The other pass-along I got recently was the notorious series of book questions (from Kate).

Number of books I own: 2,500 or so

Last book I bought: Gosh, I don’t know. My family gives me books. I gave my mom Ghost Wars for Christmas.

The last book I read: Other than light bedtime paperbacks? Um, probably Dylan’s Chronicles, Vol. 1.

Five books that meant a lot to me:

• Exodus, by Leon Uris. It got me started reading books about World War II and the Jewish experience during that period of history
• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer. Part of the exploration started by the Uris book
• The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman. Another attempt to understand the century I was born in
• Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo. One of the best anti-war books ever written
• The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. One of the first books I read which made me appreciate a writer’s skill at placing the reader in another place