September 6, 2006

• Autumn Reading Challenge Specifics

  

  Yikes!  How time does fly!!  I have about seven blog entries/essays floating around my head and no time to devote to them.  School is off to a productive and peaceable beginning.  I have one son to finish educating and I pray that we will finish well.  Yesterday we looked ahead to his last three years of high school; we have a plan on what we will cover before he takes off for college.  But that, my friend, is another blog entry!

  Earlier I drew a framework of categories for the fall reading plan.  Here’s a quick filling in of the details:

  CURRICULUM reading: 
         The Church History, Eusebius, translated by Paul Maier
         Confessions, Augustine
         On the Incarnation, Athanasius
         The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Bede
         The Nine Tailors,  Dorothy Sayers
         Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
         The Top 500 Poems, William Harmon editor (read one poem aloud, daily)

  CHALLENGE reading:
         The Civilization of the Middle Ages, Norman F. Cantor

  CULTIVATING reading:  (I’m working up to reading Calvin’s Institutes next year.)
         The Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis, William Griffin translator (continued from summer)
         Table Talk, Martin Luther (small bits at a time)
         The Greatest English Classic, Cleland McAfee

  COMFORT & JOY reading:
         Jeeves & The Tie That Binds, P.G. Wodehouse
         The Cat-nappers, P.G. Wodehouse
         Won’t Let You Go Unless You Bless Me, Andrée Seu
         The Ballad of the White Horse, G.K. Chesterton
         This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff
         something from Austen or Dickens
         PD James and/or Dorothy Sayers mysteries

  CREATIVITY  reading:
         The Hidden Art of Homemaking, Edith Schaeffer
         On the Art of Writing, Arthur Quiller-Couch
         My Life with the Great Pianists, Franz Mohr
         Getting Things Done, David Allen

  CURIOSITY reading:
         The Johnstown Flood, David McCullough (audio)
         Kepler’s Witch: An Astronomer’s Discovery of Cosmic Order Amid Religious War, Political Intrigue, and the Heresy Trial of His Mother, James A. Connor

  I know how unlikely it is that I will get through this list with my son’s wedding approaching, fall cleaning and canning, etc.  But I am armed with high hopes and salivating with anticipation even as I type some of these titles.

  Our local library has been closed to transfer to the brand new building.  I can’t imagine when they have the grand opening on September 20th that there won’t be a book or two that will catch my eye.

  Soon the light will fade in the evenings and we’ll revisit a happy family tradition: Reading Evenings.  We gather in the living room with our books, hot drinks, and pencils.  We all read our individual books quietly, but enjoy hearing chuckles, sighs, moans, giggles, and occasional interruptions: “You have to hear this!”

  Sigh.  The reading life is a beautiful life.
     

  • 3:36 pm
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