HITTING THE BOOKS
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
Leave heroic New Year’s resolutions to the young, who don't know any better. Those who no longer are young keep their resolutions modest. Mine is to get through some of the backlog of books on my shelves.
When it comes to books I am a bad bookkeeper. I fail to balance debits and credits. For each book I read I buy two. The more I read, the more books appear on my to-be-read shelves. Perhaps in 2005 I can do something to reverse the trend. Here are the first titles that will get my attention.
1. "The Penguin Dictionary of Epigrams," collected by M. J. Cohen. I begin with a head start; I already am halfway through this book. Some of the lines that I have marked:
"A lie is far dearer than the truth. It costs the whole man" (Friedrich Hebbel). This is especially true, I think, when it comes to representing ourselves to others. As Popeye used to put it, "I am what I am and that's all what I am." Here at Catholic Answers I keep reminding the employees (who by this time must have wearied of the reminder) that the byword is "transparency."
"Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects" (Will Rogers). This is another thing that becomes more evident with age. Its corollary also is true: "Everybody is knowledgeable, only on different subjects." And there is a corollary to that corollary: "Academic letters after a person's name tell you nothing about his true intelligence. Some of the dumbest people are smart people."
"Intelligence is almost useless to someone who has no other quality" (Alexis Carrel). See what I mean? Carrel was a scientist and physician who participated in the medical bureau at Lourdes. He discovered that when it comes to the supernatural, many intelligent people seem unable to apply their intelligence intelligently.
"What is most resistant to salvation is not sin but habit" (Charles Peguy). It's easy to repent of a single sin, no matter how serious. It's hard to repent of habitual sin, no matter how light.
"A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you" (Bert Leston Taylor). This reminds me of another epigram: "Generally speaking, women are generally speaking" (Robert Benchley, who, after getting home through a soaking rain, told his butler, "Get me out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini").
2. "Committed to Memory: 100 Best Poems to Memorize," edited by John Hollander. I have a low memorized-poetry quotient, no doubt a sign of a bad upbringing. Maybe this book will raise my score. Thomas Fleming, editor of "Chronicles," recently wrote about the utility of learning a foreign language in middle age. The exercise enlivens the mind and makes other mental processes easier. The same is true about learning poetry, I think. At least I hope to find out.
3. "A Concise History of Germany," by Mary Fulbrook. I need to brush up on German history because I will vacation in Germany in April. I plan to attend the aviation expo that is held biennially in Friedrichshafen, where the Zeppelins once were made, and my wife wants to visit a friend in Hamburg. The trip gives me reason to follow Fleming's advice by catching up on my German. I subscribe to several German-language publications but have been negligent in reading them. I have a fine excuse now to read those back issues.
4. "Uncrowned Emperor: The Life and Times of Otto von Habsburg," by Gordon Brook-Shepherd. Otto’s father, Karl, was the last head of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (he died in 1922) and recently was beatified. The Austro-Hungarian emperors also used to be the Holy Roman emperors. If there still were a Holy Roman Empire (which officially ended two centuries ago), Otto would be the emperor today. He is a solid Catholic. I have to think that Europe would be better off with him in charge than with the secularizing European Union running things.
5. "100 Decisive Battles From Ancient Times to the Present," by Paul K. Davis. For each battle the author gives a listing of the forces engaged, explains the importance of the battle, relates the historical setting, explains the battle itself, and analyzes the results. At four pages per battle, this is a fine way to get an overview--good enough for those who do not have to prep for a military academy exam. Reading military history, even in capsule form, helps keep modern military follies in perspective.
6. "Two Wheels North," by Evelyn McDaniel Gibb. In 1909 two boys just out of high school biked from Santa Rosa, California, to Seattle. Gibb is the daughter of one of the riders and reconstructs their journey from her father’s recollections and from accounts the boys sent their local newspaper. This is the quick-read book of the group and interests me because I mountain bike. There were no mountain bikes in 1909, of course, but the roads the boys traveled on their "clunkers" often were unpaved, which means today's road bikes likely could not have made the trip. I count this as a proto-mountain bike book.
7. "Right Turns," by Michael Medved. I would read this just-released autobiography by a one-time radical turned conservative anyway, but now I have a professional inducement: Medved will be a speaker on this year’s Catholic Answers apologetics cruise, which will leave San Diego for the Mexican Riviera on November 5. I read the first few pages last night and see that this story will bring back memories, since Medved and I are about the same age and experienced many of the same events, though when we were young he and I were on different sides of the political fence.
You will notice that none of these books is directly religious. Nowadays most of my reading is on subjects unrelated to my vocation. There was a time when I read nothing but apologetics, but too much of one topic throws one off kilter. I didn't want to end up being described by Churchill's definition of a fanatic: "one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
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