I have a few books already in a stack to be consumed. I’m still reviewing short stories from Gioia and Kennedy’s Literature text in hopes of getting a class at the community college here. Will know soon if the class makes. I may have doomed it by asking to teach a class from 8 to 9:30. P.M. Crazy, but that was a slot they had. I didn’t make it up.
Some recent purchases I have to get to: I bought Cutting for Stone for the Navy wives’ book club which I’m hosting. It hasn’t showed up yet. Maybe I’ll get it in time to read on my flight to Indiana. For February they’ve picked Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which was the people’s choice for best book of the century in one old list I found amongst my notes. I am debating reading this. I read it as a high school student and felt smart for reading such a big book. That’s about all I remember about it, although I can remember bits about The Fountainhead, maybe because it featured an architect, and just a couple years after reading it I started dating an architect. And since he was a nicer guy than the character in the book, I married him.
Next up: some purchases I made for the kids: The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly. Looking forward to this one. I also have been meaning to read the series of “Secrets” by Pseudonymous Bosch, which my 11 year old has been enjoying, but I’m really not sure if I’ll get around to them. My sixth grader also wants me to read The Last Hero books, but after reading the first round of Percy Jackson books, I’m not really in the mood for more. We started reading The Wizard of Oz outloud before Christmas, but lost momentum, so we’ll return to that. We'll read Galen and the Gateway To Medicine aloud since we'll be studying Rome. And I realized the 5 year old has missed out on a lot of Beatrix Potter and Winnie the Pooh. I'm not sure she even knows some of the classic fairy tales. There are definitely holes in her education.
I gave myself Wendell Berry’s collection of poetry Leavings as a present for home schooling and look forward to reading ISI’s new The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry, especially since I have to brag that I know some of the contributors.
I also bought Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners for myself – part of my “pro gear?” - when I was ordering home school books. What's one more small volume, especially one I have checked out from the library multiple times.
Back in when I was ordering school books, I also bought Fr. Robert Barron’s Catholicism to read. We have thoroughly enjoyed the first 6 videos of the series. This purchase was justified since I have confirmandi in the house. Worth the price.
A Protestant friend lent me a book about a nun: Mother Antonia’s Life of Service in a Mexican Jail by Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan. I like being loaned books because it forces me to read them, and I'm curious to see what she liked about it.
There are other books I’m tempted to order: one I’ve seen advertised on the Image blog: Bearing the Mystery: An Anthology from Image. I like what I’ve read there. Heather King’s book is also on this list of books I’d like to read if I can make space, physically and temporally and financially. And I sent my year-end list to Semicolon and got these recommendations in return, none of which I've read. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, Saint Training by Elixabeth Fixmer, and The Passion of Mary-Margaret by Lisa Samson. I'm impressed with her ability to come up with so many titles.
There are so many good books out there! These are just ones I already have piled up. I don't like to prognosticate too much about what I'm going to read, because so often what I read is what I pick up at the library or receive from an friend, but I do want to try to read at least one work by Dickens, one by Shakespeare, and one by a Bronte or Austen, or something similarly British and a couple hundred years old at least, to exercise my brain.
I suppose this is a start of a New Year's Resolution. Can I even remembered what I thought to do last year?
I suppose this is a start of a New Year's Resolution. Can I even remembered what I thought to do last year?
4 comments:
I just read Cutting For Stone and quite liked it. I'm always interested in what people read and often end up requesting books from the library after reading a post like this! Thank you!
I got Gioia and Kennedy's Poetry textbook a few years ago, at Dana Gioia's personal recommendation when I told him I felt ungrounded in that subject -- but I never got very far in it!
I think it's wonderful to have reading goals -- this year I have not one in that area! But perhaps if I left that poetry textbook out on the table I might accomplish something anyway.
GJ - Does that mean you know Dana Gioia?!? I really like his own poetry, and I liked his remarks as the head of the NEA, also. You'll have to post any insights.
Hope - Book club meets this week, so I won't get Cutting for Stone read in time, but I'm hoping it still shows up in the mail. It looks interesting.
I don't know if he would remember me, but I wrote him letters and talked to him on the phone and in person a few times -- that was all before he was the NEA Chairman, and because he lived nearby and spoke on a panel about his book *Can Poetry Matter?*. I wrote about it here:
http://gretchenjoanna.blogspot.com/2009/04/poet-and-some-poetry.html
and if you search with his name at the bottom of my blog you can see a poem of his and some other posts in which he comes up.
I have to admit I still haven't read all of his poems -- as I said, I'm not grounded. :-(
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