Topic: What is everyone reading?

[Ebor]

I had two D.H. Lawrence short stories as assignments in a class I took a year ago.  He was a powerful writer.

Ebor

[Αριστοκλής]

I just started Not Even My Name by Thea Halo.

Personal story of surviving the non-existent (according to the Turks) death march and genocide of Armenians and Greeks in Anatolia in the 1910-20s.

[Jonas Suender]

I'm rereading "A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter Miller Jr. and "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury. 

I'm also reading, from time to time at the bedside, Fr. Alexander Schmeman's "The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy."

[ozgeorge]

I just started Not Even My Name by Thea Halo.

I loved it. Not only for being a firsthand account of the events, but also the very human way the story is told, and the very human level "micro-reconcilliation" which occurs towards the end.

[Despina]

A Short History of Byzantium by John Julius Norwich.

[Entscheidungsproblem]

Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes by Dr. Andrew Ekonomou

[Despina]

Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes by Dr. Andrew Ekonomou

Is that discussing Greek Popes in the west or East (present-day patriarchs)?

[Entscheidungsproblem]

Is that discussing Greek Popes in the west or East (present-day patriarchs)?

It actually discuss the Eastern influences on the Papacy after the reconquest of Italy by St. Justinian until the collapse of the Exarchate of Ravenna.

[catechumen07]

I'm reading Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (sp?) and my catechism books (the Living God volumes).  And last week I read The Orthodox Way.  Praise the Lord for Bishop Ware!

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Praise the Lord for Bishop Ware!

Agreed. Everything I've read by him is fantastic writing, and very profound.

I'm reading Teacher Man by Frank McCourt. Apparently, I can't stay out of a classroom for more than a month without sorely missing it. Can't wait for August.

[Heorhij]

Catechumen07, your spelling is correct! I love "Quo Vadis." My other favorite book by Sienkiewicz is "Knights of the Sword" (although it might have a different title in English translations - in the Russian translation that I read when I was young, the title was "Miechenostsy," literally "They who carry swords"). It's about the events surrounding the famous battle of Grunwald in the 15th century.

[Jonas Suender]

I love "Quo Vadis."

So do I.  That was a good one !   

[Krysostomos]

Reading "Marx`s Das Kapital - A Biography" by Francis Wheen. Marxin Pääoma - in Finnish.
The author writes on the back cover: "As long as the capitalistic system is ruiling the world, Das Kapital deserves to be read and understood."

[Heorhij]

"Sweet Thursday" by J. Steinbeck. What a treat. Incredible humor, absolutely live characters, the main hero a total nerd like me.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

New book--The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.

[Αριστοκλής]

The Idiot - Dostoevsky - new translation by Prevear-Volokhonsky

To be followed by his Demons, same translators

[Justin Kissel]

New book--The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

Cool. That's my favorite of the Chronicles.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Mine too. I've read that one more than any of the others.

[GabrieltheCelt]

And last week I read The Orthodox Way.  Praise the Lord for Bishop Ware!

Amen to that! I read The Orthodox Way about three and a half years ago when I was I was looking into Orthodox Christianity but still heavily into Sufism/Hinduism. I absolutely loved it. It's one of the books that Christ used to gently 'push' me into the Church.

"Sweet Thursday" by J. Steinbeck. What a treat. Incredible humor, absolutely live characters, the main hero a total nerd like me.

Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors. I found Cannery Row shortly after leaving Islam and immediately loved it. For awhile there, I would take a few days every spring and read it while enjoying a nice cigar and *several* Jack n' Cokes.  Call it my 'secular Paskha' before becoming a Christian...

 At present time, I'm reading Christ the Eternal Tao. Several of you recommended it to me and I can say so far that I'm not disappointed. It's a very profound book.

[aserb]

The City of Oranges by Anthony LeBor. It chronicles the formation of the modern state of Israel through the lives of several families both Arab and Jewish. So far it is very balanced.

[lubeltri]

The Great Divorce by CS Lewis.

[Jonas Suender]

Amen to that! I read The Orthodox Way about three and a half years ago when I was I was looking into Orthodox Christianity but still heavily into Sufism/Hinduism. I absolutely loved it. It's one of the books that Christ used to gently 'push' me into the Church.

I love that book, The Orthodox way by Bishop Kallistos Ware !

Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors.

   I really enjoyed Steinbeck's writings when I was in high school and college.  A few years ago, I read East of Eden which was also quite good.

At present time, I'm reading Christ the Eternal Tao. Several of you recommended it to me and I can say so far that I'm not disappointed. It's a very profound book.

I will have to read Christ the Eternal Tao one of these days; I too have noticed that it is widely recommended.

[Jonas Suender]

Currently, I'm forcing myself to finish a very unsatisfying work: Why Angels Fall by Victoria Clark.  She is a secularist (specifically, a non-practicing Catholic) from Britain who lived in Eastern Europe for several years; and she decided to write a book about Orthodoxy.  However, she neither believes in the religion nor does she treat Orthodoxy as a religion.  Instead of treating Orthodoxy as a spiritual system, she treats it as a political and cultural milieu.  Unsurprisingly, the book is fairly good at delivering the dirt about Orthodoxy in Eastern Europe  -- religious nationalism and anti-semitism--  but she utterly fails to communicate why people practice Orthodoxy:  because they believe in it, because it brings them into closer union with God!  The most she can say along those lines is "I wish I could believe like they do," which is actually rather poignant and sad.  So, I would not recommend this book: not because it is critical of Orthodoxy but because it fails to meaningfully consider and analyze Orthodoxy as a spiritual system for living one's life.   

[Punch]

Currently reading "Windscale 1957".  Part of the research that I am doing for a book that I am working on.

[Keble]

HP VII, of course.

Actually,I finished about 6:15.

[Ebor]

I started on the first O'Brien "Aubrey/Maturin" book Master and Commanderearlier this week. 

But that was put aside for HP VII which I have finished.  What a ride!  No commentary or reviews for a few days until others have a chance to read it. 

I'm not going to do a "spoiler" like some of the persons who got the book early, including the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun.

Ebor

[aurelia]

I got HP VII  delivered at about 9 am Saturday, and finished it by 3 or so.  Yes, I completely ignored my kids for six straight hours. 

awesome wasnt it? And I also refuse to divulge anything, though I would love to once those who are reading it are done.

[Heorhij]

"The Great Hoax of February" by I.L. Solonevich (in Russian, full text here: http://www.hrono.info/libris/lib_s/solonev00.html). A documentary about the last days of the Romanov dynasty, where the author claims, based on a huge factual material, that there was no "revolution" whatsoever in Russia of February 1917 - what toppled the Romanovs was, actually, a coup d'etat prepared by financial-industrialist tycoons like Guchkov, Ryabushinskiy, Morozov with a blessing of a part of the incumbent royal family itself (esp. the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich).

An amazing book, very challenging... The author, Ivan Lukyanovich Solonevich, was a senior correspondent of one of Russia's biggest newspapers, "Novoye Vremya," in 1916-1917. His responsibilities included writing and editing reports about the daily routine of the Russian imperial court, the "inner circle."

The above book was written in 1951, obviously when the author was already an old man, but the style is very vivid. Contains wonderful portraits of many prominent people of the time, particularly of Guchkov, count Vitte, Stolypin, the French Ambassador Maurice Paleologue and other.

[Justin Kissel]

On Certainty, by Ludwig Wittgenstein - Looks to be an enjoyable-yet-insightful read.

God's Funeral, by A.N. Wilson. - I actually owned this book before, but never got around to reading it, and eventually gave it away. I really enjoyed Wilson's biography of Paul the Apostle, so hopefully I'll like this one as well.

[SouthSerb99]

"Serbs:  Guardians of the Gate"  By RGD Laffan

[lubeltri]

The Two Cities: Medieval Europe, 1050-1300, by Malcolm Barber. I've owned the book more than three years (I rushed and had the brand-new second edition shipped from Blackwell's in the UK as the American version was not to come out until two months later). Needless to say, after all my rushing and excitement, I never got to it! I'm going to put things to rights, now.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Happens to me quite often too. In fact, it's happening right now as I'm not reading Harry Potter; I'm instead reading The First Days of School by Harry & Rosemary Wong. I read it every year right before school starts.

[Ebor]

Your book intrigues me, YA. Would you tell us why you read that? Is it specifically for teachers? Or could it be useful for parents as well?  We have 3 with 1 starting High School, one starting Middle School and the youngest in Special Ed/School Community Based Program.

Ebor

[Ebor]

The Great Divorce by CS Lewis.

So what did you think of this? 

Ebor

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Your book intrigues me, YA. Would you tell us why you read that? Is it specifically for teachers? Or could it be useful for parents as well?  We have 3 with 1 starting High School, one starting Middle School and the youngest in Special Ed/School Community Based Program.

It's a book about classroom management. I use it as a quickie refresher course. It discusses designing seating arrangements, giving assignments, taking roll, keeping records, establishing classroom procedures, etc.

Yeah, it's designed for teachers. It's basically about how to accomplish the clerical tasks with as little resistance from the students as possible. After all, those things are the part of teaching that is specifically for the teachers. Wong's idea is that if you can get these things out of the way quickly and easily, you can have more time and energy for the actual lessons and thus increase student learning.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

I've finally got time for Harry Potter; I've been reading it off and on all weekend. I report to the school tomorrow, though, so it may be a while before I finish.

[Ebor]

It's a book about classroom management.

Ah. Thank you.  Sometimes with my kids, I think I could use a book on oh... herding cats management, or cattle stampede management or how to instill conditioned reflexes to pick up their shoes. 

Ebor

[EofK]

I think I could use a book on oh... herding cats management

Yeah, I could use one of those two for our two wild cats.  One is a four year old tabby who thinks he's one hundred and four and the other is a four month old Siamese.  Talk about chaos at the homestead.

I'm currently reading The Life of the Virgin Mary The Theotokos and Shusaku Endo's The Sea and Poison.  Just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last week.

[Nyssa The Hobbit]

I'm reading Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows.  I'm on around page 620, I think.

[Heorhij]

I'm reading Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows.  I'm on around page 620, I think.

Why do adults read this stuff, isn't it for children?

No sarcasm intended, honestly.

[Nyssa The Hobbit]

Because it's written so well, without talking down to kids, that even adults find it appealing.

The best way to understand is to read the first book. 

[Justin Kissel]

Yeah, who are these adults that indulge in children's things?   Sorry, couldn't resist.

As far as books go... compared to previous years, I've done very little reading in 2007 for some reason. I'll probably spend most of the rest of the year finishing off books that I've started over the last year and a half but never finished. A couple months ago I was reading Monkey Girl (about the 2005 Dover Intelligent Design case) by Edward Humes, and it was pretty enjoyable, so I'll finish that one next. I've been debating whether to start the Harry Potter books. I've not read one yet, but already have them all sitting on our shelves(because my wife loves them). On the other hand, if I'm gonna go for that genre, maybe I'll just reread LOTR, as I haven't read it in probably 5 years or more.

[EofK]

As far as reading Harry Potter, it is geared toward children but there's enough meat in the story and characters that I really enjoy it.  J.K. Rowling is a great story teller, too, so she keeps you entertained.  Beyond that, she's well versed in English literature, mythology, and the mindset of children (she's a former teacher) so she draws on all of that to present probably the world's greatest series of books for kids and those of us who are still kids at heart.

[Ebor]

Why do adults read this stuff, isn't it for children?

No sarcasm intended, honestly.

A couple of thoughts.  While they are marketed as children's literature (or maybe the later books should be YA/Young Adult) that doesn't mean bad writing or simplisting stories. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" may have been intended as a 'children's book' but there is plenty there for adults to enjoy and millions upon millions of them do.  From tha that book came the Lord of the Rings which is again enjoyed by people of many ages.

A good story is for anyone who enjoys reading/hearing it, I think.  (I've read plenty of children's books both when I was young and as an adult with kids and I can tell you that I am very glad mine out grew some like that were pedantic, predictable and dull.  The kind of book with "We're Here to TEACH You Something Important! Pay Attention to the Lesson")

Another thing is that over the course of the 7 books, which are 7 years in Harry Potter's life, the characters do not remain the same.  The children become teens and then, as per the Wizarding World custom, adults at 17.  The adults become more complicated.  There are new developements that show that something 2-3 books back has importance. There's alot of clever word play and use that shows a fine touch with the language; some of the names are as descriptive as in a Dicken's novel.  One just knows that someone named "Dolores Umbridge" is not a nice person.  Or in the case of Mundungus Fletcher, I found out that his first name is a British name/slang for cheap tobacco. 

The author, Stephen King, wrote an essay about them that I linked to, I think, in the HP: Spoilers thread.  He read and enjoys them.  If you would care to read some by a person who is EO, there is John Granger who has a blog and books.  There is a great deal of symbolism and history and philosophy in the books that is there supporting the story.

Why do you think that they are only for "children"?  While the US distributor is Scholastic, in the UK there are different covers for the children's and adult's copies. 

Just curious.

Ebor

[Heorhij]

Nyssa, Asteriktos, EofK, Ebor,

I see your point. Yes, maybe I should not have asked my question without reading "HP" first. I was just wondering: there are so many wonderful books that are considered classic, and the American literature, incidentally, is definitely one of the richest in the world; but it's virtually unknown un-appreciated, untouched in the US (that has been my impression for years), while millions of readers are chained to Tolkien and Rollings.

A few years ago, I was invited for a party in one of our university professors' house (he is now retired). I noticed that he had a rather large collection of books by Faulkner. But when I said something about these books, the host said, "Oh, I bought them some time ago, but I, of course, never read them and never will. They are just stupid. I tried a few pages and became convinced that Faulkner does not know the first thing about men. We are made in the image and liking of God, and in his writings, people are so ugly, so dumb."

Also, I very often hear from people who are considered intelectuals that this or that book should not be read, or that this or that movie should not be watched because they are "depressing."  I heard that said about, for example, Dickens's novels or Chekhov's short stories. On the other hand, people avidly read tons of the "self-help" literature, masterieces like Phil McGraw's...

Younger generations seem to be so "virgin" about what every Soviet kid back in the 1950's-1980's knew by heart as classics. For example, Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, Huck Finn - these names ring no bells here. Nobody seems to know, who were T. Mine Reid (sp.?), Fenimor Cooper...