November Books

October Books

September 11 Books

Books for remembering September 11:





Read my review of Bikeman here.

September Books

In addition to our textbooks, here are the books we will be reading this September:

Reading Lately

I have been reading through the Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries from the beginning. I am really enjoying them. They are set in 1919 - 20 Britain just after World War I. Although written currently by an American duo under the name Charles Todd, they evoke the best of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction (1918 - 1939).

I've finished the fourth one this week, and am hoping to catch the fifth title at the library for my trip next week.

Book Review: The Virtue Driven Life

Fr. Groeschel brings his wisdom to bear in an exposition of the seven main virtues of Christian life. Beginning with the four cardinal virtues (prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice), Groeschel explains their human characteristics, and how they can be elevated by grace to a supernatural level. For the three theological virtues (faith, hope and charity), he explains how they flow from God's grace. Examples from life pepper the text, making for clear examples and keeping the material interesting. A good introduction to the important virtues for anyone interested in the Catholic faith.

January's Book List

Books we will be delving into this coming month:

The Centurion's Wife

The Centurion's Wife is the first installment in a promising new series entitled Acts of Faith. Set in Ceasarea and Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion of Christ, the story is told from two perspectives. First is Leah, a poor relation of Pontius Pilate whose circumstances force her to become a servant in his household. Then there is Alban, a Gallic Roman centurion who has offered for Leah's hand in the hopes of advancing his own career.

The events surrounding the trial, death and subsequent disappearance of the body of Jesus have everyone unsettled. Pilate and Herod are concerned about a possible Jewish revolt in the province. Pilate's wife is suffering from unspeakable headaches and nightmares.

Pilate allows Alban to become betrothed to Leah, who is legally a Jewess by her mother's mother, in a traditional Jewish ceremony. To claim his bride, Alban must find the body of Jesus, and determine if a revolt is imminent.

Leah, who wants no part of marriage, is tasked by Pilate's wife to find out all she can about the followers of Jesus.

The characters are interesting and sympathetic. The title of the book, and the fact that it is proclaimed a "first-in-series," give away the ending. But how they manage to get there, and what happens Leah and Alban along the way, is an interesting tale.

Most interesting for me was the reaction of people to the Resurrection right when it happened, as portrayed in the book. It led me to ask myself what I might have thought, might have done. I was a little uncomfortable with development of personalities for Biblical characters such as Pilate and his wife, Mary Magdalene, Lazarus and his sisters. But, how else to tell a story?

The ending of the book was left a definite cliff-hanger, with Alban's fate as a centurion in the balance still. I think they overplayed their lead-in to a sequel just a bit. I would have liked a major issue such as that settled in the same volume.

Overall this was an enjoyable, thought-provoking tale of Judea at the time of it's biggest crisis.

2009 Reading Challenge

It's that time of year! I'm doing some things differently for '09 than I did in '08, namely:

• Less books. I'm aiming for 25.
• Less categories. I'll have 5.
• On-the-go book list, instead of writing out ahead of time what I plan to read.

My five categories are:

1. Theology
2. History
3. Literature
4. Arts
5. Sciences

I'll try to update my reading in my left sidebar. I did that for most of '08, but let it slide the past few months.

November's Library Books

Book Organization

Way back in April I wrote a post about how I manage our books. It was meant to kick off a series of posts on the topic, but I never followed through.

So in the same vein, six months later, I am going to talk about managing books on LibraryThing.

LibraryThing allows users to catalog and tag books they own, read, want to own, etc. Users can log in 200 books for free. Above that you can purchase an annual membership for $10 or a lifetime one for $25. I have been a lifetime member for over two years and have never regretted spending the $25.

There is a lot of detail in the information you can input and edit. For those of us obsessed with books, it could turn into an addiction. But we busy homeschool moms don't have time to devote to every aspect of LT.

October's Library Books

Campion

I am a Golden Age Detective Fiction junkie. This year I have been on an Albert Campion tear. Reading everything Campion in order of publication, plus watching the eight novels made into TV movies on DVD.

September's Library Books

Read Something Good

Aquinas & More's Catholic Summer Reading Program is back. Why not pick up a good book?

A September 11 Memoir

Thomas Flynn's Bikeman is a moving epic poem about his experiences in Lower Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001.

If the word "poetry" evokes highbrow language and stilted rhymes,
do not be put off. Flynn's poetry is free-form prose, and it speaks in
the vernacular. In the following verses, he contrasts the burning
towers, while they stood, with the Statue of Liberty, just off in the
harbor:

"No, this is not the lady of the harbor
who carries the torch of dreams.
It is a barbarian beacon, with no intention
to warn those who see her beams."

Flynn's story is harrowing. Parts of it are painfully -- and
"painfully" is really an inadequate word -- sad. It is completely
devoid of humor, but not of compassion. It is real. It concerns his
experiences in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the towers.

I have been privileged to read the personal story of a survivor of
the Twin Towers. He wrote that story shortly after the attacks, in an
email sent to his colleague, my sister. She sent it to me, and since
then I have read it over on subsequent September 11's. Of course, that
is a private memoir. Now, here is a memoir which the entire world can
share.

I cried through Bikeman. It is cathartic. Why do I need to read
these stories of survivors? Why was I plastered to the television for
weeks that September? Disbelief? Compassion? Guilt? I don't know. But I
think I value this because it is so easy to forget, for those of us who
experienced this from afar, the raw horror of death and destruction. We
should never forget.

I am a homeschool mom. My boys will read Bikeman in high school, when they study Modern / American history.

LibraryThing Meme

If you know me, you know I love LibraryThing. Well, there is a new meme. You take the top 106 books tagged "unread" and comment on if you've ever read them, never read them, etc. So, here goes:

1. The ultimate hitchhiker's guide by Douglas Adams (43) never read, no interest
   
2. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (236) never read, no interest
3. The kite runner by Khaled Hosseini (19) never read, no interest
4. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (211) maybe someday
   
5. Life of Pi : a novel by Yann Martel (17) never read, no interest
6. Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra (152) TBR pile
   
7. Crime and punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (176) maybe someday
8. One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (183) maybe someday
9. Vanity fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (115) maybe someday
10. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (155) maybe someday
11. Ulysses by James Joyce (135) maybe someday
12. War and peace by Leo Tolstoy (132) maybe someday
13. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (132) maybe someday
14. The brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (136) maybe someday
15. Catch-22 a novel by Joseph Heller (158) never read, no interest
16. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (162) read
    
17. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (110) never read, no interest
18. Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle I) by Neal Stephenson (92) never read, no interest
19. A tale of two cities by Charles Dickens (124) maybe someday
20. The satanic verses by Salman Rushdie (88) never read, no interest
21. Middlemarch by George Eliot (96) TBR pile
    
22. Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books by Azar Nafisi (96) never read, no interest
23. The name of the rose by Umberto Eco (120) never read, no interest
24. The Kor'an by Anonymous (11) never read, no interest
25. Moby Dick by Herman Melville (119) maybe someday
26. The Odyssey by Homer (136) maybe someday
27. The Canterbury tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (108) TBR pile
    
28. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (114) maybe someday
29. The hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo (75) maybe someday
30. The historian : a novel by Elizabeth Kostova (108) never read, no interest
31. Foucault's pendulum by Umberto Eco (101) never read, no interest
32. Atlas shrugged by Ayn Rand (102) never read, no interest
33. The history of Tom Jones, a foundling by Henry Fielding (67) never read, no interest
34. The three musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (87) TBR pile
    
35. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (95) maybe someday
36. The sound and the fury by William Faulkner (94) never read, no interest
37. The Iliad by Homer (117) maybe someday
38. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (97) never read, no interest
39. Emma by Jane Austen (117) read it, loved it! My favorite Austen book
    
40. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (64) maybe someday
41. Sons and lovers by D.H. Lawrence (69) never read, no interest
42. Gulliver's travels by Jonathan Swift (88) maybe someday
43. The house of the seven gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne (62) maybe someday
44. Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies by Jared Diamond (104) never read, no interest
45. Dracula by Bram Stoker (100) read
    
46. Lady Chatterley's lover by D.H. Lawrence (73) never read, no interest
47. A heartbreaking work of staggering genius by Dave Eggers (97) never read, no interest
48. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (83) maybe someday
49. The once and future king by T. H. White (81) never read, no interest
50. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (82) maybe someday
51. To the lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (83) never read, no interest
52. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (88) read
    
53. Oryx and Crake : a novel by Margaret Atwood (78) never read, no interest
54. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (106) maybe someday
55. Labyrinth by Kate Mosse (56) never read, no interest
56. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (83) maybe someday
57. Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed by Jared Diamond (76) never read, no interest
58. The corrections by Jonathan Franzen (84) never read, no interest
59. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (58) maybe someday
60. Underworld by Don DeLillo (64) never read, no interest
61. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott (63) maybe someday
62. The grapes of wrath by John Steinbeck (99) read
    
63. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (124) read
    
64. The Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake (47) never read, no interest
65. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (66) maybe someday
66. Jude the obscure by Thomas Hardy (65) never read, no interest
67. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (62) never read, no interest
68. Tender is the night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (66) never read, no interest
69. A portrait of the artist as a young man by James Joyce (89) read
    
70. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain (59) maybe someday
71. The divine comedy by Dante Alighieri (63) TBR pile
    
72. The inferno by Dante Alighieri (84) same as above
    
73. Gravity's rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (66) never read, no interest
74. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (83) never read, no interest
75. Swann's way by Marcel Proust (59) never read, no interest
76. The poisonwood Bible : a novel by Barbara Kingsolver (91) never read, no interest
77. The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay : a novel by Michael Chabon (83) never read, no interest
78. Sense and sensibility by Jane Austen (96) read
    
79. The portrait of a lady by Henry James (62) never read, no interest
80. Silas Marner by George Eliot (57) read
    
81. The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (89) read
    
82. The man in the iron mask by Alexandre Dumas (43) never read, no interest
83. The god of small things by Arundhati Roy (80)never read, no interest
84. The book thief by Markus Zusak (67) never read, no interest
85. The confusion by Neal Stephenson (61) never read, no interest
86. One flew over the cuckoo's nest by Ken Kesey (82) never read, no interest
87. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (97) read
    
88. Bleak House by Charles Dickens (63) TBR pile
    
89. The system of the world by Neal Stephenson (55) never read, no interest
90. The elegant universe : superstrings, hidden dimensions, and… by Brian Greene (60) never read, no interest
91. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (78) never read, no interest
92. The known world by Edward P. Jones (53) never read, no interest
93. The time traveler's wife by Audrey Niffenegger (105) never read, no interest
94. The mill on the Floss by George Eliot (54) maybe someday
95. The English patient by Michael Ondaatje (64) never read, no interest
96. Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon (47) never read, no interest
97. Dubliners by James Joyce (78) never read, no interest
98. Les misérables by Victor Hugo (73) never read, no interest
99. The bonesetter's daughter by Amy Tan (56) never read, no interest
100. Infinite jest : a novel by David Foster Wallace (54) never read, no interest
101. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (53) never read, no interest
102. Beloved : a novel by Toni Morrison (77) never read, no interest
103. Persuasion by Jane Austen (82) read
     
104. A clockwork orange by Anthony Burgess (83) never read, no interest
105. The personal history of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (69) maybe someday
106. Tropic of cancer by Henry Miller (54) never read, no interest

Home Education and Books

It is the time of year when my thoughts turn toward next school year, and all of the books we will need or want. I usually try to time my book purchases just after the arrival of our income tax refunds. I like to have everything in place before summer, so I can relax!

But things are different now than they were when my oldest began kindergarten five years ago. I have discovered "living books." And the library. And their book sales. And the swap sites. And LibraryThing. We are in a different home, and possibly moving again this year. We have a different income stream, which is sometimes a trickle. I now plan, acquire and manage my resources in a vastly different way than I did back then.

So I thought I would write up some posts on my whole Book Thing. I should come clean first and foremost and admit that I am a book junkie. I love to read. I love to buy books. I even love to sell them! I've made a nice, if small, bundle over the past nine years selling used books online. I even want to write one. I even have one started!

My boys love books. They both love to read. Hardly a day goes by that they don't read or are read to. Except maybe summer, when they play hard outdoors all day. That is just fine with me, too. My oldest wrote and illustrated an alphabet book for his brother, which I had published on LuLu.

My ever-patient husband says that our duplex is bursting at the seams with all of the books we own. They are starting to make him nervous. They are everywhere. We actually do have bookshelves in every single room in the house, including the hallways, and excepting only the foyer and the two bathrooms. And we are out of shelf space.