March 2011

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves *

[W]e must be careful never to adopt prematurely a moral or evaluating attitude. The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize. (p. 12)

The times and places in which marriage depends on Eros are a small minority. Most of our ancestors were married off in early youth to partners chosen by their parents on grounds that had nothing to do with Eros.... And they did right; honest Christian husbands and wives, obeying their fathers and mothers, discharging to one another their “marriage debt,” and bringing up families in the fear of the Lord. (p. 92)

For it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on any other terms. (p. 107)

Perhaps, for many of us, all experience merely defines, so to speak, the shape of that gap where our love of God ought to be. It is not enough. It is something. If we cannot “practice the presence of God,” it is something to practice the absence of God, to become increasingly aware of our unawareness till we feel like men who should stand beside a great cataract and hear no noise, or like a man in a story who looks in a mirror and finds no face there, or a man in a dream who stretches out his hand to visible objects and gets no sensation of touch. To know that one is dreaming is to be no longer perfectly asleep. But for news of the fully waking world you must go to my betters. (p. 141)

January and February 2011

I've been on a Rosemary Sutcliff binge since I saw that * The Eagle of the Ninth was being made into a movie. I read that one aloud to the kids but it was mainly for myself, since I wanted to read it again before seeing the movie. I still love it, the kids loved it, and now they want me to read them more of hers. I have the next two in that trilogy, so I'll be reading them aloud in the next few months. After I finished The Eagle, I read * Warrior Scarlet (by myself), which was every bit as good as I remembered it. Then, in bed with a chest cold, I read in one day * The Mark of the Horse Lord, which is my favorite Sutcliff ever. That one I don't let my younger kids read as it's much more adult in its content and approach. Heartbreakingly beautiful story about sacrifice.

I'm also on a C. S. Lewis kick right now:
* That Hideous Strength
* The Abolition of Man
* Till We Have Faces

The only first-time read so far this year is Barbara Pym's Crampton Hodnet, which I enjoyed. I gave this and one other to my eldest daughter for Christmas, and it was a pleasant diversion.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Some quotes from the above books:

He cared nothing now for the blows he got, only for the blows he gave. It was a great fight, though a short one; a stand against hopeless odds such as no warrior of the Tribe need have been ashamed of. But it was a last stand, and the odds were hopeless; five against two. And Drem had only one arm to fight with.
Warrior Scarlet, page 82

* = reread

Books finished in 2010

I read more than this -- but so much of it I left unfinished. It was a bad year and that affected my ability to focus.

January
* Goodbye, Mr. Chips, James Hilton. Love this.
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens -- a first for me, the first time I've ever finished a Dickens. Really really good, deserves to be read again.
* A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle. Watched the movie Sherlock Holmes with the girls and loved it so much decided to revisit the stories.

February
Penhally, Caroline Gordon. Good, sad story.

March
* The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle. Collection of short stories.
* The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey.
Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson.

April
The Life of Mr Donne, Izaak Walton. I posted several of Donne's poems on my regular blog during National Poetry Month with biographical information I learned about him from this book. Didn't get to finish my intended series as Katherine and I went to Houston for three weeks to be with my sister while she was getting her second bone marrow transplant.

May
Death in Holy Orders, PD James. I mentioned starting this one while I was in Houston in February of last year -- was glad to find it again and finish reading it. I really like James's style and her characters, but her subject matter is disturbing.
Bed and Board, Robert Capon. Loved this book, a loaner from Kelly Rose. Want to read more of his stuff.

June

July
The Man in the Queue, Josephine Tey. Her stories are always interesting.
The Potter's Field, Ellis Peters.
Skellig, David Almond. A boy's baby sister was born weak and sickly and they aren't sure whether she'll live. When the family moves to a new house, the boy discovers in a shed a... something... a scarecrow or life-sized marionette that seems to be alive.

August
* Very Good, Jeeves, PG Wodehouse
The Raven in the Foregate, Ellis Peters
Devices and Desires, PD James

September
Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher -- poor, messed up girl
Somebody Is Going to Die if Lilly Beth Doesn't Catch that Bouquet: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Wedding, Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays. Hysterical -- want to read their other books.

October
*Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones -- love this; read it nearly every year
*Dogsbody, Diana Wynne Jones; first one I ever read by her, one of my faves

November
Enchanted Glass, Diana Wynne Jones

December
The Catholic Home: Celebrations and Traditions for Holidays, Feast Days, and Every Day, Meredith Gould. Good resource -- found ideas I'd been looking for.
Nathan Wilson's 100 Cupboards series: 100 Cupboards, Dandelion Fire, The Chestnut King. Good books, better than I expected since I was a teensy bit disappointed in Leepike Ridge.

* = reread

Reading 2009

Begun in 2009 but not finished
Death in Holy Orders, P.D. James; finished in 2010
The Everlasting Man, G.K. Chesterton
Poetic Knowledge, James Taylor
Family-Friendly Farming, Joel Salatin
The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues, Plato
A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman
The Greek Way, Edith Hamilton
On Poetics, Aristotle
What Are People For?, Wendell Berry

* = reread

December
* Goodbye, Mr. Chips, James Hilton; love this story

Maskerade, Terry Pratchett; quircky British humour

Half Magic, Edward Eager

* Long, Dark, Tea-Time of the Soul, Douglas Adams

All Flesh Is Grass, Gene Logsdon

November
Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper

October
The Little White Horse, Elizabeth Gouge; love all her stories

The Prince of Tides, Pat Conroy; a delight reading craftsmanship of this excellence, but the story was brutal and heart-breaking, a little like reading Truman Capote; would like to read more by him

The White Horse King, Ben Merkle; good intro to Alfred the Great with an excellent bibliography

* The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy; How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

September
The Art of Civilized Conversation, Margaret Shepherd; good book but I'll have to reread it and put it into practice

* Persuasion, Jane Austen

August
* "The Gold-Bug," Edgar Allen Poe
* "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Edgar Allen Poe

* A World Lost, Wendell Berry; my favorite Berry novel... I think

Life, Inc., Douglas Rushkoff; how our lives have been corporatized; important book

July
Eifelheim, Michael Flynn; science fiction involving a medieval German town that disappeared and an historian and a scientist who try to discover why; definitely want to read this again -- very well done literary SF, if you can believe such a thing exists

Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl, N.D. Wilson

The Echo of Greece, Edith Hamilton

Crossfire Trail, Louis L'Amour

Summer of my German Soldier, Bettie Greene


June
* Leave it to Psmith, P.G. Wodehouse; still my favorite Wodehouse

* Against Christianity, Peter Leithart

My Antonia, Willa Cather

Breathmarks: Haiku to Read in the Dark, Gary Hotham; read this little volume through two or three times, one or two poems a day

"Trifles," Susan Glaspell, one-act play; murder mystery


May
Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education, David Hicks; really good -- I think I should read it yearly

* Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones; delightful, haven't gotten tired of it yet

PACE: Rediscover your Native Fitness, Al Sears; helpful info on alternating low-intensity activity with high-intensity (walk/sprint/walk), it really helped me increase my stamina

* "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," Ernest Hemingway

* "Barn Burning," William Faulkner

* "Revelation," Flannery O'Connor

April reading

*Lord Peter, short stories collection by Dorothy Sayers

Economics for Helen, Hillaire Belloc, excellent read, now I feel like I can tackle some of his more difficult works

The Pantry, beautiful book

Cold Sassy Tree, Olive Ann Burns

The Fathers, Allen Tate

March reading

A very light month, most of which was spent in recovery, spring cleaning, and a visit from my mother-in-law.

Morality for Beautiful Girls, Alexander McCall Smith, third in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

*Elizabeth and her German Garden, anon. semi-autobiographical novel, fun reading

*The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien, because you can't get too much of Tolkein

The Everlasting Man, GK Chesterton, begun for a friend's sake and dropped, need to pick this one up again

February reading

Started Not a Tame Lion: The Spiritual Legacy of C.S. Lewis by Terry Glaspey. Part of the Leaders in Action series, I've had this book awhile but I don't think I've ever read it before.

Update:

Never finished the Glaspey book. I had trouble getting into it -- not because of the subject but because of the style. It's really an overview and the chapters are so short (about a page and a half each) and topical that just as it gets interesting he ends the chapter and moves on to another. The one good thing about it is the extensive bibliography. Hopefully someday I can read a couple of the things he lists there.

I bought the first three books of Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series to take to Houston with me, but I had to leave the second and third books behind. Actually, I had to leave behind at least half a dozen books I'd meant to take with me, but two of them were these. After finishing the first I was able to pick up the second (Tears of the Giraffe) from MD Anderson's patient/family library. Really liked these books -- strong sense of place and people that comes across really well.

I've been wanting to read Barbara Kingsolver ever since Wendell Berry mentioned her at the conference we attended in Bristol, TN, a couple of years ago, so I was pleased to see one of her novels at the M.D. Anderson library, The Bean Tree. I enjoyed reading it -- it kept me guessing -- but I wish she weren't so... vulgar. Well, her main characters were lower-class rural people so maybe that's normal.

Another find from the hospital library was a collection of short stories by Truman Capote, whom I've never read before. His prose is beautiful -- not a single word out of place. "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is a little different from the movie -- rougher, more squalid. I didn't like either of the next two stories, "House of Flowers" and "Diamond Guitar," but was refreshing to read such excellent writing. The last one, though, "A Christmas Memory," was perfect in every way.

I began P.D. James's Death in Holy Orders but only got as far as the third chapter before it was time for me to fly home. It was the first of hers I've ever read, and I liked it. Slow at the start, but gradually drawing you in... the kind of book I like.

January reading

*Lady Washington by Dorothy Clarke Wilson
Well-written bio of Martha Washington, slightly marred by the author's lack of familiarity with the seasons and flora of the South -- she has dogwoods and magnolias blooming at the same time, more than once -- and the obligatory girlhood revolt of Martha Dandridge against the eighteenth century girl's limits. Still, the best of the few bios on her I've read. Makes me want to read more.

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Slow and sweet, based on the town of Knutsford where Gaskell grew up.

Still reading The Story of French... the earlier part was more interesting, and it's a very long book -- 450 pages!

Reading 2008

Lost the notebook with my list early in the year and never started a new one, so this list is a reconstruction to the best of my memory, done while browsing the family's bookshelves.

Looks like I read more this year than I thought I did, since it seems like I spent an awful lot of my free time learning French this year, getting through all three levels of The Learnables and almost finishing level one of Pimsleur. Those are both good programs, by the way.

Asterisk denotes re-read.

NOVELS

Austen, Jane -- all are excellent, of course, and highly recommended
* Emma
* Mansfield Park
* Northanger Abbey
* Persuasion
* Pride and Prejudice
* Sanditon and Other Stories
* Sense and Sensibility

Buchan, John
* Thirty-Nine Steps, The -- fun adventure

Chesterton, G.K.
Man Who Was Thursday, The -- subtitiled, A Nightmare, it starts off slow, gets laughing-out-loud funny in the middle and then turns into a bizarre nightmare with wild chase and strange characters, and then the man wakes up and everything's normal

Christie, Agatha
* Dead Man’s Folly
Death in the Air
Murder at the Vicarage, The
Mystery of the Blue Train, The
N or M?
Sad Cypress -- I think Mrs Christie admired Dorothy Sayers; this book reminds me of the Lord Peter/Harriet Vane stories with Unnatural Death thrown in for good measure
* Towards Zero
What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!
(Actually, given what a Christie fan I was in high school, I've probably read all of these, but I only remember these two.)

Godden, Rumer
Battle of the Villa Fiorita, The -- good

Jones, Diana Wynne -- Beware of letting your kids read Jones. When she's good, she's very very good, but when she's bad, she's horrid. My favorites of hers are still Howl's Moving Castle and Dogsbody.
Cart and Cwidder
Game, The -- so-so
Hexwood -- pretty good
Homeward Bounders, The -- can't remember what I thought of it


Lewis, C.S.
* That Hideous Strength -- excellent

Pratchett, Terry and Neil Gaimon
Good Omens -- lousy

Sayers, Dorothy -- all her books are wonderful, of course!
* Busman’s Honeymoon
* Nine Tailors, The

Tey, Josephine
Daughter of Time, The -- interesting; makes her case very convincingly
Shilling for Candles, A -- the book on which the Hitchcock movie Young and Innocent is based, very different from his movie, but interesting

Tolkien, J.R.R. -- excellent
* Lord of the Rings, The

~*~

POETRY AND DRAMA

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
* Idylls of the King -- lovely

Chesterton, G.K.
* Ballad of the White Horse, The -- everyone should read this!

Goldsmith, Oliver
She Stoops to Conquer -- funny but puzzling; maybe I'm looking too hard for a moral

Shakespeare, William -- Excellent, of course. I've seen these as plays but I think it's the first time I've ever read them right through.
Henry V
The Tempest

~*~

BIOGRAPHY

Chisholm, Anne
Rumer Godden: A Storyteller’s Life -- very interesting; before reading this I only knew her as a children's author, but it turns out Godden wrote her children's stories in-between her literary novels as a way to relax

Day, Clarence
Life with Father -- funny

Keller, Kate Van Winkle and Charles Cyril Hendricskson
George Washington: A Biography in Social Dance -- love this kind of stuff; knowing how differently from us other people thought makes history much easier to understand

~*~

NON-FICTION

Bartholomew, Mel
All New Square-Foot Gardening -- helpful

Belloc, Hillaire
Servile State, The -- Wow. Must reading for those interested in economics.

Berthold-Bond, Annie
Clean and Green -- very helpful; I have several favorite recipes I use all the time now that work just as well as store-bought products and don't stink up the house

Carlson, Alan
Third Ways -- Another good read for those interested in economics. Capitalism and Socialism really aren't the only two options.

Chesterton, G.K.
What’s Wrong with the World -- It's Chesterton. Of course it's good.

Flemer, Carl F., jr.
Four Centuries of Little Known Washington Parish History -- very interesting history of the area right around where I live now

Gokhale, Esther
8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back -- it works!

Hazlett, Henry
Economics in One Lesson -- reviewed at my regular blog, I was more frustrated with this book than anything

Leithart, Peter
* Miniatures and Morals -- very helpful insights

Lewis, C.S.
* Abolition of Man, The -- I read somewhere that That Hideous Strength was written with the ideas in this book in the back of Lewis's mind, so I reread it first before tackling this book again and it really made a difference -- helped me realize what he was getting at. Very important work.
Four Loves, The -- Need to read this one again. VERY GOOD!

Pitchford, Paul
Healing with Whole Foods: Oriental Traditions and Modern Nutrition -- very helpful

Wilson, Douglas and Douglas Jones
* Angels in the Architecture -- still good

Wilson, Nancy
Our Mother Tongue -- not as good as I'd hoped it would be