Alright, Suse... I GET your Message!

:) A big shout out to my friend NPT, who is known in these circles as SusieDerk. She has been gently encouraging me to post more often, for a while now. Failing in that effort, she's gone a step further. She has issued a challenge via the world wide web... It's like an electronic double-dog dare, and it must be met.

OK, so, in answer to the survey:

1. Number of books owned:
Not so many as before the move to Texas, actually. I've been trying to thin the novel collection every subsequent move because, as my husband patiently explained, "They have these things called libraries, you know. And they will let you have books for free. All sorts of books! All you have to do is return them."

2. Last book bought:
"Praying God's Word" by Beth Moore. (Honesty disclaimer: Not sure I would get through the whole thing on my own, but I'm starting a women's bible study and we're reading it together.)

3. Last book(s) completed:
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." (Ging heart JK Rowling. And it seems, now that the end is near, the characters have seeped into my subconscious like Scout and Gem or Peter and Susan and Edmund and Lucy, and it must be true I've always, always loved that -- very bad English accent approaching -- 'ER-ree Paw-tuh.)
Just after Harry, looking for a change of pace, I read "The Anglophile," by Laurie Gwen Shapiro. Summer fun with a sassy Jewish girl. How could I go wrong? Now I need to tackle "The Matzo Ball Heiress."

4. Five or more books that mean a lot to me:
Hard! How about authors who always move me? Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Barbara Kingsolver. Zora Neale Hurston (skip the Oprah movie and READ THE BOOK!). Erik Larson (strange, because he writes nonfiction). Jane Smiley (always, but especially "At Paradise Gate"). Sandra Dallas. And, just like SusieD, Jan Karon.
A list of my 3-year-old's books that mean a lot to me include "Giraffes Can't Dance" ("everything makes music, if you really want it to."); "Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type" (beware the duck!); "Sherman Crunchley" ("but I don't want to be the chief of slow geese!") and the Sandra Boynton classics, "But Not the Hippopotamus"/"The Going to Bed Book."
Next, books that I could (and have) read again and again include the "Lucia" series by E.F. Benson; "Out to Pasture" and "Over What Hill?" -- little old-folk gems from Effie Leland Wilder; "The Chronicles of Narnia"; "Little Women" (of course! I'm a nerdy girl who grew up loving books); and anything Agatha Christie.
Finally, since I'm skirting this topic already, a list of childhood books I have re-read in adulthood and liked maybe even more include "Bambi" (very old original; strikingly NOT Disney); "Where the Red Fern Grows" (better than "Old Yeller"!) and the Bronte sisters. (Who the hell let me read those as a kid, anyway?!)

5. Four bloggers I am passing this on to...
Skipping this part, actually, because my bagel is ready. Seriously. Miles is yelling this over and over from the kitchen. Rather than grasping that I am occupied, I believe he thinks I am deaf. He just asked, appearing at my side, "Do you where the special cream is, that I put on this knife for the bagel?" Good Lord! But I also hear he set the breakfast table, forks included, so how can I dawdle any longer? The feast of life awaits!