Barbara's Random Thoughts

A friend asked me whatever happened to my blog where I write about what I'm reading. I had to hang my head in shame. So much for that resolution to write something about every book I read this year. I do want to write a bit more about what I liked, didn't like, read, didn't read... etc. And I positively must comment on the large number of books I read about monks and nuns. Completely unintentional, I swear. But for now, here's the list. And maybe there will be more to come as far as my comments about the list!

Fiction: (21 books)
The Man Who Was Thursday, G.K. Chesterton
Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
A Far Better Rest, Susanne Alleyn
The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb
Mama Day, Gloria Naylor
Godric, Frederick Buechner
Wintersmith, Terry Pratchett
And the Word Was, Bruce Bauman
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
Mariette in Ecstasy, Ron Hansen
The Least of These My Brothers, Harold Bell Wright
Watership Down, Richard Adams
Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien
Lambs of God, Marele Day
Sunshine, Robin McKinley
High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis

Children’s/YA: (11 books)
Magic or Madness, Justine Larbalestier
Kneeknock Rise, Natalie Babbitt
The Twenty-One Balloons, William Pène du Bois
Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
Emily Climbs, L.M. Montgomery
Below the Root, Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Giver, Lois Lowry
The Water Horse, Dick King-Smith
Emily’s Quest, L.M. Montgomery
A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle

Nonfiction: (14 books)
In Search of Guidance, Dallas Willard (244)
Journey to Myself, ed. Julia Landau (88)
A Stay Against Confusion, Ron Hansen (261)
*A Spirituality of the Road, David Bosch (90)
*Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (122)
*What’s Your God Language, Myra Perrine (222)
*Simply Christian, N.T. Wright (240)
A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken (238)
*A Tale of Three Kings, Gene Edwards (98)
*The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch (271)
*The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard (436)
Scribbling in the Sand: Christ and Creativity, Michael Card (163)
Love in the Driest Season, Neely Tucker (242)
The Mind of the Maker, Dorothy Sayers (229)

Poetry: (1 book)
Selected Poems, Edna St. Vincent Millay (155)

Total: 47
Re-read (17 books)
*CRM/NCSA (7 books)

Also, pieces of:
*Funding Your Ministry, Scott Morton
*About Teaching 4MAT in the Classroom, Bernice McCarthy
*Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster


Appendix, for what it's worth:

Still in progress at the end of 2008:
The Irrational Season, Madeleine L’Engle (I finished this one today!)
Penguins and Golden Calves, Madeleine L’Engle

Books I purchased in 2008, but have not yet read:
Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eugene Peterson
Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin
Alphabet of Grace, Frederick Buechner
Finding Our Way Again, Brian McLaren
The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl

Books I brought to SA from CA, but have not yet read:
Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eugene Peterson
King Hereafter, Dorothy Dunnett
The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis

Labels: reading

I went to a conference in Vancouver last week and went on to visit family in San Diego before returning to South Africa. I spent far too much time on planes and sitting in airports (I visited a grand total of 6 airports on my various flights), and as such, did a lot of reading. Here's the list:

A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken
I started this one about a week before I left, and then debated whether I should take a half-read book with me. If I'm gonna carry a book around, I want to get the most possible reading out of it that I can. I ended up bringing it anyway, and I'm really glad I did. It was a re-read, but as usual, this reading was very different from the first time I read it. (Summer 2003, I think? I remember this one going on my application for DPI, under the "three books you've recently read" question.) This is a memoir, telling the story of Vanauken's relationship with his wife, Davy. What stuck out to me on my first read was the idyllic love story. This time around, I was impacted far more by the account of Vanauken's spiritual journey. I'm gonna write more about this one, I think I still need to take more time with the thinking and writing.

The Water Horse, Dick King-Smith
I already posted about this one--a fun book which I read in its entirety while standing in the children's book aisle of a W.H. Smith in the Heathrow airport.

Emily's Quest, L.M. Montgomery
The Emily books are not nearly as well-known as the Anne books, but they're just as good (if not better). I re-read Emily of New Moon before I left California, and brought the other two Emily books with me. I discovered after finishing Emily Climbs that I had packed the last of the series in the duffel bag which I had left at my parents' house, with plans to bring it back with me when I visited in June. This made me very sad, because I immediately wanted to read this one upon finishing the previous one. So of course, this was the first book I read on my various flights back to South Africa. It gave my the L.M. Montgomery fix I'd been craving, as well as my fill of hopeful romantic sentiment which may or may not have been good for me. Hmm. I read it far too quickly, though...

A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray
I purchased this one in LAX, since I was already halfway through Emily's Quest. I had 20 hours of flying and a 7-hour layover ahead of me, and only about 300 pages of reading left. It ended up being a very good thing that I purchased this book--I finished reading all the books I had with me about an hour and a half before my final flight landed in Joburg. I have this fear of running out of reading material and there being no good movies on the plane. That almost happened on this trip, and by the time the plane landed I was very much ready to disembark! This was a YA gothic sort of thing about a girl at boarding school in Victorian England who begins to unravel mysteries about her past and discovers realms of magic and so on and so forth. It was quite good, just the sort of thing for plane reading, really.

A Tale of Three Kings, Gene Edwards
We're reading this for NCSA during the last few weeks of the year. I'm supposed to lead the discussions on this book, so I thought I'd get a head start on the reading--partly to see if we could also fit a few final chapters of Divine Conspiracy into our last weeks. I concluded that the answer is yes--this is a short book (less than 100 pages), and a really fast read. It's a retelling of the Old Testament stories of David and Saul and David and Absalom, and is quite devotional in tone. I really enjoyed the perspective it gave on leadership and submission and the right and wrong way to respond to good and bad leadership.

And there's my reading over the past few weeks. I doubt I'll read nearly as much in the next couple of weeks, even though my stash of books here in South Africa has now grown exponentially (due to my bringing back the aforementioned duffel bag full of books).

Labels: reading, travel

This book wins the prize for shortest period of time between me watching the movie and finishing the book. I watched the movie on a flight between Jo’burg and London, and noticed it was based on a book by Dick King-Smith, one of my favorite authors when I was a kid. The movie ended, the plane landed, and a couple of hours later, I came across the book while browsing in a W.H. Smith in Heathrow. As it was under 100 pages long, I proceeded to read it right there in the children’s book aisle.

I discovered that the movie bears very little resemblance to the book other than the fact that the plot revolves around a little Scottish boy named Angus who finds an object at the seaside which then hatches into a Water Horse, grows rapidly, and then finds a home in Loch Ness. I actually enjoyed the movie more than the book (gasp!). It was a fun book, but there was a little more substance to the movie, strangely enough. Except that the movie cuts out the grandfather, who they call “Grumble” because he complains about everything. How awesome is that?

Labels: children's, mini-review, reading

This was ok. That's about it. It filled my need for "more French Revolution!" without getting me a few hundred pages into Les Mis, only to abandon it due to lack of time when getting to South Africa became foremost in my concerns.

This is one of those spin-off books. It imagines the events in the life of Sydney Carton (from Tale of Two Cities) during the parts of the book where he disappears from the narrative. The bits of this novel that of necessity overlap with the action of Tale of Two Cities end up being a bit tedious, because, ok, I had just read Tale of Two Cities. The changed perspective in these parts of the narrative really didn’t add anything for me. I’ve ready plenty of novels & stories where shifting the telling of the same event to a different perspective adds new layers of meaning. This one didn’t really do that for me.

The bulk of the book is taken up with newly invented events, assuming that Carton moved to Paris and established himself in the middle of the political circles of the day. This part of the narrative was most interesting to me because it filled in some details of the political climate of Paris during the French Revolution.

However, I found it a little implausible. If Carton was well-known to such prominent figures as Robespierre, Marat, and Desmoulins, he would have been well-known enough in Paris that his likeness to Darnay would not have gone unnoticed. Kind of throws a wrench into the climax of the story. But (as with many historical novels) this author felt the need to thrust Carton into the middle of the action as far as French politics were concerned. I think this is one of the ways Dickens succeeds in the historical novel genre--he focuses on one group of people caught up in the events of history, rather than making them central to those events, or even adjacent to the people central to those events.

There’s a kind of amusing (to me) afterword/disclaimer at the end, which mildly argues that Dickens sensationalized the Terror and that it wasn’t so bad after all. The author compares the number executed during the Terror to the number killed during one of the Napoleonic battles. Small but important distinction that the author failed to draw out: those executed during the terror were, well... executed. Casualties of war are considerably different from executions carried out over a period of days and weeks. Executions ordered following hasty and dubious trials and convictions, I might add.

What I did enjoy in reading this was learning a bit more about the politics surrounding the time period that’s so central in Dickens’ novel. When I finished Tale of Two Cities, I was curious to read more about the same time period, and this novel did that--filling in some of the political details and context very well. While it was interesting for me to explore some additional fictional narrative focused on this historical time period, I wouldn’t exactly recommend this one heartily.

Labels: book review, fiction, reading

This book has been republished under the title Hearing God (as per the cover image to the left), but I read an earlier edition, as per the title above. You're just gonna have to live with the discrepancy.

This book has long been on my to-read list. I actually procured this particular copy while I was working at GHBC--it was on Bob's reading list for one of his D.Min. classes. I got the book for him, transcribed his dictated notes on it, and edited his subsequent paper. Then I inherited the book when he was clearing out his bookshelves. And now I've finally read it myself.

This was a perhaps too-timely read for me. I started reading it in November, and finished in January--reading it throughout my most confused months of discernment/decision making after returning from South Africa. It did seem a little too obvious to read a book titled "In Search of Guidance" during this time.

I knew from the outset that reading this book wasn't going to answer all my questions or give me some sort of formula that if followed would yield instructions on exactly what steps to take next. But I think I like to look for formulas and instructions regardless. This book (thankfully) isn't that.

When making big life decisions, I consistently go to God asking for directional answers, specific instructions as to what to do. Reading this book was another very needed reminder that God doesn’t generally work that way. No “Hey, Barbara, go back to South Africa” messages came during this time in my life or through my reading of this book. But what I needed far more than specific instructions (though I often frustratedly think specifics would be preferable) was summed up by the book’s subtitle: “Developing a Conversational Relationship with God.”

Ultimately, the message Willard conveys is that guidance comes through relationship. We must place ourselves into a conversational relationship with God and guidance will flow from that. You can’t skip the relationship and expect to hear God’s voice. During these months, I commented more than once that I kept going to God with directional questions, and he kept responding with heart answers: calling me to deeper relationship, to trust, and to stepping out in faith. I’d ask: “Where do I go?” and He would answer: “Be with me.” As frustrating as that can be, that’s exactly what I need. Not just when I’m making huge life decisions, but always.

Labels: book review, reading

I decided to tackle this almost 900-page novel on my flights to South Africa. It was really really good. I’d read Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone years ago, and thought it was absolutely amazing. A former boss of mine had read both novels and thought this one was far superior, so I had high hopes. And while I thought this one was a little more scattered, it worked for me.

At first, I didn’t find any of the characters likable, other than the narrator’s ex-wife. This didn’t seem to bode well for the novel. But I couldn’t put it down. It ended up being an awesome plane-and-just-arrived-in-South-Africa novel. It’s similar to She’s Come Undone in that things never seem like they’re gonna get better for the narrator. Which takes the reader on quite a journey, but it ends up being a very good journey, and one that I enjoyed.

Yes, that's an Oprah's Book Club logo on the front cover. Shut up.

Labels: mini-review, reading

Kristy gave me this fun kids' book for my birthday, accompanied by an apology for giving me yet another book at a time when I was trying to streamline my library and narrow down which books to box up and which to take with me to South Africa.* I read it over a couple of sittings in an afternoon/evening and then packed it into a box not too long after. A balloon adventure gone awry on a supposedly-but-not-actually-deserted island? Great fun.


*She's forgiven, since she adopted a large portion of my library for the next couple of years, saving me from the anguish of packing them all away.

Labels: mini-review, reading

A short tour through the books I've read/re-read/been reading/been re-reading...but haven't written about yet.

Finished:
A Spirituality of the Road, David Bosch
I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb
The Twenty-One Balloons, William Pene Du Bois
A Far Better Rest, Susanne Alleyn
Hearing God, Dallas Willard
The Time-Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger

Currently re-reading:
Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson

And....I've nearly finished What's Your God Language by Myra Perrine, and am hoping to get back into actively reading Eugene Peterson's Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. Sometime. Soonish. But then there's that N.T. Wright book I should probably finish before the 19th. If I'm gonna be responsible and intelligently plan that discussion and all. Hmm.

When it comes down to it...I kinda like having the problem of too many books to read and discuss.

Labels: reading

I thought I was going to love this book. Halfway through, I was sure I was going to love it. It ended up leaving me with a lot of thoughts, but mixed feelings. The fact that this brief children's book left me thinking quite deeply is a sign of how good the book was, but still. I think I wanted something different out of it in the end.

One of the blurbs on the back of the book describes it as a "new folktale," and that's probably an apt description. The story tells the tale of a boy named Egan as he visits the town of Instep. Instep is situated at the base of Kneeknock Rise--a mountain that is continually shrouded in mist, home to the Megrimum, a fearsome creature that moans frightfully during rainstorms. The town's inhabitants have all kinds of superstitions about how to protect themselves from the Megrimum, and as Kneeknock Rise is the most exciting thing for miles around, there's a certain level of pride mixed in with their fear of the beast on the mountain. Kneeknock Rise acts as somewhat of a tourist attraction each year when Instep puts on a fair and travelers arrive hoping to hear the Megrimum. The reader is introduced to the monster and the legends surrounding it through the eyes of an outsider, as Egan tries to figure out exactly what it is that lurks at the top of Kneeknock Rise.

The book ultimately explores the nature of mystery and belief. Why do we believe? Is it because we need to believe in something, regardless of logic and fact and reason? Or is there something more to it than that?

One of the visitors to Instep describes what draws him to the town and away from his everyday life:

It's the knowing there's something different, something special up there waiting. It's the knowing you could choose to change your days--climb up there and throw yourself right down the throat of the only and last and greatest terrible secret in the world. Except you don't climb up.

I loved that description--the desire for the mystery and the wonder of something utterly unknown. The fear of it, and yet the desire to keep it close, just in case. Because: you could. Or you might. One day.

Labels: book review, children's, reading

I finished this over the weekend, and you know what that means? It means I finally completed that Winter Reading Challenge from 2006. Go, me. Also, I'm jumping ahead a little by saying this is book #5--I'm gonna have to circle back to another one I finished earlier, but I felt like writing about this one now. So I am.

Also also. I feel a little weird writing any kind of review of Tale of Two Cities, since it falls into that category of Books Everyone Else But Me Has Read. So make of this what you will.

Heather and I became obsessed with the card game Guillotine one summer on a mission trip, and a friend told us he was rather disturbed by the game since he was currently reading Tale of Two Cities. Now I know what he meant. The afternoon after I finished reading this book found me sitting in Starbucks, playing Guillotine with a friend and wearing my Les Miserables sweatshirt...and wondering if there might be something wrong with that. Yeah, probably.

Ok, so about the book. I love Dickens, contrary to what Lucinda thought. =) But the reasons I have loved Dickens in the past are not the reasons I found Tale of Two Cities so good. The Dickensian caricatures, the melodrama, the overabundance of completely implausible coincidences...I love it all. But then there's this other thread of seriousness and historical reality that runs throughout his work, and that's what I loved about Tale of Two Cities. I honestly did feel a little weird about playing Guillotine, making light of such serious events...after reading a novel that put me on those streets, in that time, imagining what it would have been like watching the bloodthirsty executions of the Terror.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the combination of these disparate elements. Caricature, melodrama, and serious historical reality dealing with social injustice. And, an author who can give such a good sense of a place that I feel like I was there. This is what I love about Dickens. Now I'm wanting to revisit Hard Times, because it had the same seriousness and social/historical reality that was so good here. Dang, where's that paper I wrote for Dr. Pickett about Hard Times? That was good stuff.

Next up for my fiction reading: A Far Better Rest by Susanne Alleyn--a book that imagines the missing events of Sydney Carton's life. Kristy got this for me ages ago, not realizing that I was the last person on earth over the age of 14 who hadn't read Tale of Two Cities. I'm not usually up for spinoff books, but I'll see how this goes. Either that, or I'll speed through Les Miserables before I leave for South Africa. Heh. =)

Labels: book review, reading

I read Hansen's Mariette in Ecstasy for English Seminar one semester at Biola, and was fascinated with the way it explored an extreme form/manifestation of religious devotion (stigmata) and the reactions that such phenomena can spark. I later picked up this collection of Hansen's essays, intrigued by the title alone (specifically the subtitle: "Essays on Faith and Fiction"), but also because I was interested in what this particular author had to say on the interplay between faith and fiction.

I was a little disappointed that the essays in the volume didn't spend more time examining that faith/fiction relationship. There were a few along that line, but on the whole, the essays were self-contained--some falling under the faith category and some under the fiction category. That said, I very much enjoyed the book once I got the self-contained thing through my head. I found Hansen's essays quietly thoughtful and reflective. Even though they didn't all fit into the topic I was interested in exploring, I really liked his voice and hope to explore more of his writing.

The essays vary fairly widely in topic, and I found myself compiling a list of books, movies, and other stuff I wanted to explore further as I made my way through the collection. That's always a good sign. Hansen discusses Tolstoy's "Master and Man," the movie Babette's Feast, the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the Biblical story of Cain (from the perspective of a twin), and offers a meditation on the "Anima Christi" prayer--which I was interested to discover is one that appears at the beginning of the Ignatian Exercises.

Mid-year last year, someone recommended the Ignatian exercises to me, and over the past few months, I've come across more and more references to St. Ignatius/Ignatian spirituality/the Ignatian exercises. This book fit right in with this thread--there's an essay on the life of St. Ignatius and the beginning of the Jesuit order, as well as other references to Ignatius scattered throughout the book. Hansen teaches at a Jesuit college, go figure. =) I'm thinking I need to do some more reading on the topic--intentional, rather than the fortuitous convergence of late.

I'm gonna close with a passage I loved, where Hansen describes the moments following his receiving first communion. It's an amazing picture to me of what communion is about--the grace we are given to partake in something both symbolic and thoroughly real, the work Christ has done and is still doing within us, something accomplished and yet still being accomplished...yes, there is sin. But there is also grace.

Then I knelt heedfully upright and mentally prayed as we'd been instructed to do, some scared and scientific part of me assaying myself for chemical reactions or a sudden infusion of wisdom while fancying Christ now sitting dismally in my scoundrel soul, my oh so many sins pooling like sewer water at his sandaled feet. But soon I saw that I was still me; there would be no howls of objection, no immediate correction or condemnation, no hint that I was under new management, just the calming sense that whoever I was was fine with Jesus.

It was a grace I hadn't imagined.

--Ron Hansen, "Eucharist" (p. 234)

Labels: book review, faith, reading

Sarah picked this up at the District Six Museum in Cape Town and lent it to me because of its similarity to the writing project we're working on. (I can say that without guilt because I actually did some writing this afternoon!) It's a collection of personal essays and poetry written by women in prison in South Africa. It's interesting, because Sarah and I toyed with the idea of doing writing workshops or compiling pieces written by the women we talked with. We decided against that idea, and while it was fascinating to read this, I'm glad we decided to do our writing differently.

Autobiographical narratives are tricky. In the preface to Journey to Myself, the editor notes that it's often difficult to separate fact from fiction in the stories these women tell. This is something Sarah and I certainly encountered as we interviewed various women for our project. We had to tackle racial, cultural, and language barriers. Some of our interviews were conducted through interpreters, which added another bias and another level of mediation to the perspective we received. Having women put their own stories down on paper seems less mediated, but the perspective is about as biased as they come. The author can be completely truthful, but it's easy to tell the truth while concealing certain parts and overemphasizing others. These authors especially had a vested interest in how they presented themselves. These stories were interesting for exactly this reason--it was often clear that pieces had been left out, and I wanted more. I wanted to delve more deeply into motivations and history and who these women really were, to find out why they had presented themselves in the ways they did.

While not as satisfying on a literary level, I found this collection fascinating. Partly for personal reasons, as it prompted a lot of thought for me on how I'm approaching telling the stories I collected last year. But also because I'm always interested in first person narratives and in figuring out the speaker--why did they choose to tell what they did? What did they leave out, and why?

As Sarah and I navigated truthfulness with one woman in particular this year, someone suggested it was just as important to hear the story she wanted to tell--the version of herself she wanted to believe--as it was to know what really happened. I was reminded of that comment as I wondered about the women whose writings appear in this collection. The title of the book reflects that idea--the writing of a personal story is a journey to the self, and whether the writing portrays a factual or imagined self, or a mixture of the two, all of these portrayals are significant in reaching a fuller understanding of the whole person.

This ended up being more about me and this writing project than the book I'm discussing. But somehow that seems fitting.

Labels: book review, reading

Maybe I'll just alternate reviews and book memes for the rest of the year. I have no idea where this came from, but it was in my saved drafts...

1. How old were you when you learned to read and who taught you?
I was somewhere around 3 years old. My mom taught me to read; she was all into the Teach Your Baby to Read book. The sight method, basically. No phonics for me. It’s actually a fascinating approach, based on the idea that reading comprehension is the first and easiest step in language acquisition. It’s always easier to learn to read another language than to speak it--so why can’t children learn to read before or as they are learning to talk? Anyway, it worked for me (like Hooked on Phonics! Only not!). I can’t remember not being able to read, and I was always reading far above my grade level.

2. Did you own any books as a child? If so, what’s the first one that you remember owning? If not, do you recall any of the first titles that you borrowed from the library?
I didn’t really get into owning books until later in grade school (Scholastic book clubs!) and then it got completely out of control in college. =) We were heavy library users in my family--I would always check out the maximum number on my card at both libraries (the local Ely library and the one on the military base where my dad worked).

These are the story books I remember my family owning--most of these are still around, somewhere in this house:
-Mouse Tales
I LOVED this book. There’s a story in it about a mouse who buys new feet when his current feet get tired and worn out. I thought that was hilarious. Our family copy got completely worn out. I finally tracked it down and re-bought it a few years ago.
-What Was That!
Looking at the title now, it bothers me that it's an exclamation mark instead of a question mark. I don't remember being so critical when I was a kid...
-Bedtime for Frances
Actually, any of the Frances books. I still remember her alphabet song: “U is for Underwear, down in the drier…”
-The Frog and Toad books
The story where Toad makes a to-do list and the first item on it is “Wake up”? Awesome.
-The Little Bear books
My favorite story was the one where Little Bear gets too cold playing in the snow and keeps coming inside to put on more clothes. When he's still not warm enough, Mother Bear recommends he wear his fur coat...so he takes off the snow pants, the jacket, the hat, etc. and plays outside quite happily in just his fur.

3. What’s the first book that you bought with your own money?
I really can’t remember--it was probably something from a Scholastic book club. Maybe The BFG? I remember getting “book tokens” from the Ely library for their summer reading program, but I don’t remember which books I spent them on. I do remember The TV Kid and Tom’s Midnight Garden being some of the first books that were my very own (and not just family-owned). But those were actual awards for the summer reading program, rather than books I picked out myself.

4. Were you a re-reader as a child? If so, which book did you re-read most often?
Not really--and I’m still not. There are books that I love and go back to for certain passages, but I always get caught up in how many more books there are to read. There are always more books to read! I did re-read a lot of Roald Dahl, who was probably my first favorite author.

5. What’s the first adult book that captured your interest and how old were you when you read it?
I remember trying to read Watership Down at the age of 9 or 10. Because it was about bunnies! I thought it was the most boring thing ever and never made it very far. So I guess it didn’t capture my interest. I read a ton of adult books on my own in junior high--Lord of the Flies, Catcher in the Rye...stuff I’d heard of and felt like I should read because it was “important.” I actually loved Lord of the Flies. If you can say that about Lord of the Flies. I think I was 13 when I read it.

6. Are there children’s books that you passed by as a child that you have learned to love as an adult? Which ones?
-The Phantom Tollbooth (“It goes without saying.”)
-The Chronicles of Prydain

I read The Secret Garden and Heidi and A Little Princess when I was younger, but re-read them as an adult and loved them so much more--there was so much I didn’t remember.

Bonus Question: Are there books you remember reading as a child that you either can’t find now or can’t remember the title?
There was a book about a little girl growing up in Africa that I remember vividly. No idea what it was called.

Labels: meme, reading

I want to get this review written so I can give the book to Heather & Aaron this afternoon. Motivation!

I got a free Advance Reading Copy of this book a few years back, and never got around to reading it. It's the first in a trilogy, and as of now, not only has this one been officially released, the other two books have also been published. So much for my advance reading.

Basic plot: Reason (yes, that's her name) and her mother have been on the run from her evil grandmother for most of Reason's life. When Reason's mother is hospitalized for mental illness, Reason is sent to live with said evil grandmother. Reason discovers a doorway that's a portal from her grandmother's house in Sydney to New York City. It's in NYC that she is befriended by a girl named Jay-Tee (why do you have to lamely spell out the initials? Why not just "J.T."? This annoyed me), and subsequently: discovers she's "magic," finds out a bit more about her mother and grandmother, encounters people who want to manipulate her because of her magic...and no doubt this plot sounds a bit familiar. I liked this quite a bit, for what it was--young adult fantasy, kid finds out she's "magic," learns to navigate new worlds encountered because of magic, finds fellow magic friends, etc. I was craving this type of thing around Christmas/January, so this was good.

One thing that intrigued me was the way the author describes the kids' magical abilities. Each kid had a unique way of experiencing/describing their own abilities--Jay-Tee's magic builds more from personal interactions; she gains energy from being in crowds. Reason's magic is based more on logic, numbers, and patterns. It was interesting to me that magic was personalized like this; it became a more realistic personality trait rather than some kind of super power or skill to be learned. It's still something to be learned, but has to be more personally navigated, making the whole thing more of a personal journey of self-discovery. Now I sound like I'm describing a teen problem novel. Sorry.

I also appreciated that the characters were fairly ambiguously portrayed--there was a stock villain type, but there were hints of more complexity to the grandmother. I'd be interested to see where the author takes the characters in the next two books.

Labels: book review, fantasy, reading, YA

So. I promised a bunch of book reviews. I had three mostly written, that I was this close to finishing up and posting. And then I thought: no, it's more important that I do all these assignments for CRM new staff orientation. And, well...it kind of was more important that I do that. But. During said new staff orientation, my hard drive crashed. I thought I had saved the reviews as drafts in Blogger. But no. They were on the hard drive, and they're gone. At some point soon, I will rewrite. In the meantime, I did find this book meme saved in my drafts...so here you go.

What are you reading right now?
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eugene Peterson
What's Your God Language, Myra Perrine

I have to confess that I'm not really actively reading the Peterson right now. I started it in Edinburgh, and haven't gotten back into it, mainly because it requires more focused attention than I've had of late.

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?
I have some NCSA reading to do (David Bosch's Spirituality of the Road, and re-reading Nouwen's Spiritual Direction) and at some point soon I want to read The God of Small Things. I also have a couple of South African novels that I checked out of the library--because I thought I'd have a ton of free time for reading? Yeah.

What magazines do you have in your bathroom right now?
It’s not my bathroom and they aren’t my magazines, but the magazines that are in a bathroom in this house: World Magazine (excessively conservative Christian news magazine), Acts & Facts (Institute for Creation Research magazine). This tells you more about my parents than it does about my magazine-reading habits (which are pretty much non-existent).

What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read?
I hated Tristram Shandy with a passion. HATED IT. Even though I read it for a class with one of my favorite professors ever. It probably wasn’t the worst thing ever, but it’s what comes to mind first.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone?
Anymore, I’m pretty careful who I recommend what to--I tailor recommendations rather than recommending one thing to everyone. For a while, I was recommending The Sparrow to everyone, but then I stopped. I went through a phase like that with To Kill a Mockingbird as well.

Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they?
Nope. My childhood librarians did, though.

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all?
Not across the board, but there are a couple specific instances. I bought Cry, the Beloved Country for Kristy--twice, totally forgot I’d already bought it for her--and I don’t think she ever got into it. And I was blown away by Slaughterhouse-Five and recommended it to Kristy and it gave her nightmares. I usually don’t strike out like that with her! And then there was that time I recommended The Sparrow to Justin and it totally screwed with his perceptions of what I read...

Do you read books while you eat? While you bathe? While you watch movies or TV? While you listen to music? While you’re on the computer? While you’re driving?
Yes, yes (in the bathtub, not in the shower), sometimes, yes, not really, and no…though I have been tempted to do so (ok, maybe sometimes I've snuck in a few sentences at red lights).

When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits?
Never. My best friend and I were both total bookworms. We both won prizes at the library during the summer reading programs, and we were always reading way ahead in our readers at school when we weren’t supposed to. One year when we were allowed to read at our own pace, both of us blew through the required readers and moved on to the special shelf of extra books which we also blew through rather quickly.

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?
The most recent Harry Potter.

Labels: meme, reading

This isn't as put-together as I'd like it to be, but it's what I've got, and things are gonna get pretty busy for me these next couple of weeks. So here you go.

First book of the year. I started it in Oxford, because it seemed like a good one to read there (sadly, I never got to read any of it while sitting in The Eagle and Child), and I finished it on the train to Scotland...just minutes before our train pulled into Glasgow. I love it when timing works out like that.

The story begins with Gabriel Syme, a "philosophical policeman" who is hunting anarchists, being invited to attend a secret meeting with the promise of it being an entertaining evening. By the end of the meeting, he has been elected to the General Council of the Anarchists of Europe. No, really.

The Council is plotting to destroy the world, or wreak as much havoc as they can along the way. Each member takes the name of a day of the week--the Council is headed by the mysterious and intimidating Sunday, and Syme replaces the recently-deceased Thursday. The bulk of the book follows Syme as he chases and is chased by the other anarchists and finally Sunday himself.

Though the book never seems to take itself seriously--mistaken identities, rather un-anarchic anarchists, a very comic duel, a lot of madcap rushing about the French countryside, and a chase scene which features several hansom cabs chasing a man riding an elephant--in the end, the story prompted some rather deep thought for me about the nature of God and my perception of him. One of my favorite passages:

"Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front--"

So, nothing is as it seems. It's that whole literary theme of appearance vs. reality that so often fascinates me. But here, for me, the theme got tied into man's perception of God vs. who he really is. And that was an interesting idea to kick around in my head for a bit.

As far as the plot went, I kinda did see the unmasking and suddenly-revealed identities coming, but I felt like the point of the book wasn't really to surprise in that arena. It surprised me in leaving me with questions I hadn't anticipated but greatly enjoyed mulling over.

More to come...three more already-read books to write about...

Labels: book review, reading

I’m always impressed by people who read a ton of books (read: significantly more than me) every year. It makes me feel a little inadequate. But then, this feeling is usually somewhat balanced out by friends who tell me they're impressed by my annual reading totals. In 2007, I read a lot fewer books than I usually do. I didn’t read nearly as much fiction as usual. I read a lot more good nonfiction. And, I continued my practice of rarely blogging anything substantial about anything I read. The last of these is the thing I’m planning on changing this year.

I often make reading goals and plans for myself. I often don't follow through. Because unless I’m reading for a discussion of some sort, or reading a book I’ve borrowed/been given and therefore must either return or report back on (ah, accountability!), my reading is largely governed by the mood of the moment. It’s really hard for me to get into (or through) a book I’m not in the mood for. I’ve had Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday on my shelf for years, but didn’t get around to reading it until recently, while traveling in Britain. I took it with me because it seemed like something I’d want to read in Britain. Oxford, specifically. It was. I loved it. I'm not always so successful in my choice of travel reading--which is why Atonement went to both Italy and South Africa (twice to South Africa!) before I finally read it. And loved it.

Reading is like music for me. It has to fit my mood. And I think I’m gonna (mostly) give up on trying to change that. BUT…I would very much like to be more disciplined in reflecting on and writing more thoughtfully about what I read. Posting at least something about each book I read this year will help me to do that. Additional benefit: I’ve been casting about as to what to do with this blog (I’ll spare you the half-written rambling post on that subject), and this gives me something to write that will (ostensibly) get me back into posting here.

It also means that I owe you four posts, one on each of the following:
The Man Who Was Thursday, G.K. Chesterton
Magic or Madness, Justine Larbalestier
In Search of Guidance, Dallas Willard
Journey to Myself, ed. Julia Landau

And soon:
A Stay Against Confusion, Ron Hansen

Dangit.

Labels: meta, reading

Here's the annual reading list, a little late this year due to recent travels. I actually thought I might finish a couple more to add to this list while I was gone--but no. So here's this year's somewhat meagre total, broken down by category, with brief notes to follow. The titles with stars were ones I read for NCSA.

Fiction: (9)
Atonement, Ian McEwan
Perelandra, C.S. Lewis
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
The Magician's Assistant, Ann Patchett
The Feast of Love, Charles Baxter
The Club Dumas, Arturo Perez-Reverte
Wieland: or, The Transformation, Charles Brockden Brown
Dance, Dance, Dance, Haruki Murakami
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Suskind

Children's: (7)
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Chasing Vermeer, Blue Balliett
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
Forever in Blue, Ann Brashares
A City in Winter, Mark Helprin
The Wind Singer, William Nicholson
The Enchanted Castle, E. Nesbit

Nonfiction: (11)
*Spiritual Direction, Henri Nouwen
*Sub-Merge, John Hayes
*Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Traveling Mercies, Ann Lamott
*The Master Plan of Evangelism, Robert Coleman
*Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster
*The Shaping of Things to Come, Alan Hirsch & Michael Frost
*The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard
Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
The Allure of Hope, Jan Meyers
The Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne

Poetry:
Wild Iris, Louise Gluck (yeah, I listed this last year, but I actually read through the whole collection this year)

Re-read:
*Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell
Animal Dreams, Barbara Kingsolver

Read chunks of:
*Knocking Over the Leadership Ladder, Paul R. Ford
*Theology for the Community of God, Stanley J. Grenz

Grand total (including re-reads so I reach a nice round number but not including poetry or books I only read bits of): 30

Small thoughts:
I had a grand run of great fiction at the beginning of the year, with Atonement, Perelandra, and re-reading Cry, the Beloved Country and The Sparrow. The rest of my fiction reading for the year (with the exception of kids books, that is--HP7 was great fun) was more patchy and kind of "eh" overall. Then there was that disturbing run of novels having to do with murder and/or the occult. (Thanks, Anne, for that care package!) I'm proud of the increase in my nonfiction reading, due largely to NCSA required reading. Not that I'm complaining. Highlights of the year in that category (all NCSA stuff): Nouwen, Willard, and Hirsch/Frost. I feel like I've become a broken record when it comes to recommending and referencing Divine Conspiracy. But it's just so good. Read it.

On the off chance that you're interested, here are my lists from 2006 and 2005. I read fewer books this year all around, but I am proud to report that I also bought far fewer books. I made a nice dent in the category of books I've purchased and always meant to read. (That sentence just reminded me of a passage from Calvino and it's driving me crazy that it would require me sifting through 5 or 6 boxes in order to find the book to read and quote the passage. Argh.)

Labels: reading

Tonight I discovered my baby book in the closet in my room. Tucked inside the front cover were the following newspaper clippings, which I feel compelled to share. Our local library, like most libraries, always had a "summer reading scheme" for kids. I won the thing two years in a row.




























Look at my smug little smile as I display my certificate and prize! Please note that I am the youngest of the winners. =) There's no picture with this clipping from the following summer, but I love the headline and the effusive praise of my reading accomplishments:




















Earlier in the week, I was looking over what I've read so far this year and comparing it to last year. I haven't yet reached a total that would match my summer reading in either 1984 or 1985. Neither have I matched my total books read from last year. This year so far: 27 books. Last year: 42. Maybe I can catch up with myself in the next month, but I doubt it.

Labels: reading

I've never been a nonfiction kind of girl. I've always preferred story to fact. I know that nonfiction isn't always just facts...there are plenty of compelling true stories that fall into the whole nonfiction genre. But pure story is what I've always been drawn to.

It's funny; Lucinda introduced me to goodreads.com this week. I happily searched for and added to my virtual shelves all the books I have with me here in SA. And I was not really surprised at the larger-than-normal amount of nonfiction...most of that is required reading for NCSA. But I was surprised at my reaction to said nonfiction. I was a little embarrassed by the inclusion of several titles that fall squarely into the category of what I've always thought of as Christian self-helpy nonfiction. Journey of Desire*, Allure of Hope**...ok, maybe it was just those two titles.

You know, I always feel like nonfiction is more "serious" than fiction. I always feel a little less intelligent, and a little too indulgent when I'm reading stories and others are reading nonfiction. And I'm surrounded by a lot of that now. 9 times out of 10, I'm the only one reading novels around here...everyone else is being all serious. Somehow there's a lingering stigma--even in my story-filled mind--against fiction...a nagging feeling that people who read nonfiction are somehow making more productive use of their reading time.

Funny, because this week we have a couple here at Pangani sharing a series of lectures taken from John Eldredge's book The Sacred Romance. (Please note a further example of Christian self-helpy nonfiction!) And one of the themes threaded through these lectures has been how story helps us discover our heart. How story is vital to who we are and what we desire, and how it helps us connect with the larger story God has for us. Hey, yeah, let's reaffirm the value of story! In the midst of lectures from a book with a slightly-embarrassing touchy-feely title! This totally validates my reading preferences, but alas, it doesn't help me feel more intellectual.
--------------

*When we were collecting our stacks of books at the beginning of the year, I was missing a couple from my pile. I found myself wandering around saying “Hey, I need a Journey of Desire...wait...that doesn't sound right..."

**This particular book features your standard Christian "women's issues" cover image...a woman:
A. standing
B. walking
C. spinning,

in one of the following settings:
A. in a field
B. on a beach
C. on top of a hill

Said woman is usually wearing a flowy dress and carrying or wearing a floppy hat. I swear, it's like those are the required stipulations every editor of such books must give to the cover designer/photo researcher. Come up with something else for once! This is one of the reasons I am embarrassed to read books like these, no matter how timely or well-written. They have cheesy touchy-feely subtitles (in this case, "God's Pursuit of a Woman's Heart") and feature formulaic "feminine" covers. Sigh.

Labels: reading