A non-music blog (woo!)

My brother Matthew tagged me in his blog to write about books. Don't know why, because I'm not an avid reader, but hey, I'll give it a crack.

How many  books do you own?

Not that many really.. about 20?

What was the last book you read?

Intelligent Church by Steve Chalke, but am most of my way through my second reading of A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren.

What was the last book you purchased?

Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez. An inspiration to small-time filmmakers world-wide, it is a diary style book of the story of the making of El Mariachi for a budget of $7,000, and how it went from there to taking Rodriguez into the limelight, with the film making over $2 million at the Box Office (small for a normal film, but think of the profit margin, films barely ever make even!).

What five books are most meaningful to you?

The Bible - A great book for Christians and those who don't believe.

The Lord of the Rings - You'd hope it stays with you after all that time invested in reading!

Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell - Re-awakened me spiritually when I felt suffocated by the system.

A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren - Took Velvet Elvis further. The only book (apart from the Bible) that has made me think for months on end. Though I think a lot of people who like McLaren miss the point with this book. It doesn't give any excuses for cynicism but rather an encouragement to change.

Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez. Makes you a lot happier to realise that you don't have to spend millions of dollars to make films that people will like.

What is your most obscure favourite book?

Good question. Loretta Lux. She's a photographic artist, and the book is basically a short review of her work, and then a whole heap of her work. I found out about her through her work with Anchor and Braille, a musical project featuring a lot of my favourite musicians. Funnily enough, I found the book in a Brunswick St bookstore that has an incredible art/design section (the entire second storey). I think it was about $60.

Yay. Done. I think everyone that I know who has a blog has already been tagged so that would be pointless. I'm listening to Dog Problems by The Format (mentioned in the previous blog) at the moment. Both this band and As Tall As Lions are definitely cranking my tractor.