Get Thee To a Nunnery

"Um... My Love... do we need to talk? Did I do something? Is there something you need to tell me?" asked my dear husband. I was utterly puzzled.

Let's go back a bit.

There's a book, written by a Carmelite nun that, as a child, teen, and young adult, almost single-handedly convinced me I wanted to and should be a Carmelite. (When I told my husband about this book before we were married, he commented along the lines of "Hm, don't read it again 'til after the 'I Do's'.")

As a youth I read this book so many times the binding gave way and the book literally fell apart, and then I lost the pieces. I love this book. Dearly. I hadn't read it in years, though I'd been scanning Amazon (and Alibris, BN, and EBay) for it almost monthly during all that time. It's out of print, you see, and though the original cover price was $0.85, it now sells for $75-$450.

Sure, I wanted to read it again, but I could never justify $75 for a "poor condition" copy which might fall apart again or $450 for a "like new 1st edition" copy. That's just extortion!

Last month, there happened to be a "like new 1st edition" copy for $25 (obviously sold by someone who didn't know its value)! I bought it.

Then there's another book I highly recommend by Alice von Hildebrand entitled By Love Refined, Letters to a Young Bride. It's good for any wife, I love love love it. It does have an unfortunate heading on the back cover, though.

Being the non-committal reader that I am, I usually have 2-3 books going at once piled on the nightstand. So imagine my poor husband's surprise when he came home and saw the book of my childhood vocational decision, My Beloved, stacked on top of this: