November 21, 2006
-
Good Stuff
A lovely amazon.com box came today.
As I opened it and lovingly handled the books, feeling the covers, looking at illustrations, I realized how profoundly I am edified by my cyber buddies.
Every single book was a result of a blog writer who quoted, noted, shared, and recommended.
I was feeling very left out when I read so many references to Wendell Berry and had not a clue who he was and what he had written. Jayber Crow seems to have taken the world of classical homeschooling by storm. I went to our local library and checked out two collections of Wendell Berry’s short stories. Short stories seemed perfect for this moment in life: I’m in a girlfriend’s wedding this Saturday and my son will be getting married in less than a month. At the same time I checked out David McCullough’s biography of Teddy Roosevelt, Mornings on Horseback. McCullough could write about rice pudding and I’d read it, but TR is just too great a subject.
It near killed me to read several Berry short stories without a highlighter or pencil in my hand. After Patti mentioned reading McCollough’s book multiple times, I was certain I needed to purchase and mark up my own copy.
My wonderful husband has enjoyed the few Wendell Berry short stories I’ve read aloud to him, but he has dibs on Dorothy Sayer’s book. That’s fine: I’m not sure when we’ll have time to read but it is glorious to have such fine books to anticipate. This Wikipedia article says this about Berry:
His nonfiction
serves as a long defense of the life in which he finds value. According
to Berry, this good life includes: sustainable agriculture, appropriate technologies, healthy rural communities, the Gospels, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, stewardship of Creation, husbandry, good work, local economics, the miracle frugality, reverence, peacemaking, and the interconnectedness of life.Bring it on!
Comments (3)
Don’t you just love those Amazon boxes! It’s like Christmas when we were kids!
I got a box the other day and have wanted to post the contents but haven’t had time. Now that school is out for the week and my PPT is done (besides typing up my cheatsheet), I want to “play books” and leisurely handle, look, peruse my new acquisitions.
Please keep me posted about those Wendell Berry’s you got. He’s high on my list of want-to-reads but there are many other need-to’s ahead of him.
Carol, you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and enjoy the food!
Janie
I’ve been thinking about Teddy Roosevelt as I’ve read Mornings on Horseback. I definitely don’t look on TR as a hero in the normal sense that I usually do. I do see him acting on what he believes to be the right thing to do and I admire someone like that. Since he was a progressive president, and I’m not crazy about the results of progressivism, I think he was wrong about his attitude of government fixing things up. However, McCullough really makes the life of TR come alive and… I don’t know…makes me understand the mindset of people with whom I might not have agreed in real life.
I’m planning on having my “class” read Truman, also, this year. I’ve not read that one yet.
Thank you for making my Christmas list easier. (I will have to make hints about the Sayer’s book for myself!) We love McCullough. Have a blessed thanksgiving! I am thankful for your site. It gives me a peak into a richer world.