[ Comment: The above image is of the review books sent to me over the last two weeks from various publishers. They await my return to the office. I receive about 500 review books a year. Though I can not read them all cover to cover, I skim as many as possible and try to read more thoroughly the books which catch my attention. Certain publishers have a track record for excellence, which means that I am more likely to read books which they send me.]

My favorite books in the world are those which I have received from my father. Throughout my library are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of books with notes in the front cover from my father. By the time I left home for marriage, my library contained thousands of books, many of which were gifts from my father dating back to my sixth birthday. Few of these were children’s books. Dad mostly gave me college level books in the hope that he would encourage me to think like an adult and build my resource library. I view the library my father built for me as a significant part of the inheritance he has bequeathed to me. My favorite books are the ones that contain a personal note from him in the inside front cover and which carry his underlines, markings, and notes from his own reading of the volume. Every week day I receive in the mail a 1-2 inch thick packet, with $4-$7 affixed in postage, from my father. It contains scads of newspaper and magazine article clippings which he has read and blanketed with notations. Sometimes he places books in the packages.

Dad’s choice of gift books is incredibly diverse and interesting. He purchases his books from any of the many book clubs to which he belongs, estate and library sales, and from friends. Dad rarely if ever gives me novels. 98% of the books I receive are histories, biographies, and theologies. Dad does not hesitate to send me “enemy propaganda,” and books which reflect viewpoints which diverge broadly from our own, especially where such books offer insights into the arguments and tactics of the opponents of orthodox Christianity.

Over the last two months Dad has sent me some of the following titles: Marriage and Love in England: 1300-1840, by Alan Macfarlane; Witchdoctors and Psychiatrists: The Common Roots of Psychotherapy and Its Future, by E. Fuller Torrey, MD; Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World, by Wesley J. Smith; The Jews in Colonial America, by Oscar Reiss; Serfdom and Social Control in Russia, by Stephan L. Hoch; William James and John Dewey, by Gordon Clark; Noah’s Flood: New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That Changed History, by William Ryan and Walter Pitman; America’s Secret Aristocracy, by Stephan Birmingham; Crossed Fingers: How the Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church, by Gary North, and The Church Effeminate, edited by John Robins.