A new thing

Matthew and I are two separate people, and consequently we have two separate blogs. However, we have become a part of something in which we are so entangledly mutually complicit, blessed, responsible, involved, affected, rejoiced, changed, excited and bewildered... that we've decided to start a blog together so we can share it with you.

Go check it out.

(Consider this our formal announcement)

okay, okay

And I tag Biss. (sorry)
(not really)
(not really sorry that is)


1. One book that changed your life:

The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck

I was twenty. I was home for a year off after two years of college. I was having an existential crisis of sorts. I read this and had an awakening to my ability to make my own decisions and take responsiblity for my life, my circumstances, and the choices I make... in a hopeful, non-angsty way (in contrast to the distressing perspective described by Sartre, whom I'd been reading earlier that year). There's more to it than that, but it gives you an idea...

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:

Jane Eyre by Charolotte Bronte (4 or 5 times since I was 15)


3. One book you’d want on a desert island:

The Psalter


4. One book that made you laugh:

Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland

(*spoiler alert! spoiler alert!*)
especially when liz's sister comes over to find out why there's a handsome young man 16 years younger than liz with no shirt on walking around liz's apartment and answering her phone calls, not realizing that he is actually liz's long lost son the sister never new about... you gotta read it, though...

5. One book that made you cry:

I can't think. If I'm engrossed enough in a book to cry, I'm probably too engrossed to notice, or remember later, that I'm crying. I might have cried when I read Courage to Pray by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom.


6. One book that you wish had been written:

Knitting: Orthodox Reflections and Prayers for Expecting Mothers


7. One book that you wish had never been written:

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

-disclaimer: I don't wish Roy never wrote a book set in Kerala, or that some of her characters were never developed, but I wish the darkness and bitterness of her mind would not have kept the book completely void of any hope or redemption, and that she had not inflicted that darkness and bitterness on her readers in the twisted way the plot culminates.

8. One book you’re currently reading:

When I say No I Feel Guilty

a hilariously 'seventies approach to assertiveness training! with some helpful insights on how we manipulate others and are manipulated by others rather than just being gently straightforward about what we think and what we want and respectfully working towards agreement or compromise.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:

The Absent Body by Drew Leder

the jacket illustration is Magritte's Le Pelerin, an image of a man in a suit and a bowler hat, except his face has been removed from between the suit and the bowler hat and is floating in the air at the appropriate hight about a foot to the right of where it should be.

in fact I might just go read it right now. It's been on Matthew's "Philosophy Shelf" since before we were married.