What Are You Reading

["Skeet" McD]

I've decided to begin to read the Bible. I'm being serious. I got one for my 18th birthday with reading plans in. I read the two week plan last Fall. I began on the 1 year plan but put it off because I was ill so often during the winter but I'll pick up again.

Good for you, Lillemor! I happen to be a believer, myself...but whether you are reading it for inspiration, or "just" as history/social history....the bible is a foundation stone of Western culture, and every literate person will be the better for a familiarity with it. What edition are you reading?

There are sections that are VERY hard going...and some of them come very much at the beginning (Leviticus; Deuteronomy). Again: they're valuable to read for the insights they provide, above and beyond any spiritual benefit...but about the 33rd "begat" or 1,033 dietary regulation....the best of us begin to flag a bit.

If you really want to read it all, end-to-end, a couple of chapters a night I find quite doable.

The Old Testament is the slowest going (and most of the Bible!)...the New Testament, seeing as it's dealing with 33, instead of 3,000 years and was written (comparatively) in one place, at one time, for one purpose is much more of "a story." And Acts is the most "story-like" book of them all. The action takes place in a world we know an awful lot about...and reading about that world is fascinating in its own right.

Keep us posted on where you are, and what you think!

"Skeet"

 

[Mike1939]

"Black Friday" by David Goodis.

A great hardboiled writer. I found out about Goodis from watching the movie Dark Passage with Bogey and Becall. I like the common theme in his work of the guy down on his luck or hitting rock bottom and then having to pull it together to get out of a jam.

 

[Harp]

Harp,

Boethius' epistle is my only experience with the prosimetric form. His poems reflect both, an enthusiastic knowledge of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Seneca and others and a working familiarity with a wide variety of metrical forms and patterning.

I who with zest penned songs in happier days,
Must now with grief embark on sombre lays.
Sad verses flood my cheeks with tears unfeigned;
The Muses who inspire me are blood-stained.
Yet they at least were not deterred by dread;
They still attend me on the path I tread.
I gloried in them, in my youth's full spate;
In sad old age they now console my fate...

Boethius' the Consolation of Philosophy


John

John,

Continuing your post, and adding a bit more, I believe that
Boethius' later condemnation of the muses is the Consolation's
basic contradiction: Philosophy as poet within her guise of wisdom.
As literary technique, banishment afforded Philosophy a more dramatic
entrance beyond mere description alone; remarking "the sweetness
that leads to death," and the inevitable fate awaiting her pupil.
That the Consolation manuscript survived Boethius is as remarkable
as the work itself.

...searching for Lewis' Miracles, and any comment of his regarding
either Weil or Bonhoeffer.

... and now I have to read Dead & Gone, a Sookie Stackhouse vampire mystery novel
about a telepathic barmaid by Charlaine Harris; whom I've never heard of, all because I lost a bet. lol

 

[miss_smith]

I'm in the middle of:
-Diamonds are Forever by Ian Fleming
-Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger

Just finished Madge Morton's Victory (my copy is from the early 1910's) and a Penny Parker which was supposed to get me to buck up and sew some 40s pants.

 

[Lincsong]

The Crusader, Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism

A 2006 book by Paul Kengor. I stumbled on it today at Dollar Tree.

 

[John Boyer]

John,

Continuing your post, and adding a bit more, I believe that
Boethius' later condemnation of the muses is the Consolation's
basic contradiction: Philosophy as poet within her guise of wisdom.
As literary technique, banishment afforded Philosophy a more dramatic
entrance beyond mere description alone; remarking "the sweetness
that leads to death," and the inevitable fate awaiting her pupil.
That the Consolation manuscript survived Boethius is as remarkable
as the work itself.

...searching for Lewis' Miracles, and any comment of his regarding
either Weil or Bonhoeffer...

Harp,

I am going to give Consolation's another read with your comments in mind. I am also noting some interesting observations from Lewis' Disgarded Images on this topic. For no longer than this epistle is, I think a person could spend a life time contemplating its many themes.

To date, I have only found some passing comments from Lewis on Weil and Bonhoeffer. They are general references in Lewis' book Letters to Malcolm.

What are your thoughts on Schweitzer? Does he belong in this "concentric circle", or not? I have always admired Schweitzer, in part, for excelling in everything he pursued. Additionally, I can actually recall where I was the day he died on September 4, 1965; the second floor of the Kingman Community Library picking out a children's book with my father. I recall leaving with an adult biography on Schweitzer, which I am sure I was incapable of reading. I have read and collected his writings every since.

John

 

[skyvue]

I'm reading Judith Freeman's The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved. Thirty-three pages in, and I'm thoroughly hooked.

 

[Harp]

Harp,
To date, I have only found some passing comments from Lewis on Weil and Bonhoeffer. They are general references in Lewis' book Letters to Malcolm.

What are your thoughts on Schweitzer?

John

John:

Among the hills a meteorite
Lies huge; and moss has overgrown,
And wind and rain with touches light
Made soft, the contours of the stone.

As you can see, I've acquired Lewis' Miracles.
This Signature Classics edition also features
The Abolition of Man (Carebear's recommend);
plus Mere Christianity and A Grief Observed.
Perhaps it is a hidden blessing that I largely gave CSL an
undergrad pass and can now approach him from a more mature
perspective.

Schweitzer--I have always admired. But--like CSL--I steered clear
of his philosophic writings. Nihil Obstat, but more off the proverbial
main campus path I followed.

 

[Undertow]

Currently consuming House of Leaves

 

[FinalVestige79]

Bacon and Beans from a Gold Pan

I've read this book once before and decided to pick it up again. Its about a newly married couple Jesse and Dorothy (Dot) Coffey and their life as prospectors in the Gold country of California during the Great Depression (1935), the couple originally from the Bay Area they traveled down highway 49, into Mariposa County and were small time placer miners. They survived the Depression and they lived to a ripe old age together. Its a wonderful story, full of great characters, comedy, tragedy.

This book for me is special, because prospecting is in my blood and I can relate to Jesse and Dot. My favorite part is when they are sluicing out a creek bed and come upon the remnants of a building...and sluice out the ground in the foundation and come upon a cache of gold and silver coins melted together seemingly during a fire, and a badly burned derringer...just little details like that are what keep me reading. If you like a nice straight no guff book, thats full of great entertaining plots I highly recommend this book And plus...it seems that history is repeating itself. People are going back to the creeks of California and prospecting again.

 

[Shangas]

The Prince and the Pauper, by Samuel Clemens.

 

[LordBest]

Radical Classicism: The architecture of Quinlan Terry, by David Watkin, foreword by HRH the Prince of Wales.


Re-reading some of The Chap as well.

 

[Ethan Bentley]

Re-reading some of The Chap as well.

Good show Sir! Solidarity for The Chap cause.
I was looking through some of my back issue the other evening. I particularly enjoyed issue #31.

 

[Brian Sheridan]

Just finished "Putting on the Ritz: Fred Astaire and the Fine Art of Panache" which may be the finest celebrity biography I have ever read. Peter Levinson talked to everyone still living who worked with, or knew, Astaire (everyone except, of course, the last Mrs. Astaire - Robyn Smith - who wants $$$ for anything Astaire related). Get this book!

 

[MisterCairo]

Re-reading Bleak House by Dickens.

 

[astrang1]

Hello,
Just finished 'The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril' by Paul Malmont. It's a 1930's set pulp style adventure featuring the real life Lester Dent and Walter Gibson who of course created The Shadow and Doc Savage. If you are a fan of the 1930s adventures it's a great read....
Best wishes,
Al

 

[DragonJade]

One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters.

 

[deadpandiva]

I like Harp's suggestion below, however, you might be thinking of the title
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan

Yes and thank you so very much!

 

[vonwotan]

My latest is H.L. Mencken's A Mencken Chrestomathy.

 

[Brooksie]

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.

B