Do students read Francis Bacon anymore? Here’s a short essay that contains popular quotations from Bacon’s “Essays, Civil and Moral,” posted here for readers of the future.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned.

To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning [i.e. pruning], by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Continue reading Read to weigh and consider →

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library sends one book a month to kids under 5 years old. When I first heard of the program, I said I didn’t want taxpayers to spend money sending my kids books they don’t need. We’re a literate family. We have piles of books. But the woman at the promotional booth told me the program is privately funded, and getting books in the mail is tons of fun. So I signed up my one-year-old, and it’s been a good experience for all of us.

Now, the Imagination Library is going to work with United Way of America to expand their program nationwide.

Books what changed my life: The Literary Saloon notes Rowan Williams’ selection for life-changing books. Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury who has overseen the dismantling of the Anglican Church over the past few years.

Hitler had thousands of books in his library. What do you think he had in them? Military history, of course. Books on horse-breeding with red marks slashed through the pictures of mares. Pornography. “German cowboy-and-Indian tales of Karl May,” “British thriller-writer Edgar Wallace,” and romances by Hedwig Courts-Mahler, “kept in plain covers so as not to reveal their titles.”



The Library of Congress has 1,200 volumes from his library, ones that were kept in a mine for safety.

If you’re holding a Kindle, no one can see that you’re reading Proust or Joyce, and, like, what good is that?

Here are answers to all of those questions you’ve been meaning to ask.

1. To mark your page you: use a bookmark, bend the page corner, leave the book open face down?

I use bookmarks. The novel I’m reading now has those folded back cover flaps, so I’m using on of those to mark my place, but I’ll probably grab a bookmark soon because only so many pages will fit inside the front cover flap. I have two pretty Celtic lettered bookmarks I bought in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a few years ago, and I have two black leather tourist bookmarks from Washington D.C. which I often leave in large volumes I read for a bit, return to the shelf, and then wonder where I left that bookmark. I also have paper ones from the library and bookstores, and then there’s business cards, personal notes from celebrities, autographed photos, etc.

2. Do you lend your books?

Yes, and I try to not to expect them to return them, but that can be hard. I am very careful with books I borrow from others.

3. You find an interesting passage: you write in your book or NO WRITING IN BOOKS!

One of my college professors taught me to make checks and stars instead of underlines or other large marks, so what I do mostly, except in a study bible. I can mark that up a good bit.

4. Dust jackets – leave it on or take it off.

Unless I can’t hold the book well with its jacket on, I leave it on.

5. Hard cover, paperback, skip it and get the audio book?

What is the question? I like all of them, but I feel weird listening to an audiobook without doing something. I’ll return to the audiobooks I have on my iPod when I start gardening and mowing the yard again.

6. Do you shelve your books by subject, author, or size and color of the book spines?

I have done all of these, but I generally want the fiction organized by author’s last name. My non-fiction is sorta-kinda by subject.

7. Buy it or borrow it from the library later?

Both. Gifts are also very nice. I want to think about the library more, and we have a good library, but I don’t yet. I plan to borrow the next Harry Potter from the library sometime this year. I’m on #6.

8. Do you put your name on your books – scribble your name in the cover, fancy bookplate, or stamp?

I have before for both hardcover and paperback, and I have some extra bookplates, but I haven’t used any in years. I can’t remember the last time I wrote my name in one, but I’m not against it.

9. Most of the books you own are rare and out-of-print books or recent publications?

Most are recent. I count 27 old, probably out-of-print, books from where I’m sitting.

10. Page edges – deckled or straight?

Which do I prefer? Straight is appropriate for most books.

11. How many books do you read at one time?

What exactly do you mean by read?

12. Be honest, ever tear a page from a book?

Yes. In high school, we were on a trip and needed a blank sheet of paper. I ripped one neatly from a Frank Peretti book, claiming I was a writer and could do that sort of thing. I have fits of gall at times. Nowadays, I say “I’m sorry” too much.

Rev. Paul T. McCain, over at Cyberbrethren, posted this meme today. Then he had the temerity to say, “If you’re reading this, you’re tagged.” I’d object strongly to the highhandedness of such naked link-seeking, except that it saves me the trouble of coming up with an idea for tonight’s post. So without further ado…

Book Confessions Meme Continue reading Book confessions meme →