Amor libris

I finished my finals last night. One semester of grad school down, three to go. But let’s not worry about the to-go part just yet — I’ve got a month of freedom to enjoy first. :)

Remember how I said I was going to write a nonfiction book? I now have a topic. I’m tentatively calling the book Amor Libris (”love of the book” in Latin), and it’ll be a bunch of short essays on the libraries, bookstores, and books that have been part of my life. (One essay per library/bookstore/book, for the most part, though there may be some frontmatter or endmatter that doesn’t fit that pattern.) Timeline-wise, I’m not in any huge hurry on this, but considering how excited I get every time the thought of it even just crosses my mind, I’m guessing it won’t take long. But I reserve the right to be wrong. :) The style of the book will be the same as in these blog posts — personal narrative — but it will be far more polished and revised than these posts. And that’s a good thing. :)

Anyway, I’m in the outlining/freewriting stage right now, deciding which books I’ll write about. (It’s easy to choose the libraries and bookstores, since they are relatively few in number, but of books there are many.) I get giddy every time I think about this book. Literally.

In other news, I’m noticing that people seem to think I’m an expert on C.S. Lewis. While I’ve read a fair amount of Lewisiana, most of the CSL questions thrown my way get best-guess answers in return. As I was researching the Inklings for my final project yesterday, I decided that since people already expect me to be an authority, I may as well become one. :) (And lest you think I’m selling out to peer pressure, much of my literary tastes have revolved around the Inklings all my life, so this is a natural evolution of who I already am — just pumping up the juice, that’s all.) Speaking of all this, over the next few weeks I’ll be building a website for the BYU C.S. Lewis Society, and one of the big new features will be a blog with CSL/Inklings-related posts on a regular basis. I’ll post an announcement about it when it’s up.

Having been a student of the illustrious S. Michael Wilcox for a few years now, it’s becoming abundantly clear to me that to be a good Mormon, one must become well-versed in the writings of an Anglican. One of life’s little paradoxes.

Funny how that works, isn’t it. And I love it. We’re a truth-gathering people, and the fact that we’re not too proud to gather it from other religions and cultures is a very beautiful thing. (Which isn’t to say that I think our religion doesn’t have a fulness of the truth. But there are many other facets to the truth, different and equally valid perspectives, and we’d be fools to discount all the truths out there merely because we weren’t the source.)