, but it's true it changed my life. God is truly among us. That is to say, God truly loves us. I don't think I really believed it before reading this book. Perhaps I should also give an honourary mention to existentialist canon - Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Kierkegaard, Hiedegger and of course everyone's favourite, Nietzsche. I suppose change does not necessarily mean positive change and these guys had a profoundly negative and positive effect on me. Merleau-Ponty and Kierkegaard are among the best because there is an understanding of mystery in them. For Kierkegaard there is the mystery of love and one's movement toward God and in Merleau-Ponty there is the mystery of the visible and the invisible. It was these chaps who both tore down my faith in God and also moved me toward an appreciation and love of the physical body. In a very round about way, these guys taught me more about the incarnation than any evangelical theologian I had read up until that time.
2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
A short and powerful book about light shining in the darkness.
3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
Let me be completely honest here - I would want the Gospels AND the SAS Survival Handbook.
4. One book that made you laugh:
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. As is the case with all the books I've which happen to be authored by Russians, I have yet to finish it ... and I've started it 5 times.
5. One book that made you cry:
The Chronicles of Narnia by Mr. Clive Staples Lewis. There's something about being transported back into childlike imagination that opens the heart to what is real.
6. One book that you wish had been written:
Living The Faith: How to Live the Fulness of the Faith without Becoming Full of Myself
7. One book that you wish had never been written:
The Gospel of Thomas
And all the other pseudo-spiritual misrepresentations of our Lord that came after it.
8. One book you’re currently reading:
Orthodox Psychotheraphy by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos. Yes, Phil and Biss, it's your copy.
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Ante-Nicean and Post-Nicean Fathers
posted by Enthymemosis at 11:02 p.m.
4 Comments:
I hope you're not finishing Orthodox Psychotherapy because we fully intend on finishing it with you guys.
Psssst...we're gonna live near you in 10 days!!! Unbelievable, isn't it?
fun! thanks for the list z-m. for some reason your blog never did load into my bloglines feed thing so sorry if i missed this post before... great list of books!!!!
Comforted to know that I wasn't the only to cry throughout the Chronicles of Narnia. Jen and I read them to each other recently and I repeatedly had to "stumble over the words" so that I could regain some composure.
That book "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn sounds interesting. I will have to check it out.
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