Sometimes we can never know where our books have been. Sometimes the notes and signatures and stamps provide clues. I almost think of it as though it were a socially acceptable and useful version of graffiti tags.

The following people/organizations/institutions  have been the owners of some of my books. It is probably impossible to absolutely prove the authenticity of some of the written namesakes/stamps in the books. However, in each of the following cases I have no reason to doubt their authenticity and in most cases the place of purchase provides a strong clue which would corroborate this information. And besides, there would be little motive or value in forging such information especially since the signers are not wildly popular or anything so as to fetch value for the book or anything.

Here are a few samples:

• Sussex University – Brighton, UK
  
• Bowes & Bowes – A book seller in Cambridge, England. The site became a bookstore in 1581. It was known as Bowes & Bowes from 1907-1986. In 1992 the site became the Cambridge University Press bookshop.
• Irvin B. Horst – Church History professor at Eastern Mennonite University
• John L. Horst – If it is Jr., then retired professor at Eastern Mennonite University, if Sr. then a Mennonite Pastor and Editor of various publications
• Joe Wilson – Member of South Carolina Senate and U.S. Representative for South Carolina’s 2nd congressional district (perhaps best known for shouting down President Obama in congress with a “You lie”)
• Udo Sautter – History Professor at University of Tubingen
• Mount St. Joseph Academy – A Catholic school in London, Ontario
• Eastern Mennonite University – A university in Virginia
• Menno Simons Historical Library and Archives
• Dysart Public Library – Dysart, Iowa
• Hilde & Lorenz (Unknown) from Toronto Baptist Seminary
• Henry H. Marsh – A prominent Anglican Priest in Toronto who went on to become the Bishop of Yukon in 1962
• Charles R. Miller – An Anglican Bishop from Toronto (1941-2009)
• Provident Bookstore – Lancaster, Pennsylvania

• Heather at The Backlist contemplates the differences between paper books and audio books. Anyone who reads this blog should know that I answer her “Do I list [an audio book] in the books read file?” question with a yes.
• The Toronto Star has published, in an easy to access format, the entire set of Ernest Hemmingway’s Toronto Sun columns online!

Theology

• Audio for the “Religious Liberty and the Cross” conference has been posted. Speakers are Michael Haykin, Steve Weaver, and Tom Nettles. Haven’t listened to it yet, but looks interesting!

Foreign Policy

• This article from the Washington Post shows how Romney’s desire for increased defense spending is not what the general public wants. Romney’s rhetoric about defense spending increases  is a rhetoric that gets the American Republican base excited and so he’s trying to play into that. It’s sort of like cheering “Go team go” to a football team. Militarism does not get the Democrat base excited, but Democrat presidents pursue militarism anyways. Stepping a level back, though, I wonder how much of that spending called “defense” is actually remotely connected to defense? Granted, a proportion of the spending is for stuff legitimately connected to defense. But is equipment used to oust a despot who has not attacked your country and perhaps couldn’t even throw a pebble at your country classified as defense? I guess the key here that this use of the term “defense” is not defense of the nation but the defense of the nations supposed “interests” which could include protecting other countries with a questionable relation to your country, protecting business interests, securing favorable negotiations, securing oil interests, etc. Be it as it may, it is a peculiar definition of “defense”, no doubt.

- From The Works of Anne Bradstreet, edited by John Harvard Ellis 1867, p.381

He compared a good thing to a nut with a shell and nut meat inside. He then compared discontentment to a worm that eats the meat out of the nut and leaves the shell behind.

If you long after something with discontentment, you are basically longing for a shelled nut with its insides emptied out by a worm. The worm proceeds your receiving of the good thing and empties it of its value.

He then shows that it would be better to have not have the nut (the good thing) than to have it after the worm (your discontentment) has emptied it of all its meat.

The shelf segment contains philosophy books and books concerning political theory, focusing on political liberty for the most part. I have decided to tackle The Essential Kierkegaard, a collection of Kierkegaard’s writings edited by Howard and Edna Hong.

In one sense, I’m excited about finally getting to this book. I bought it way back in 2006 and it’s nice to finally get to it. In another sense, though, it is sort of intimidating. While Kierkegaard is not the most dense philosophical writer, it isn’t exactly light reading and it is around 500 pages!

II. Fathering a newborn is
dirty diapers
panicked moments
projectiles
cleaning up the floor
wondering what to do
sometimes worried.

III. Fathering a newborn is
being needed by two
being crucial to two
being loved by two.

IV. Fathering a newborn has
deep joys
sometimes exasperation
deep meaning
found in the mundane things
deep love
found in a baby’s faithful dependance
deep and significant duty
found in meeting basic needs.

V. Fathering a newborn is
finding out your wife is
nearly superhuman
precious and lovely.

VI. Fathering a newborn is
getting a few morning coos
from the bundle in your arms
and an admiring look
with eyes twinkling up at you
a smile in the morning
making one forget
everything difficult
everything hard
and the days fly by
as you watch the baby grow.

• Cantus Christi (Psalms) by Michael E. Owens
• Martinis With Mancini by Henry Mancini
• A few tracks from Birdland by The Yardbirds
• Out Of Sight by Poncho Sanchez
• Four Songs by Alexi Murdoch
• A few tracks from It’s A Beautiful Day by It’s A Beautiful Day
• Some live recordings by Almost Acoustic Band

Perhaps it should be called random week

I have a lot of good books that I own and I want to read, but haven’t tackled yet. Sometimes its just a matter of focus, where rather than reading one of these existing books I go to the library and check out a new book or go to the store and buy a new book.

And then there is also the question of how one decides which book to read next when one has a large unread stack. I’ve considered and tried various methods. I have now come up with a new one.

We have roughly 30 segments in our personal library shelving. My plan is simple, with no firm time limit. Over an undefined span of time (perhaps a couple years?), I will sequentially go to each bookshelf segment and select the one book from that segment that I want to most read and I will finish that book and then do the same thing for the next segment. This process will need not be rushed or mutually exclusive of some other reading. But I will try make most of my reading focus on this project. In theory, providing I follow through with this, after some time I will have finished 30 books which I really want to get to (at least the books that were the most urgent from each shelf segment). And in theory another plus side to this approach is that they will be spread across genres!

I plan to report my progress on this endeavor.

• Are you looking to buy books for a child, especially around grades 1 through 3?  Justin Taylor has posted a reading list for those grades from a classical Christian school in Hampton, VA

Family

• Douglas Wilson’s book Father Hunger has been released.

Theology

• Douglas Wilson and J. Budziszewski discuss Natural Law and Natural Revelation (video)

Liberty

• The Mises Institute posted an article by Murray Rothbard on Roger Williams and the founding of Rhode Island.

“Many Western humanists expect the state to cure all ills. When they see a problem, such as suicide, drug addiction, oppression, war, poverty, sexual exploitation, racial hatred, or mere ignorance, they are greatly distressed. Their feelings of distress and indignation are in a sense proper, but because they do not admit that the root of these ills is found in human sin, they look for immediately engineered human solutions. After all, if human nature is basically good, the difficulty must not really be that intractable. It must be solvable, and solvable now. Any delay is reprehensible. The state has the maximum concentration of power and resources for the job. Hence the state must institute a program to solve the problem. If the problem cannot be solved merely by throwing money at it, then a state-run educational program can do the job. Hence in the twentieth century we have seen the growth of huge state bureaucracies. Moreover, in many political arguments it is simply assumed that the state is the proper agent for the job. The debates tend to be confined to the question of expediency and quantity: whether the citizens are willing to foot the bill for still another program, and whether one program rather than another will be effective. We must break out of this foolishness. The state is not god, nor is it the savior of humanity. It cannot remedy all ills….when we see some difficulty in the world, we must not immediately clamor for state action to eliminate the difficulty. It is not enough merely to demonstrate that there is a difficulty, and that the difficulty is serious. We must always ask what are the just means for dealing with the difficult. We must not blindly assume that state action is appropriate or approved by God. Prayer, individual action, action by churches, action by voluntary organizations, and other forms of action are all alternatives. State action needs to be justified as part of the legitimate sphere of authority given to the state. Such action is appropriate not merely if we can show that it might ‘help’ in some pragmatic sense, but only if we can show in addition that it is just when measured by the limited authority that God has given to the state.”

I’ve finished 21 out of the 100 on this list.

A few questions for my readers:

1.  How many have you read?
2. Would you contest any of the entries?
3. Or note any significant omissions?

I was laying down in bed and my wife called me to show me a reddish-orangeish bird that was at the side of our house. It left quickly, but eventually came back and I was able to get this shot:

My first thought was that it was a Scarlet Tanager. But after some deliberation with a field guide and talking it over with Jenn, I decided it is instead a Summer Tanager. Isn’t it a beautiful bird?