What are you reading this month?

On another thread, Hank mentioned a few books that he has found useful. I thought it would be nice to keep a running list of what people are reading and their opinions of it. Religious reading is probably of interest to us all, but I'm open to any and all suggestions, especially as I now have time to make a summer book list.

Right now, I'm doing the easy read--rereading some of the Mitford series by Jan Karon. It's not what you'd call heavy, but I really enjoy a series which is not too hokey but the characters also aren't full of angst, especially about their belief. And I enjoy the contrat between Father Tim, who's reminiscent of C.S. Lewis a bit, in contrast with his small town Southern neighbors.

Warning to Joe: these books might cause flashbacks. Also, they might be too squishy.

That I'm about half way through the second Twilight book. I know, I know. I go back and forth between finding the main character (Bella) almost completely pathetic and really liking the story.

My 11-year old daughter wanted to read the books (no, she will NOT be reading them any time soon) so my wife read the first one and we rented the movie. I read the first one to get the back story for the movie, and now I'm totally hooked on the story.

I think I'll reread Foucault's Pendulum next to get my synapses firing again!!

And you made me feel better for rereading my beloved Mitford series for the umpteenth time. No shame in Twilight--in fact, it may just be about time for me to reread the series myself! I'll put The Name of the Rose on my synapse-building list--it's been there for years but who knows? Maybe this is the summer.

my 10 yo soon to be 11-yo daughter will also not be reading the series anytime soon. She's reading something about cats forming secret warrior groups, or something like that, intead. I can't figure out if it's like Watership Down, but it sounds a little like it. Though I think Watership Down was more adult.

I'm ashamed to admit that I am not actively reading any books right now. The last two books I read were History books pertaining to the dawn of our nation and the founding fathers.

I have my eye on a book called "Horse and Buggy Mennonites". In my travels around the Finger Lakes I have often been captivated when I pass Mennonites in horse and buggies, working with a team of horses out in fields, or playing outside of their one room school houses. The book was recommended by a friend and sounds as though it sheds some light on the religion and their way of life. It wasn't in our local library, so I guess I will have to buy it online.

Peace.

and this is why my wife thinks I am bizarre.

I am currently reading around five or six books at the same time, which has gotten out of hand. It's like the polygamy of book lovers.

Check out how boring and weird I am. I'm currently in the middle of:

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
Roger Shattuck, Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography
Roger Kimball (ed.), The Survival of Culture
Thomas Sowell, Economic Facts and Fallacies (a title I think may have slipped under the bed)
David Lodge, Deaf Sentence (the only novel of the bunch)
Jonathan Bate, The Genius of Shakespeare
and a pile of periodicals, from Entertainment Weekly to the New Yorker to First Things to The New Criterion

I seriously need to do some guilty pleasure reading, and stat!

Happily, I have a Boris Starling thriller on standby, and I see there's a new "Prey" novel by John Sandford out just this past Tuesday.

But can you see why Mrs. Joe thinks I'm a freak?

VicarJoe wrote:
I am currently reading around five or six books at the same time

I haven't done that in a while.

The boys, soon-to-be 8 and 10 seem to consume my time in a different way than they use to. They seem to be constantly on the move. One on the baseball diamond, and the other on the Lacrosse field. And, I don't want to be one of those parents reading books or the newspaper on the sidelines.

(Hey, it looks like I figured out how to use the quote button. After you push the button, you can reduce the quote to what ever portion you want to focus on.)

Peace.

The Name of the Rose. It took me FOREVER to read it, mostly because I have young children and am totally exhausted when I actually have time to read. Come to think of it, I read most of it sprawled out on the landing at the top of the stairs - we had just moved into this house, and my middle daughter was totally. freaked. out. to be in this new house, so she would scream bloody murder if we left her alone. <sigh>. Kids. You can't live with 'em. You can't drown them in the tub. (<--- Lurkers, please note: That was meant as humor! I do not actually want to drown my children).

Wally Lamb's "The Hour I First Believed". I've just started it and I'm enjoying it so far. Don't know if anyone has ever read any of his other books but I find him a very good writer. His other two, "I Know This Much is True" and "She's Come Undone" are two of my favorites. Most of my reading is purely for pleasure as I do a lot of research reading for work. I like to get lost in fiction.

HeraldAngel, my daughter has read the Twilight series and has suggested that I might like it. I figure I'll give it a try in the summer.

Also, due to Austenfan and some others on here, C.S. Lewis is on my list to read. I've only read The Chronicles of Narnia, when my children were younger. So many of you speak about his other books, that my interest is piqued.

Long, yes. But so perfect on every level.

I love your stories about trying to find the time to read. I'm often up and online from 5 to 7 or so, before the kids get up, and with the exception of the newspaper or a magazine, I probably do 9/10 of my reading at home after the kids go to bed, and actually after I and my wife go to bed. We'll hit the sack at 9:00 or 9:30, and I'll read until 10:30 or 11:00. Except lately it's been go to bed at 9:30 and lights out at 9:34. End of school year, gardening, sick kids = exhausted Joe.

That's why I think two of the books I'm currently reading may have got kicked under the bed. I drop them with exhaustion right before I pass out. It's also why it takes me six months to finish a book.

As a teacher, I don't even count the reading I do for work as reading. It's very odd to find yourself mad-cramming to get the reading done for class, then going home to your stack of half-finished books.

Yet somehow I manage to get in tons of t.v. viewing too. LOL

Actually, my wife and I used to watch more tv, but we've boiled it down to about 3 or 4 shows we like, all of them the opposite of what she would call "thinky."

BTW, I posted my list to show how boring I am, which my wife frequently points out when she notes what I am reading. But then yesterday she brought home a book called Cod on the topic of cod. The fish. So I said, "Really? A book about cod? And you think what I read is boring?" And this is, verbatim, her defense of the book: "It's really interesting. It's about the nineteenth century migration patterns of cod."

You wouldn't think those two sentences could ever appear anywhere near one another.

Ah, HumbleHank, you hit a nerve: Last night during the kids' taekwondo classes I sat doing a
second read-through of a manuscript (part of my work). Now I'm feeling guilty. :(

Well, we're there three nights a week, so I have plenty of time to make up. I agree with
you -- I do not want to be one of those parents sitting on the sidelines reading, or --
worse, IMO -- yammering away on a cell phone.

I read several books at a time, too, but I am embarrassed to admit that most of them are
fiction and not terribly substantive. That's because I work almost exclusively with
psychology textbooks and encyclopedias as my work, so when I get a chance to read on
my own time, I'm not too keen on picking up a nonfiction tome. I need to work on that.

That said, I'm currently reading _Shout! The Beatles in Their Generation_; _Cemetery Dance_,
the new book by my absolutely favorite fiction authors, Douglas Preston and Lincoln
Child; and I've been making tentative steps toward an unabridged version of _Les Miserables_.
I've read the abridged version; the unabridged is dauntingly large.

Cheers!

reminded me that one of the books on my "bucket list" is Clarissa, by Richardson. The Penguin classics edition is 1600 pages, and the book comes in around 900,000 words. It's maybe one that will wait until retirement.

"Think" by Simon Blackburn (beginner guide to philosophy), "Miracales" by CS Lewis, and reread "The Old Ball Game" by Deford. Warm weather and work will slow down my reading.

I saw "Name of the Rose" with Sean Connery, good movie. I started the book and put it down.

VicarJoe wrote: BTW, I posted my list to show how boring I am, which my wife frequently points out when she notes what I am reading. But then yesterday she brought home a book called Cod on the topic of cod. The fish. So I said, "Really? A book about cod? And you think what I read is boring?" And this is, verbatim, her defense of the book: "It's really interesting. It's about the nineteenth century migration patterns of cod."

You wouldn't think those two sentences could ever appear anywhere near one another.

I'm still wiping the tears away.

Of course, I'm reading some book about things. That's what it's called, something-something on things. (I'm paraphrasing, I don't know where it is.) And I remember once reading a book about beans.

I also read several books at a time, but a lot is re-reading, and deliciously trashy fiction, stuff like Nicholas Sparks. (After I read his book about him and his brother, I thought I'd give it a try. Not so great, actually, but now I have a soft spot for him). I like to have an upstairs book and a downstairs book, plus a car book, and sometimes a kitchen book.

you'll have to tell me how the Sowell book is. He writes a regular column that's in our newspaper, and I often feel like smacking him. The times I don't want to smack him is when he talks about economics. So I'll be curious to know what you think of his book.

Actually, Joe-

That book, Cod has been recommended to me by a person who reads a lot and enjoys history. It has to do with the cod's huge impact on history in the New England region and beyond, so maybe you should give your wife the benefit of the doubt. ;)

I an not reading too much at the moment. I just finished "Founding Mothers" by Cokie Roberts which was o.k. but not all that much I didn't know before. I just re-read "The Real Charlotte" by Somerville and Ross which is terrific..

About a month ago I read "Good Wives" by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich which describes itself as "Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England 1650-1750". I like that locale and time period so I really enjoyed it.

Sadly, I'm reading "Western Civilization" by Spielvogel. I'm taking an online, self-paced class. Was that stoopid, or what?! <sigh>

HOWEVER, today I had an "amazon attack" for the first time in several years. I ordered:

"Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence" by Caussade

"The Fulfillment of All Desire" by Ralph Martin

...and I had to throw a math book in...

"Kiss My Math" by Danica McKellar

I just pray I have time to read at least one of them by the time the Summer semester starts!

Liberty March, The Battle of Oriskany by Allan D. Foote. A little known but critical Revolutionary War battle not far from Syracuse which opened the door to Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga two months later. Most of the book is about the different peoples who settled in the Mohawk River Valley, including the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Fascinating.

An oldie but goodie movie, "Drums Along the Mohawk" starring Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert depictes part of this subject matter. The U.S. Navy commissioned the U.S.S. Oriskany in the 1940s, a bigtime aircraft carrier in spirit with The Yorktown and The Saratoga.

On a side note: Hi Bis.

Thereforeiam wrote:Liberty March, The Battle of Oriskany by Allan D. Foote. A little known but critical Revolutionary War battle not far from Syracuse which opened the door to Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga two months later. Most of the book is about the different peoples who settled in the Mohawk River Valley, including the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Fascinating.

On a side note: Hi Bis.

Therefore,

I am a BIG history fan, especially military history. Oriskani led to one of the great fake-outs in the Revolutionary War. A torry captured at Oriskani agreed to go into Fort Stanwick (Rome, NY) and tell the British commander that there was a large Colonial force on its way to the Fort. Of course there wasn't and, the Brits abandoned the fort without a shot being fired! :cheers:

Also, Oriskani is significant because it prevent one of the three prongs from meeting up at Saratoga which, in tern, turned out to be an American victory and a turning point in the Revolution. :cheers:

Actually, during that time the fort was called Fort Schuyler and became Fort Stanwix later after the British burned it. They have a new museum on site that is great if you like that kind of stuff. Just as an fyi, I taught high school American History for a few years right out of college in the 70s. My interest and specialty (I presume) is military history and most specifically, American military history.

Our Revolutionary War ancestors and founding fathers were "The Greatest Generation" IMO. Sorry TB.

you recommend it, because I have to tell you, that sounds like one of the more interesting books.

BTW, here's cyclops...

As yet, no octopusicon.

What? No Medusa icon either?

I haven't quite finished the book yet but should be done by Monday night. I do believe Stihl and you would enjoy it. The author did his research extensively.

Hi, Bis--

I just started reading "Abandonment to Divine Providence." It reminds me a little of "The Practice of The Presence Of God" by Brother Lawrence who was also French. The 16th and 17th century in France was particularly rich in spritual writers. Francis de la Mothe Fenelon was another one.

I recently read (I forgot to mention this one) "He Leadeth Me." By Fr, Waler Ciszek . I lead a book study on it at church and the Methodists all appreciated Fr. Ciszek. He was a Polish-American priest who was imprisoned in Lubianka Prison and then was in the Soviet Gulag for over 20 years. It is a real testament to giving oneself completely to God, and Fr, Ciszek is currently being examined for canoniization in the RCC.