borrowed time

so, i've taken more than a week to respond to this, but i think i have something now. as a reminder, here was the question:

if you were going to die in a week, what ten books (fiction or non-) would you leave the world wrapped up and tied with a bow, that does one or both of these things: 1) tells the world about you and what you stood for in some way; or 2) helps make the world a better place. they don't have to be in any particular order.

the difficulty is that my favourite books don't necessarily reveal what i stood for or make the world a better place. i wonder if that's a problem . . .

in no particular order:

"fugitive pieces" by anne michaels
i read this book in grade 13 english lit . . . more than half the class hated it, i imagine. it's very . . . rich. can give you a tummy ache, sometimes. plus, you kinda suspect it's pretentious. all the same, i love the imagery, the motifs, and the discussion of life after the holocaust.

"night" by elie wiesel
this is not a fun book to read, by any stretch. i picked it up knowing that. wiesel gives his account of life during the holocaust, as a boy. this romanian-born author gives a powerful depiction of the jewish struggle to survive then and - then and now - to understand God.

"bridge to terabithia" by katherine paterson
this may very well have been my first chapter book. i still have my copy from grade 1 - now 18 years old. a beautiful tale of friendship, imagination, and the harshness of real life.

"the chosen" by chaim potok
another example of my love of jewish literature, though this one is different. it takes place during the second world war, but in new york. two jewish boys unexpectedly begin a friendship . . . arguably the most important of their lives. hasidism, zionism, and everything in-between seems to try to tear them apart.

"the Jesus i never knew" by philip yancey
landmark book for me. just looking at it on my bookshelf (yes, i've read it) challenges me to get back to the basics and to exhume Jesus from the tradition and assumptions in which we tend to bury Him.

"now and then" by frederich buechner
who would have guessed that another school text would have an impact on me? this book is an excellent example of intelligent faith - a spirituality that wrestles with problems, instead of ignoring them, and allows Christ to be compared to other options. reading it made me a wiser believer by chiselling away at my dogma, exposing flesh and blood.

"the effect of gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds" by paul zindel
a phenomenal work. despite my attempts to dramatize it in grade 11, it continues to be one of the plays i consider as profound, soulful and raw.

editted to include the following:

"good ideas from questionable christians and outright pagans" by steve wilkens
i only got halfway through this book, to be honest. but it's stellar, and i hope to dig my way through the rest over this next term. it's a mining expedition through the history of philosophy. socrates (sigh), descartes, marx, kierkegaard and many of their brothers are treated in this survey. intelligently written - not quite a "for dummies" book, but still accessible. more steps into intellectual approaches to faith.

"the trial and death of socrates" (euthyphro, apology, crito, and phaedo) by plato
you can get this for $2, but this is definitely not a case of "you get what you pay for." i cry when i read these four dialogues. euthyphro is an amazing example of the socratic method at work, as piety is dissected. apology is socrates' testimony at his trial - you're shaking your head half the time. at least. he's making lots of logical sense but being very undiplomatic - practically daring people to find him guilty. in crito socrates is offered an alternative to the death penalty but poo-poos it, and in phaedo he gives his last speech before his death by hemlock.
for him who fain would teach the world
the world holds hate in fee -
for socrates, the hemlock cup;
for Christ, gethsemane.
~don marquis, "the wages"

there are other parallels.

"a bargain for francis" by russell hoban, illustrated by lillian hoban
friends always play fair. oh, if only the world would embrace the lessons francis taught me.

i said above that my favourite books weren't the ideal candidates for this list, but as i've reflected, my mind has changed. certainly there are books i love that don't appear here. still, the books closest to my heart either epitomize my values or defy them in such a way as to throw me back into the arms of my most cherished beliefs.