Summer Reading Notes

What I have been reading of late:

• Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh: Laugh aloud funny satire of British society of the 1920s. I had only read Brideshead Revisited by Waugh. A very different book. I was glad to be introduced to this side of Waugh. It made me want to read more by him.
• Memento Mori by Muriel Spark : I think I saw this book mentioned on Melissa Wiley's blog . Muriel Spark was a convert to Catholicism. I had seen her pop up several times in other blogs about Catholic writers. I wanted to read something by her. After finishing Memento Mori, I realized I had read another book by her,The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which I didn't like at all. Mercifully, I didn't remember, because maybe it would've kept me from reading MM. In one of those serendipitous reading acts, MM was a great follow up to Vile Bodies. Both were British, both were satirical, both were funny, both had a depth behind the comical.
• Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis: I have to confess I am not a big fan of Lewis. I know that is probably heretical to most but, it is the truth. Thankfully, Mere Christianity is different. I have been meeting weekly with some ladies to discuss this book. There is so much to talk about! I am not finished with this yet and I wish I had started blogging about it. It would make it stick better.
• Crooked Adam by D.E. Stevenson: Satisfying, is the word for this read. A good old fashioned spy story, Crooked Adam (if I remember correctly) was published during WWII. It is fast paced and keeps your interested. A great summer reading! (Recommended by A Library is a Hospital for the Mind ).
• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: I listened to this from Librivox. Books on this site are read by volunteers, not professionals, so the quality of the reader varies. That was certainly true of the reader of MP, some where very good and some, not so much. But, hey! it is free. I am not complaining. I enjoyed MP immensely. It was a great companion while cooking, cleaning or folding clothes. (note: the 1999 is awful. Nothing like the book!)
• Before Pentecost, I picked up John Paul II encyclical on the Holy Spirit (Dominum et Vivificantem). It is a challenging reading but so worthwhile. I am three quarters into it and planning on re-reading so I can write about. It would be a great way of digesting the information.
• No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy: Violent, violent! It was like watching a Clint Eastwood movie. The first 100 pages I wasn't sure I was going to finish it but, it kept me going. This is one of those books that you need to have somebody to talk about it with. So, I gave it to M. to read.
• Simply from Scratch by Alicia Bessette: Just OK. Nothing great. It is her first novel and somehow it felt too formulaic, to cliché, kind of like a chick flick between too covers.It wasn't bad but it is forgettable.
• Son of Charlemagne by Barbara Willard (with the kids): we are not completely finished with this one. Good story and it has created some rabbit trails. It had us searching all over the net about Charlemagne and his family. It also led us into a search for information on the Saxons and this, in turn, took us to the Vikings.
• Yesterday, I began Vanishing Act by Jodi Picault. Not much to report on this one yet. But it promises to be intense as any other Jodi Picault book I have read before.
• After Mansfield Park, I decided to give the Itunes U a try. I have been listening to some lectures on European Civilization from the 17oos to 1945. It is an interesting course. The lecturer, John Merriman, manages to pull some interesting lectures, even though he has this annoying stammering habit, and he curses and, he has a somewhat dislike of the Catholic Church. Even with all those strikes against him, I am still enjoying the class.

Every Day I Learn Something New

I just learned today that those little blurbs you find on the back of book jackets are done by professional reviewers. Poor innocent me! I didn't even know that there was such a thing as a professional book reviewer. I often wondered how the publishers knew what people where going to think about the book before it was published. I did figure out that some people have to get some sort of advanced copy of a book. But frankly I didn't give much thought about how this work. Now I know that people actually get paid to read books. I wish somebody would have told me that when I was trying to decide what to do with my life. Maybe I would've been a Professional Book Reviewer instead of a Psychologist.

How did I find this out? Because I have read some posts about it. Mostly because now that there people blogging about books all over the place, some reviewers think that they are not qualified to talk about books (kind of the same thing we hear about homeschooling-how dare we teach our children without an Education degree?). But there is also the bloggers that are being approached by publishers and authors; and, there are those that are being paid but don't say it up front, and those that think they should not be paid, and blah, blah, blah. Why do things have to be so complicated?

In other news about books, I liked this post about reading levels. (HT to Melissa Wiley). I enjoy reading children's books. In fact when I want to know something about a topic, quite frequently by first stop is the Picture Book Section. I have tried to instilled a love of books to my children. Any good book deserves our enjoyment independently of how it is cataloged at the library. count. Sometimes though, I have to admit that when I see A pick up Baby Blues or Calvin and Hobbes for the hundredth time, or when I see G, at 16, enjoying The Rangers Apprentice series rather that The Scarlet Letter, I am visiting by those feeling of "shouldn't they be reading something more challenging?" This post by Jen Robinson reminds me that good literature transcends the boundaries of age or reading levels. The fact that you pick up A Bargain for Frances or Little Critter, Air Mail to the Moon, Peanuts, We Are Going on a Bear Hunt, Blueberries for Sal doesn't mean that you can't read something "more challenging". It means that you have good taste. Never mind your age.