Reading Year 2008

Below is my booklist for 2008.  I just wanted to store it somewhere after I took it off my sidebar:

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Humphrey Carpenter, ed. (January 18th)

The Case Against Adolescence, Robert Epstein (February 10th)

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy (March 17)

Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity, Robert Sternberg and Todd Lubart (March 21)

The Marketing of Evil, David Kupelian

The Value of Solitude, John D. Barbour (April 17)

The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark (April 23)

For the Time Being, Annie Dillard, (May 16)

The Reason for God, Tim Keller (May 21)

The Living, Annie Dillard (June 3rd)

The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and Women’s Work, Kathleen Norris (probably first week of June)

My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell 

The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann (August 6th)

Time and the Art of Living, Robert Grudin (August 17th)

Cradles of Eminence, Victor and Mildred Goertzel (August 27, second reading)

Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh (September 2)

History of the Church, Eusebius

Twelve Types, G.K. Chesterton

David Copperfield, Charles Dickens (October 14)

Reaching Out, Henry Nouwen (October 20)

History in English Words, Owen Barfield (November 9)

John for Everyone, N.T. Wright (November 19)

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

Black Hearts in Battersea, Joan Aiken (November 28)

Stillmeadow Daybook, Gladys Taber (December 3)

Socrates Meets Jesus, Peter Kreeft (December 8)

On Writing Well, William Zinsser (December 23?)

For what it's worth, here's my "philosophy" of books:  I have a lot to choose from, about 1200 at home.  For a family that lives in an apartment and doesn't have many children, that's a good many books, because a large proportion of our books are adult books, and also not series books. The list above, in fact, is somewhat representative of what's on our shelves, but if you're the sort that likes to peek on others' shelves (I am) you can also have a look at our Library Thing account on the sidebar.  

I usually have about three or four books in the wings as I finish each one I read.  On the day I finish a book, I enjoy making a stack of candidates.  Sometimes I read the runners up next, but sometimes my mood has changed entirely by the time I choose again.  I have a general idea of what would make for a good reading year, but I'm not tied to it.  I like my method because it suits my personality.  It's not totally random, because if it were, the easy book might always win out. But it's not a rigid syllabus for education, either.  Come to think of it, this is also how we homeschool.  

Usually I don't read more than one or two books at a time.  Experience tells me that if I do, I will eventually drop one.  I do finish most books I start--eventually.  One notable failure was Plato's Republic.  I got almost to the end about eight years ago.  I am thinking of trying again this year, now that I have a fourteen-year-old instead of a six-year-old. It certainly wouldn't hurt to start over.

Speaking of which, my current read is C.S. Lewis's An Experiment in Criticism.  This is just my kind of book!  I've wanted to read this book since I first heard of it about twenty years ago. Back then I only had a few books and never dreamed I'd be able to afford extra books, much less click on some website and have them show up at my door.  An Experiment in Criticism is primarily about different kinds of reading, and it has shown me that as a child, I was sometimes not truly a literary reader, but an escapist reader.  Not entirely, though.  I always felt vaguely uncomfortable when people pushed pulp fantasy fiction on me just because I liked a couple of fantasy authors. (C.Z. had that same experience this week when a bookstore clerk tried to persuade her to buy all kinds of morbid teen fiction just because she likes Joan Aiken.)  Lewis is helping me  to understand why.  Some books are about receiving what the author has to say, while others are more "assisted daydreams" for self.  This is related to our Blue Suede Shoes discussion, so I hope to work some of Lewis's ideas into that discussion, too.

And finally, what did I think of my reading year?  It was typical, and I'm fairly satisfied with it.  I don't care how my list compares with anyone else's.  It's about right for me.  Some of the books were challenging (War and Peace, Eusebius) , while others were just for fun (Joan Aiken, Gerald Durrell).  Sometimes I alternate.  

And perhaps it goes without saying, but I am able to read more books now that I'm not reading aloud for homeschooling.  I'm still involved, of course, but I do have pockets of reading time that aren't spent on children's fiction.  But if you're in the midst of those read-aloud years, enjoy them for me, please, because I miss them!  

The only book I thought might have been a waste of time was The Marketing of Evil.  I read it for a book club, and I think we all thought it was going to be more about marketing, and less sensational and politically charged.  But that's okay.  And there was one book I didn't finish: Consuming Religion.  I loved the title and the premise, which is not unlike Blue Suede Shoes, but it read like someone's Postmodern doctoral thesis.  It was practically indigestible and I decided to spend my time on something else.  Who knows, it could have been my mood or the time I read it, but I'm pretty sure the points could be made in clearer prose.

I don't know which book was my favorite, but I thoroughly enjoyed The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann.  That was a Susan recommendation.  I got a lot of laughs, or at least a happy, serendipitous feeling, out of Battersea, My Family and Other Animals, and Socrates Meets Jesus.  The classics, War and Peace and Jane Eyre, were both rereads from my teens, and perhaps it's good that I reread them, because they were almost different books and well worth rereading.  But if I didn't mention another book on the list, that's not to say it wasn't worthwhile.  I always love an Annie Dillard book, and I read two this year.  I finally dipped into Gladys Taber.  I enjoyed reading first hand about how Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.  And now my writing time is up, and another reading year has begun!