A few words about myself and my reading life:
Since it is still a time when many folks are away on holiday or just wanting to relax, I guess I can slip in a few lighter posts to offset the much heavier ones I have done of late. While the subject matter is close to my heart, I realise it is not for everyone, so readers here might be fewer than normal. Nonetheless….
A library is simply defined as a collection of books. So I qualify, with over 8000 of them in my home. Here are a few thoughts on my early reading habits, my current situation, and what the future might hold. Yes, this is all very autobiographical and personal, but some folks might enjoy it, or relate to it.
Then
I have always been a reader. I suppose like many people my age, some of my earliest reading was at breakfast time, as I ate my cereal and read the back of the cereal box. Perhaps because of my older brother, I soon moved on to going through issues of Mad magazine. I just looked it up, and it first came out a year before I was born: 1952.
I do recall a standard way of reading the humour magazine at the time: I had it on the floor while I laid on my bed on my stomach, often with a can of soda with a straw and a bag of pretzels. I am not sure if I could pull off that sort of reading posture today.
For a while there I was reading a bunch of the Hardy Boys books – stories of amateur sleuths seeking to solve cases. My twin sis might have been reading another popular series at the time: the Nancy Drew mystery books. Some works of fiction I then started reading, such as those by Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.
But as I discuss in my testimonial, by my mid-teens I was reading a lot of books on leftist politics, eastern religions and other topics not usually consumed by teenagers. You can see a listing of some of these volumes here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/06/27/coming-home-my-testimony-part-1/
In that four-part article I discuss how my first brush with Christianity was with a pretty bizarre cult in New Mexico when I was 18. In one trip that I took back to Wisconsin while still with this group, I went to my parents’ home with a few others and I gathered up my 300 or so books and my 300 or so albums.
We went to the town’s garbage incinerator thingee, and cast everything in there. I recall the vinyl records were not easy to break – they usually just sort of folded! Anyway, my entire library was destroyed that day. I had figured I needed to make a pretty strong and radical break with my pagan past, so such actions seemed essential at the time.
Although this piece is about books, not records, I can mention a few more things. I am not sure if I ever re-purchased any of the books I got rid of (although later in my apologetics ministry some of them might have come in handy), but I did buy again at least a few albums: those which had some Christian gospel songs on them.
One was Motel Shot by Delaney and Bonnie and Friends (1971), which had songs like “Rock of Ages”. Some of the “friends” were Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, and Duane Allman. Another album was David’s Album, by Joan Baez (1969) – it had songs like “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”. Both albums featured “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”. A Marxist friend had first turned me on to that later album.
Now
But when I got out of the cult, I soon discovered books again. I first started getting books in Tacoma, Washington, as I also recount in my testimony: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/06/27/coming-home-my-testimony-part-4/
Upon returning to Wisconsin in 1972, I first mainly read books from the church library, especially missionary biographies, etc. But I kept buying books as well. I would build myself some rickety bookcases to hold them all. Early on a friend introduced me to C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer. I tried to get a hold of everything they had written.
Theology and biblical studies were my earliest reads – they still are. And biblical commentaries have also been a big part of my book-buying budget. Around 11 per cent of my current library is comprised of commentaries, taking up an entire wall in my house.
But more apologetics volumes were procured, and in due course plenty of volumes on ethics as well. My political interests – which I had lain dormant since becoming a Christian – were eventually revived, and by the mid-80s I was doing plenty of reading again in politics, current events, international relations, and so on – but this time from a much more conservative slant.
The future
Add to all that history, political economy, and so much more, and that explains why I currently have over 8000 books! However, what I am about to say now might shock some of you. For the first time in many decades, I am actually slowing down in my book buying! There would be a number of reasons for this:
-I am of course getting old. That became even more apparent to me with the passing of my wife.
-I no longer lecture at theological colleges, and it is getting harder to justify getting all the important new theology works that keep appearing.
-The truth is, I already have an excellent theological library. And many of those volumes have not been fully perused as yet.
-Unless I have a plan for what happens to them one day, it will be a real headache for my kids to have to deal with.
And even though I no longer have a wife around to remind me that we cannot afford any more books, and we have no more room to store them in, I am seeing that there is an end in sight to all this. Yes, I still buy books, but far fewer than I used to.
I do have to figure out what will become of my library. The sons are not interested. I used to tell my wife it would be no probs to sell the books: theology lovers would kill to get at my books – even if going for, say, half price. She was doubtful.
I am now starting to agree with her. Increasingly, Christians are not reading – or are at least not reading solid theology and the books that matter. And if they do, it is more and more on kindle and the like. So selling even some of these books might be a problem indeed.
Yes, some struggling Bible college in Africa or somewhere might love to have them. But do you know how hard it is to pack up 8000 books? Yikes, I don’t even want to think about it! Which is also why I cannot even start thinking about moving house.
And I am aware of some evil book lusterers out there – especially on the social media – who speak of sneaking in and raiding my library. But even if they do, they would need a VERY large truck to carry away the purloined goods! Plus many of them are interstate anyway.
Oh well, all this is a first world problem I suppose. But I am aware of folks like J. I. Packer whose failing eyesight in his final years was a real problem. That could happen to me as well, in many ways spelling the end of my reading and writing-based ministry.
Anyway, enough about me and my books. Back to more serious stuff in my next article!
Postscript
BTW, nearly four years ago I did a video recording of my library – a guided tour of my collection at the time. Of course back then it was just around 7000 volumes, and arranged a bit differently than it is now. But for those who are interested, you can see what the library looked like in those days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upm_VYolksw
And of interest, while I am a bit of a nobody, that video has had over 11,000 views so far!
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