Collected Miscellany

Continuing our Aulstralian theme, Aussie Martin Roth has agreed to do a “Books and Blogs” interview exclusivly for this humble web site. Martin is a full-time freelance writer concentrating on business and finance. He is the author of a dozen or so business books in his native land. His blog, however, reflects his Christian thinking rather than his “day job.”

He has written one Christian book, “Living Water to Light the Journey”, published in 1999. It’s an analysis of culture and society from a Christian perspective, as well as an account of his own journey – via Zen Buddhism – to Christianity. It’s out of print now, but readers can get it online at Martin’s web page.

Here are Martin’s answers to the usual ten questions:

1. How did you get interested in blogging and when did you start?

At some point last year I became an avid fan of AndrewSullivan.com, and thought I’d like to try something like that, commenting on the news from a Christian perspective. I didn’t know then that there were other bloggers doing that already, such as JunkYardBlog. I started in April this year.

2. Do you see yourself as a “linker” or a “thinker” or both?

When I started I aimed to be both. But I soon found I just didn’t have the time needed to keep finding interesting stuff to link to, so now I like to think of myself as a thinker, providing a regular commentary.

3. Were/are you interested in blogging as a way to promote your book/other writing?

I’m not trying to promote my book, because it’s no longer on sale (and in any case, was only on sale here in Australia, and I find most readers of my website are in America). But I love writing and commenting on the news, and I feel the Christian perspective on world affairs is often not adequately promoted, so I’m keen to push my writing and my regular commentaries.

4. How has blogging affected/impacted your writing (style, content, skill, etc.)?

I’ve worked as a reporter on daily newspapers, so I’m used to writing fast and to the point, and that’s what you need for blogging. I don’t feel that regular blogging has had any influence on my style. But for someone without my journalism background I would recommend regular blogging as a way to develop discipline and writing skills.

5. Has your blog helped promote your work as an author? (book sales, freelance work, etc.)

I wish it had, but no sign of that.

6. Do you have another book planned? If so describe . . .

I’m concerned that we are moving away from our reliance on the stories of the Bible as the bedrock of our culture. The story of the Good Samaritan is an example. It used to be that you always tried to help a stranger in trouble. Not any more. I’ve prepared quite a detailed outline for a book on this topic, and entered it last year for a literary scholarship being offered here in Australia by a Christian group. From hundreds of entries I came second. The winner got a $10,000 book-writing award. The second-place getter (me) got a laminated certificate. So the book remains in the outline stage.

7. Who are your favorite blog writers?

There are lots, and as with tasty desserts you have to limit yourself. So right now the only two I read every day are Andrew Sullivan and Tim Blair.

8. Who are some of your favorite non-bloggers?

Try crikey.com a local combination of the British “Private Eye” magazine (gossip, scandal and whistle-blowing) and the American “Drudge Report”.

9. Name one person who doesn’t have a blog but should get one.

Anne Lamott

10. Where do you see blogs going? Is it a fad or a trend?

It’s hard work to do well. If the best bloggers don’t somehow start making
money from their efforts I wonder how long they’ll keep at it.

Eve Tushnet has posted a list of books that have influenced her:
Augustine of Hippo, Confessions.
Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov; Notes from Underground.
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk.
Maggie Gallagher, Enemies of Eros; The Abolition of Marriage; The Case for Marriage (co-author with Linda Waite).
Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made.
Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom.
Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson.
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed; The Screwtape Letters; The Problem of Pain.
Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue.
Charles Murray, Losing Ground and What It Means to Be a Libertarian.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals; Beyond Good and Evil; The Gay Science; The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music; Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Marvin Olasky, The Tragedy of American Compassion.
P.J. O’Rourke, All the Trouble in the World; Eat the Rich; Parliament of Whores; Modern Manners; Holidays in Hell.
George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia; 1984; The Road to Wigan Pier; selected Orwell essays.
Plato, The Symposium.
Paul Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern.
Philip Roth, Sabbath’s Theater.
The Portable Enlightenment Reader..
Antonin Scalia et al., A Matter of Interpretation.
William Shakespeare, King Lear; Hamlet; Macbeth; Henry IV 1&2; Henry V; Richard II; Love’s Labours Lost; Measure for Measure; A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
R.W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages.
Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History.
Donna Tartt, The Secret History.

I think I might do the same thing. If you do please let me know (send the link or email me).

John Cole over at Balloon Juice has an interesting book proposal:

Just finished Bernard Lewis’s What Went Wrong. A great read, and I would recommend it. Andrew Sullivan’s book review club seems to have taken off, and this sparked an idea for me. I would much rather just have a book exchange. If anyone has a book they would like to swap (I usually buy several every month), I would be glad to ship you my copy of What Went Wrong in exchange for another tome on relevant issues, both historical and political. The deal is, you send me the book, I send you the book, we are both responsible for the shipping, and then you send it on to someone else in exchange for another book in the future- a book swap club, if you will. E-mail me if you are interested.

Interesting story in the The Columbus Dispatch about BookCrossing.com – “a year-old Web site that encourages people to take their already-read books to public places and leave them.”

Apparently, one registers the book and then leaves it when you finish reading it. If someone picks it up they then go to the site and note where they found it. It seems to have hooked at least a few people:

Thus far, more than 11,000 people have registered more than 28,000 books they have “released into the wild,” as Hornbaker calls it. From his office in Kansas City, Mo., BookCrossing had spread to 36 countries.

Interesting, perhaps I will try it myself . . .

For those who are interested, I have posted a short interview with Dot Con author and blogger/journalist Ken Layne on Addicted to Books. Mr. Layne reveals his thoughts on blogging, books, etc.

Enjoy.

John Derbyshire has joined this fine site in admiting he has a problem:he is addicted to books:

I am in the doghouse. Actually, I am in the Derb house… which is small, and rapidly silting up with books. I can’t resist buying books, and can’t bear to get rid of them. My long-suffering wife was starting to grumble. Then, last week, I was in my local second-hand bookstore talking with the owner (Hi, George). He had just taken delivery of a full set of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, the so-called “scholars’ edition,” because of the number of big-name academics and intellectuals that contributed articles. (Alfred North Whitehead did “Geometry”; a lot of the Eng. Lit. stuff is by Edmund Gosse.) He grumbled about the difficulty of moving such a big set of books. Second-hand booksellers nowadays sell most of their stuff by mail, thanks to wonderful sites like Abebooks. Now my man had to find a buyer for a 29-volume set, and then box it up and mail it out.
While he was telling me this, I was leafing through the volumes, and the little red demon perched on my left shoulder was winning out over the little white angel on my right. There was a brief spell of bargaining. I got the whole set for $115. Then came what Basil Fawlty used to call “the tricky bit” %u2014 explaining it to the wife. Heck, I don’t care, she’ll have to start speaking to me again sooner or l