Reading Plans for 2017

So…yesterday was the *best of* 2016.  Today, I attempt to share my reading plans for 2017.

 

It's a little tricky because I don't really plan out my reading in great detail.  I used to, and doing so sucked all the joy out of reading for me. 

 

That said, there's so much that I want to read.  I don't want to default to nothing but light novels and Netflix.  So, I've settled on a sort of loose plan, more or less, which I thought I'd share here for others who maybe want to try planning their reading in a little more detail, without overwhelming yourself with a neverending list. J

 

At this season in my life, I find I can fairly successfully juggle about 4 titles at a time, in addition to devotional reading, a volume of poetry to sprinkle in here and there, and maybe a book to read with my husband.   I like to keep balance among those four titles, so I have four basic categories:

 

Theology or Practical Christian Living

On Education (which I consider "Professional Development")

Fiction

Nonfiction (Other than Theology or Education)

 

So pretty much the way it works is that I read a title from each of those categories, rotating through them according to what I feel like when I get a few moments here and there to sit down and read.  When I finish one book, I choose another in that category – whatever sort of strikes my fancy at the time.  No particular time limits or schedules or writing of long lists.  I do try to make sure at least one of them is lighter in nature so I don't end up with huge masses of dense, heavy reading and nothing to dig into when I'm tired in the evening.   It's a pretty simple system that allows me freedom to pick and choose, while helping me stay focused and intentional with my precious bits of reading time.

 

The only things I can guarantee that I will be reading in 2017 are these, because I'm already part way into them and I intend to finish. :)

 

 

You can see my basic categories at work there: Middlemarch is my fiction pick, Echoes of Eden the nonfiction, CS Lewis' Mere Christianity (one of the titles in the big "Signature Classics" collection you see there) my theological pick, Norms and Nobility the educational one, and TS Eliot's poetry.  My husband and I are between books right now, but will probably continue our ongoing Jane Austen project (Persuasion?).   And devotionally, I am using The Ancient Christian Devotional which pairs the Sunday lectionary readings for each week with relevant quotes from the church fathers, along with a slow reading of the Gospels, and prayer resources from The Book of Common Prayer.   I fully expect the devotional readings, the TS Eliot poetry, and Norms and Nobility to take all year.  But as I finish books from the other categories I have lots of choices.

 

This is basket of books I've picked up here and there that I'd like to read at some point:

 

 

Some of those are pre-reading for future AO Years.  Some are just because.   There will most definitely be some Shakespeare, and hopefully at least one or two of the book discussion titles over on the AO Forum.  I also have the stack of my "12 Days of Christmas" books from my husband.  (Yes, he bought me a book for every one of the 12 Days of Christmas.  He's pretty amazing, isn't he?)  Pictured here are only days 1-6…there are more to come!  Not to mention things that are trickling in from my Amazon gift card purchases….

 

 

 

So very much to choose from!  And who knows what else will come my way before the end of the year?  Last year two of my favorites were Mere Motherhood and You Are What You Love which weren't even published or on my radar until later in the year. J   I won't read all of these, of course.  But there is so much possibility here.

 

I'm looking forward to a good Year in Books.

 

What are your reading hopes, plans, and dreams for this coming year?

Books of 2016

So, as promised, my "Best Books of 2016".   Even when I'm not otherwise actively blogging, I can't help a good book post. J

 

So…the stats.  I actually read and finished 43 books this year, not counting the Bible or books read to/with the children for school or otherwise.  I was actually shocked by that, because I have felt so often this year that I *just don't read as much as I used to* for a wide variety of reasons.  But that's only 6 short of my 2015 tally.  Granted, I read more light fiction this year that I have typically read in years past, but still pretty respectable.  I guess I'm squeezing more reading in there than I thought I was.

 

My top 5 picks for this year, in no particular order:

 

 

1.       Parents and Children (Charlotte Mason) – This is Charlotte Mason's second volume, and was one of the two that I hadn't yet read (Volume 5 is my last holdout.  Hoping to tackle that one this year.)  I wrote a review of this book here.

 

2.      Mere Motherhood (Cindy Rollins) – Delightful and Profound.  Read my review here.

 

3.      You Are What You Love (James KA Smith) – If you read along with Desiring the Kingdom a couple years ago and liked Smith's ideas but not his delivery so much, this is the book for you.   The basic premise is the same as Desiring the Kingdom, but the presentation and application is much more accessible for ordinary, not-academic-philosophers.  My husband is actually reading and enjoying this one too.   In a nutshell, this is an apologetic for why liturgy matters – both in the formal worship setting, as well as informally in the habits and everyday practices of our lives.  These things form and shape us more than we realize.  It's worth taking the time to consider what kind of people our habits – liturgies – are shaping us into.

 

4.      I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)  (Alessandro Manzoni) – This is one of the assigned literature selections in AO Year 8, and one of the titles selected for the Book Discussion group over on the AO Forum this past year.  It is *the* novel of Italy and an epic in every sense of the word – so much food for thought and insight into human nature all wrapped up in a compelling story.

 

5.      Gilead (Marilynne Robinson) – This is an author I've heard mentioned many times in the literary circles I frequent, and I'm so glad I finally gave her a try.   So, so good.  I have her others in my 'to be read' basket, waiting for just the right moment.

 

And a few honorable mentions, just because I can never pick just 5….

 

 

1.       The Tempest (Shakespeare) – I've dipped in to a fair amount of Shakespeare this year as my kids have reached the age that we have started to study Shakespeare for school and I (and they!) am loving it.  I haven't studied this one with the kids yet, but it was far and away my favorite Shakespeare that I have encountered yet.

 

2.      Surprised by Oxford (Carolyn Weber) – So this was a re-read.  For the third or fourth time.  I loved it every bit as much as the first couple of times, but since it has made a previous best book of the year list, I figured maybe I ought to bump it down?   Re-reading it made me wish I had taken an English degree rather than an Elementary Education one, made me want to travel to England and read more CS Lewis (which I have been!), and inspired me to finally finish Paradise Lost, which was worth the effort.

 

3.      Surprised by Joy (CS Lewis) – I've read a fair bit of CS Lewis this year, and this was my favorite of the lot.  So fascinating…I loved reading his story.

 

4.      Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies (Marilyn Chandler McEntyre) – Recommended by a friend from church.  It is a series of essays on using Words well written by a literature professor.  Much food for thought, and a book I will revisit.

 

5.      To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) – Beautiful picture of what it means to live with integrity in a hostile culture.  I read this back in high school, but it was very meaningful to revisit it as a 30-something adult with that much more experience of the world.

 

There weren't really any books I read this year that I *didn't* like, and actually only one or two that I started and didn't finish.   So I'm sort of hard pressed to pick a bottom of the pile book.  But, if I'm being pressed…I guess I would have to say Emma (Jane Austen).  Don't get me wrong.  I love Jane Austen.  And I love the movie adaptations of this book, so it's not the story that bothers me.  It's just that the pacing of the book itself is slower than some of her others.  Something would happen, and then the next chapter or two would be the characters discussing the thing that happened.  But…I finished it!  I've tried before and just couldn't.   But my hubby and I are very slowly reading through Jane Austen's work together, so I had accountability.   Now we're watching and comparing all the movie versions. :D

 

 

(Yes, I know I am a very lucky girl to have a hubby who actually enjoys reading and watching Jane Austen with me.  He also found my list of books I want to read someday and bought me a book for every single one of the 12 days of Christmas.  And when I fill up my current bookcases, I can count on him to take me back to Ikea for more.  Yes, I am a lucky girl indeed.)

 

What did you read this year? Highlights?  Lowlights?

Repost: An Advent Reflection

So many times over the past few weeks I have tried to sit down and write, and just found that the words won't come.  The thoughts are there swirling around in my head, but the words just won't come.  So...I think it's time to step back from this space for a spell and let those thoughts percolate a bit more.   For today, I leave you with an Advent reflection I originally posted December 22, 2014, and I will probably pop in some time around New Years to share my Best Books of 2016, but otherwise...I will be back when the words are ready,  my friends. 

A Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!
____________________

An Advent Reflection

 

This year's Advent season has been kind of different – unique – mostly in a good way.

 

Part of it is borne out of the fact that I decided to wait for most of the 'celebratory' aspects of Christmas – the decorating, the baking, the gift wrapping, the music, the guests -  until…well…Christmas. We are all off of work and school that week between Christmas and New Years and will actually have time to savor and enjoy those activities.   I find that now I'm actually looking forward it rather than dreading one (or two, or three, or four) more thing to cram in around my husband's busy work schedule, the kids' swimming lessons, and moving house (which is how we spent the first three weeks of December).

 

Part of it has been seeing the kids embrace our Advent devotional traditions as their own.  They asked for weeks ahead of time if we were going to listen to the Messiah again this year.  They are active participators in our nightly Jesse Tree readings.  They listen.  They ask questions.  All those years of trying to establish these traditions when they were all little and it seemed to be a waste of time because they were too wiggly and squirmy to get anything out of it?  That's totally paying off now that they are a little bit older.

 

Part of it has been that I have been taking the time to do my own personal reflections on Advent, using the devotional guide portion of Bobby Gross' book Living the Christian Year, meditations that have seamlessly tied together with my regular through-the-New-Testament readings, my personal literary reading, and what we've been reading with the children.  Those twin themes of Advent - waiting and patience -have been particularly meaningful to me this year.  This has been true both on a personal level in my daily battle against discouragement and on a grander level when one starts to think about all the hard, hard things going on all over the world – those things that sometimes make you start to wonder at times if God is still there.

 

Consider this from Isaiah 35:3-4, 10:

 

"Encourage the exhausted and strengthen the feeble.  Say to those with anxious heart, 'Take courage, fear not.  Behold your God will come with vengeance; the recompense of God will come, But He will save you…The ransomed of the Lord will return and come with joyful shouting to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads.  They will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing with flee away." (NASB)

 

On the same day that I read that in the Advent devotional, my regularly-scheduled Bible reading was from 2 Peter 2.  The very same theme was echoed – waiting and hoping for the Savior who will mete out vengeance on the unrighteous and salvation to those who belong to Him.  The day is coming when all will be made right.   We've started reading the Narnia books out loud to the children, and even that story has tied right in to my reflections:

 

"Wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight,

At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,

When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,

And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again."

(CS Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe)

 

The following day, I came to the story of the birth of John the Baptist in my Advent reflections.  The thought occurred to me about how very amazing these events must have been to Zechariah and Elizabeth and those around them after 400 years of "silence" - to see God stirring and working again…to see prophecies being fulfilled, to know that they were not forgotten.  This birth of John the Baptist was like that first thaw of spring after endless winter in Narnia....Aslan was on the move!  The promised Messiah was coming to rescue and to redeem and to save: "Because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:78-79, NASB).

 

I saw the Advent theme again as I read the final few books of Homer's Odyssey this past weekend.  Penelope, Odysseus' wife, has been waiting for 20 long years for Odysseus to return home from the Trojan War - never knowing if he was dead or alive.  Talk about waiting - longing - hoping - hardly daring to believe that it might be true - and then the joy when she finally recognizes that it is him, alive and well and home again:

 

"Joy, warm as the joy that shipwrecked sailors feel when they catch sight of land - Poseidon has struck their well-rigged ship on the open sea with gale winds and crushing walls of  waves, and only a few escape swimming, struggling out of the frothing surf to reach the shore, their bodies crusted with salt but buoyed up with joy as they plant their feet on solid ground again, spared a deadly fate..."

(Homer, trans. Fagles, The Odyssey , Book 23 Lines 262-269

 

 

Waiting and patience…and the joy that comes when that long waiting is over and the thing sought for has come at last. He HAS come to save us, and WILL come again to take us home.  We can have hope in the waiting because we know that the joy will come.  It is sure and it is certain.

 

E'en so Lord Jesus, quickly come!

From My Commonplace: On Love, True Love

"…ceasing to be 'in love' need not mean ceasing to love.  Love in this second sense – love as distinct from being 'in love' – is not merely a feeling.  It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive from God. They can have this love for each other even at these moments when they do not like each other… 'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise."

 

"Let the thrill go – let it die away – go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow – and you will find you are living a world of new thrills all the time."

 

Part 3 – Chapter 6 – "On Christian Marriage"

~ CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

 

 

I read this book years ago, as a college student.  I remember enjoying it – I've always been a fan of CS Lewis – but I don't remember now much about what I took away from it.  (I actually really wish I still had the same copy I read all those years ago, because I'd love to see now what sections I marked and commented on my first go around, and how it compares to my second go.  Alas, that book was lost somewhere in one of our many international moves over the last 15 years.)  I am so enjoying reading it again, though.   Even though Lewis wrote this somewhere around the time of World War 2, if I'm not mistaken, there has been so much that has just resonated as timely and true in the issues of our modern culture.   And that's the mark of a good book, don't you think?

 

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On My Nightstand This Week:

Devotional: Luke with the Luke for Everyone Commentary (Wright)

The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven (Maurice)

The Ancient Christian Devotional: Lectionary Cycle A (Crosby and Oden)

 Theological: Mere Christianity (Lewis)

On Education: Norms and Nobility (Hicks)

                                                          Personal Choice Fiction: Middlemarch (Eliot)

Personal Choice Nonfiction: Slowly savoring the Circe 2017 Magazine while between books. J

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: At the Back of the North Wind (MacDonald)

 

 

Click Here for more Words

 

From My Commonplace: On Conversation

"To 'converse' originally meant to live among or together, or to act together, to foster community, to commune with.  It was a large verb that implied public, cooperative, and deliberate action.  When we converse, we act together toward a common end, and we act upon one another.  Indeed, conversation is a form of activism – a political enterprise in the largest and oldest sense – a way of building and sustaining community."  (p. 89)

 

"His willingness to listen for correction is always a lesson in humility and grace, and even in courage. Good conversation, if it is to involve mutual teaching and learning, does require courage – not only the courage of one's convictions, but also the courage to admit one's limited range of vision and to allow for change, which always exacts some cost in comfort and the security of being 'right'." (p. 105)

 

"And prayer itself is a conversation.  To be in conversation with God is, like tithing, a way of returning to Him some part of the gift of words we have received from Him who is the Word.  Like the long intimate conversations of shared life among partners and friends, conversation with God keeps us turning toward, confiding in, trusting, and learning from the very source of life and language. In that intimate conversation we can be sure of receiving whatever direction and words we need for all the others." (p. 110)

 

~Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

 

I finished this gem of a book over Thanksgiving break.  So much food for thought – I will be revisiting it I'm sure, even as I continue to mull over the thoughts I recorded in my commonplace.  This was actually recommended to me by a friend from church, and it's not a Charlotte Mason or Classical Education book per se.  But there are a lot of ideas that will probably be of interest to my fellow CM or Classical educators and/or literature lovers.  Worth checking it out, in case you needed another book to add to your already immense stack.  (Ha!) 

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On My Nightstand This Week:

Devotional: Luke with the Luke for Everyone Commentary (Wright)

The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven (Maurice)

The Ancient Christian Devotional: Lectionary Cycle A (Crosby and Oden)

 Theological: Mere Christianity (Lewis)

On Education: Norms and Nobility (Hicks)

                                                          Personal Choice Fiction: Hannah Coulter (Berry)

Personal Choice Nonfiction: Slowly savoring the Circe 2017 Magazine while between books. J

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: At the Back of the North Wind (MacDonald)

 

 

Click Here for more Words

 

From My Commonplace: On Loving Words

"We gather these gifts of language as we go along – lines from poems, verses from Scripture, quips, turns of phrase, or simply words that delight us.  We use them in moments of need.  We share them with friend, and we reach for them in our own dark nights.  They bring us into loving relationship with the large, loose 'communion of saints' who have written and spoken truths that go to the heart and the gut and linger in memory.  So our task as stewards of the word begins and ends in love.  Loving language means cherishing it for its beauty, precision, power to enhance understanding, power to name, power to heal.  And it means using words as instruments of love."  p.23

 

~Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

 

The thing that immediately came to mind when I read this quote was commonplacing – the act of gathering the 'gifts of language' – recording the words, thoughts, and ideas that strike us as we read.   This was a habit that Charlotte Mason encouraged on her older students and trainee teachers, and is one that I have appropriated to myself.  I have been keeping a commonplace for over two years now, and just began my fourth journal.  It is simple really – take those quotes and passages that really strike me in my reading and jot them down in a book.  The overflow of that collection is what appears in this space.

 

James KA Smith asserts in his book You Are What You Love  that we are all lovers – we will love something – it's part of our nature as human beings.  Our habits shape our loves for good or for ill.  The habit of commonplacing forces us to slow down – to consider – to savor words.  It teaches us to love words and to use them well.

 

Sometimes, the simplest things are the most powerful.

 

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On My Nightstand This Week:

Devotional: Luke with the Luke for Everyone Commentary (NT Wright)

The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven (Maurice)

The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission

 Theological: Mere Christianity (Lewis)

On Education: Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators (Woodward)

                                                          Personal Choice Fiction: The Game (King)

Personal Choice Nonfiction: Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies (McEntyre)

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: At the Back of the North Wind (MacDonald)

 

 

Click Here for more Words

 

From My Commonplace: "O Goodness Infinite!"

(Originally posted July 20, 2016.  I had a new quote queued up to post today, but this one seemed a fitting reminder today.)

"Yet him God the Most High vouchsafes

To call by vision, from his father's house,

His kindred, and false gods, into a land

Which He will show him, And from him will raise

A mighty nation, and upon him shower

His benediction, so that in his seed

All nations shall be blest. He straight obeys,

Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes.

'I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith

He leaves his gods, his friends, and native soil…

 

Not wandering poor, but trusting all his wealth

With God, who called him, in a land unknown…

 

This ponder, that all nations of the earth

Shall in his seed be blessed. By the seed

Is meant they great Deliverer, who shall bruise

The serpent's head…"

(Lines 120-129, 133-134, 147-150)

 

"Jesus…

…who shall quell

The adversary serpent, and bring back,

Through the world's wilderness, long-wandered Man

Safe to eternal paradise of rest…

… of His reign shall be no end."

(Lines 310-314, 330)

 

"Thy punishment

He shall endure, by coming in the flesh

To a reproachful life, and cursed death;

Proclaiming life to all who shall be believe

In His redemption; and that His obedience,

Imputed, becomes theirs by faith: His merits

To save them, not their own, though legal, works."

(Lines 404-410)

                                                                                                                                                                                          

"O Goodness infinite, Goodness immense!

That all this good of evil shall produce,

And evil turn to good; more wonderful

Than that which by creation first brought forth

Light out of darkness."

(Lines 469-473)

 

~John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book XII

 

A few choice lines from the final book of Paradise Lost.   I had set Paradise Lost aside during a busy season this past spring, and figured it might be a couple of years before I would pick it up again.  So much to read, so little time, right?  But my summer reading took a bit of a detour when I picked up a paperback copy of Surprised by Oxford (I had previously read it off my Kindle) and re-read it.  Her descriptions of studying seventeenth century literature at Oxford inspired me to pick Paradise Lost back up...and I finished it!  I am so very glad I did.  The story Milton tells in Paradise Lost is a heartbreaking one.  Satan rebels against God in heaven…he falls.  God creates a beautifully perfect world – He speaks order into the chaos, and Satan infiltrates it and tempts Adam and Eve into sin as well.  They are cursed, and thrown out of God's beautiful paradise.  All is lost.

 

Or so we think.

 

But all is not lost.  There is Another One coming.  One who will triumph.   One who did triumph at the cross, and One who will come again in ultimate victory.

 

 

This is a crazy world we live in.  There are times when the Unthinkable happens.  There are times when it seems that Chaos overwhelms.  There are times when it seems All is Lost.

 

Christ Has Died.  Christ Is Risen.  Christ Will Come Again.   We declare those words every week in church as part of the Anglican liturgy.

 

I don't know about you, but that's a truth I need to hold on to.

 

"O Goodness infinite, Goodness immense!"

 

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In My Reading Stack This Week:

Devotional: Luke with the Luke for Everyone Commentary (NT Wright)

The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven (FD Maurice)

The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission

 Theological: Mere Christianity (Lewis)

On Education: Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators (Woodward)

Personal Choice Fiction: The Game (King)
Personal Choice Nonfiction: Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies (McEntyre)

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: At the Back of the North Wind (MacDonald)

 

 

 

Click Here for more Words

From My Commonplace: On The Power of Imaginative Reading

"The books were like rooms in a great house and the pictures were lamps lit in the rooms to show them to him.  As he read, his dreams slowly changed.  The nightmares of being stuck in chimneys that suddenly started to get smaller and smaller, squeezing him until he woke up choking and screaming, gradually gave way to dreams of forests full of great trees, where fabulous beasts galloped down to the cool green aisles, meadows full of flowers and celestial mountains musical with streams.  He dreamed of the sea that had never seen and ships upon it, and of caves where the tide washed in and out."  (p.66)

 

~Elizabeth Goudge, The Dean's Watch

 

 

 

"Deep inside I believe that reading aloud covers a multitude of sins.  It is a grace.  When we cannot escape ourselves, we can escape to other worlds together."  (p.139)

 

~Cindy Rollins, Mere Motherhood

 

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On My Nightstand This Week:

Devotional: 2 Thessalonians with the Paul for Everyone Commentary (NT Wright)

The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission

 Theological: (Between Books)

AO Book Discussion Group: Kim (Kipling)

On Education: Consider This (Glass)

                                                          Personal Choice: The Dean's Watch (Goudge)

Poetry: TS Eliot

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)

 

*I am also reading Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 for a local CM book club, but these meetings are infrequent, and it is my third – or fourth? – pass through it and so I just read the brief section assigned as our meetings come up. 

 

 

 

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