book bonanza

on the weekend i received a load of books i'd ordered from amazon, delivered to me by my brother scott who is visiting with his family from hong kong. scott picked the books up last week from his parents-in-law's home in los angeles, where i'd had them sent to save a bundle on shipping costs. many, many thanks, scott (and wolitarskys). i owe you big time!

i can't remember being as excited by a book purchase as i am with these. i decided, as i had the u.s. delivery option, to go bulk and blow my year's book budget (and then some...) on the complete james alison set, as well as the complete set by australian catholic monk and author michael casey. here is the entire list of books:

by james alison:
knowing jesus
the joy of being wrong: original sin through easter eyes
raising abel: the recovery of eschatological imagination
faith beyond resentment: fragments catholic and gay
on being liked

by gil bailie:
violence unveiled: humanity at the crossroads

by michael casey:
sacred reading: the ancient art of lectio divina
toward god: the ancient wisdom of western prayer
a guide to living in the truth: saint benedict's teaching on humility
fully human, fully divine: an interactive christology

you might notice that i'm a bit of a completist. it's one of my vices, i suppose, but when i find an excellent author (or singer/band) i just want to devour everything they've produced.

so it looks like my reading for this year (and beyond) is pretty much mapped out. i intend to read the books in chronological order, starting with alison's knowing jesus. i prefer to read an author's works in the order in which they were written anyway (another of my obsessive traits), and doing it this way will also mean skipping from author to author, which will help maintain a bit of variety. if the chronological order means consecutive books by one author, i'll intersperse with one or more of the many other books on my shelf (which i'll probably do anyway to get some fiction into the mix).

can't wait to get into them. this is going to be a great year - and this blog will no doubt be something of a james alison & michael casey journal, or rather (i hope), a dave roberts encounters god in new and life-changing ways through the teaching and facilitation of james alison and michael casey!

bring it on!