December | 2008 | magistramater's Xanga Site

Month: December 2008

Brobdingnagian Book List

This is my list of books finished this year.

I confess: I love reading good books, scanning book lists, shelving books, reviewing books, buying books, browsing books, swapping books, talking books, foisting books on innocent victims, borrowing books from trusting friends, stacking books, schlepping books everywhere I go, interrupting my husband’s thoughts to read a section aloud, fantasizing about walls of books, dreaming about having read every book I own. Riiiiight.

Click on the title for more information about the book. If you have questions, ask in the comments section. Click here to check my reviews.

Great Books
Animal Farm
The Social Contract

Gulliver’s Travels
A Tale of Two Cities

Books to Help Me Teach
A Natural History of Latin
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
On Writing Well
The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life
Choosing Civility: The Twenty-five Rules of Considerate Conduct

Wendell Berry
Jayber Crow
Andy Catlett: Early Travels
Hannah Coulter: A Novel
Nathan Coulter: A Novel
Remembering: A Novel
Whitefoot: A Story from the Center of the World

England & Scotland, nonfiction
Some Lovely Islands
Romantic Scotland (Country Series)
Life of St. Columba
In Search of Ancient Scotland, A Guide for The Independent Traveler
My Love Affair with England: A Traveler’s Memoir
England as You Like It
England for All Seasons
Rick Steves’ Postcards from Europe

England & Scotland, fiction
Wives and Daughters
The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
Winter in Thrush Green
Excellent Women
Quartet in Autumn
Inklings (The Oxford Chronicles)
Expectations (The Oxford Chronicles)
The Other Side of the Dale
Over Hill And Dale
The Monarch of the Glen
The Pillars of the Earth

Anthony Trollope
The Small House at Allington
Phineas Finn: The Irish Member

Literary Fiction
Evenings at Five
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Falling
The Road

Christian Books
The Bible (didn’t get through it all)
Letters of Samuel Rutherford
When Life and Beliefs Collide
The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath
By Design: God’s Distinctive Calling for Women
The Shack

Children’s Books
The Shield Ring
Dealing With Dragons

Food
Much Depends on Dinner
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Garden
Lavender: How to Grow and Use the Fragrant Herb

Southern Fiction
Home to Holly Springs
Mama Makes Up Her Mind

Mark Helprin
The Pacific and Other Stories
A Soldier of the Great War

Pakistan
Three Cups of Tea

Germany
Three Men on the Bummel

Greece
North of Ithaka
The Island

Ireland
Tipperary: A Novel

WW1
The Guns of August
The Zimmermann Telegram
The Rage of Nations: The World of the Twentieth Century
To the Last Man
The Yanks are Coming
All Quiet on the Western Front
A Month in the Country
No Graves As Yet
Shoulder the Sky
Angels in the Gloom
At Some Disputed Barricade
We Shall Not Sleep
Back to the Front

WW2
North to Freedom
Dandelion Through the Crack
The Zookeeper’s Wife
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Overwhelmed by God’s Goodness

Noah Jackson Bakker arrived last night, December 29th.
Mom and baby are healthy. Daddy is overjoyed.
Their best friend, Lindsey, was there (near Seattle)
supporting them, taking pictures and updating Facebook.
We. Love. Lindsey.
Here’s a case where technology is a blessing.
I still can’t wait to hold the boy in my arms!

~ ~ ~

Look how much our two grandsons look alike!

Preston Christopher, born December 24th

…sigh…

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
His mercies never come to an end,
They are new every morning,
Great is Thy faithfulness.
How Have You Changed in 2008?

Before you make resolutions (or projects as Sherry calls them), take a look back and see how you have changed this year. It’s kind of fun! This is a variation of the I Used to Think post. Poiema’s perceptive comment:

I really do think that the small details of life show forth growth in a far greater way than we normally stop to realize. It feels good to mark something measurable on the growth chart.

We’ve made several changes in our diet this year.

• We eat oatmeal for breakfast almost every morning. My husband recently said, “I can’t believe you converted me to oatmeal, and I honestly can’t believe how much I like it!” Here’s the difference: we make individual servings in the microwave. Easy cleanup, fast, and fabulous. And cheap! This has made a significant dent in our grocery budget.

1/2 cup oatmeal, cover with water (experiment with amount), microwave 2 minutes. Add milk and sweetener.

Oatmeal supreme: add a handful of frozen blueberries to the cooked oatmeal.

• We stopped drinking soda pop.

• We started drinking raw milk and eating locally grown chickens. These cost about twice what we were paying.

• We switched to sucanat instead of sugar. This also costs about twice what white sugar costs.

But, enough about food! What other changes have we made?

I joined Facebook, after my kids talked about it on a backpacking trip. Facebook seems to be the medium many prefer for staying in touch. It has extended my time on the computer (argh!) but has reconnected me with friends from the past.

Reconnecting. Several important people from past decades have resurfaced in our life. Those reconnections underline ways we have changed (oh yeah, I used to think/like/agree with that; but I don’t anymore!) or ways our friends have changed in areas where we have not. But it has been a blessing to pick up loose pieces of yarn and weave them back into the fabric of our lives.

So many changes are part of the daily or weekly cycles. We now worship in a liturgical setting and recite the Apostle’s Creed every Lord’s Day. I think the repetition of those words “I believe” has made me a more confident woman.

Last night my husband and I had a disagreement (which we resolved, thankfully). I realized, though, that the longer we have been married, the fewer quarrels we have. We must of plowed through the dirt so many times that we are aware of, and compensate for, our differences. Grace, all of grace.

Of course, not all changes are positive. I used to keep a tighter guard on my tongue. I’ve caught myself gossiping too much lately. Blech. So we resolve to change.

Nancy Wilson has written what I think is the best blog post of the year–simply stellar–about New Year’s here. If you are prone to depression this is REQUIRED READING.

How have you changed lately?
Betjeman and Toplady

This is an addendum to the post about altered hymns. And an addendum to the post about WWII reading.

Last night I picked up Trains and Buttered Toast: Selected Radio Talks by the poet John Betjeman (pronounced Betchman). Random flipping brought me to a talk about Augustus Toplady (how would you say his name?), the author of the hymn Rock of Ages. Betjeman’s words:

“One further fact about the hymn, before going on to its author: in my hymn books the last verse has been revised to start:

When I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyelids close in death…

Toplady’s words are far more vivid and less mellifluously Victorian: they are more characteristic of Quarles and the seventeenth-century poets Toplady loved:

When I draw this fleeting breath
When my eyestrings break in death…

I always sing that line myself, despite the rest of the congregation.”

The heat and intensity with which Toplady and John Wesley publicly quarrel is a bit of a shock. Controversy in the church is nothing new. One last quote from the article, an Augustus Toplady quote:

“The deathbed of a Christian is the antechamber of heaven, the very suburbs of the New Jerusalem.”

~ ~ ~

I am fascinated, intrigued and just plain interested in John Betjeman, a man about whom C.S. Lewis (his tutor at Oxford) wrote “I wish I could get rid of the idle prig.” Yet a book critic called him “one of the pleasantest minor writers in the world.”

Several of Betjeman’s books now populate my wish list, but there is one I plan to buy soon: Sweet Songs of Zion: Selected Radio Talks. From the product description:

…these talks concerning hymns and hymn writers were Betjeman’s swan song as a broadcaster. ‘Hymns are the poems of the people’, Betjeman observed in his first talk, and went on to show how variously this insight has been borne out over generations. Rich in anecdote and packed with information, these timeless talks will appeal to fans of Betjeman and newcomers alike, and will inspire everyone who has a fondness for hymns, and delights in Betjeman’s unique voice.
World War II Reading Challenge

I asked Hope at Worthwhile Books what WWII books she would suggest. She introduced me to the War Through the Generations Reading Challenge.

I love the discipline of a reading challenge: I get heftier books read, ones that don’t always go down easy, when I plan my reading in advance. Because, the truth is this: I’m never quite ‘in the mood” to read Mein Kampf.

I’m starting the challenge with books from my bookshelf.

Winston Churchill:
The Second World War, Volume 1: The Gathering Storm
The Second World War, Volume 2: Their Finest Hour
The Second World War, Volume 3: The Grand Alliance
The Second World War, Volume 4: The Hinge of Fate
The Second World War, Volume 5: Closing the Ring
The Second World War, Volume 5: Closing the Ring

Adolf Hitler
Mein Kampf

Stephen Ambrose
Band of Brothers : E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest

Dick Winters
Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters

William Manchester
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Alone 1932-1940

Tadeusz Borowski
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

Leo Marks
Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker’s War, 1941-1945
Leo Marks is the son of the owner of the Marks & Co., the bookstore at 84 Charing Cross Road.

Tom Brokaw
The Greatest Generation

Elie Wiesel
Night

Richard J. Maybury
World War II: The Rest of the Story and How It Affects You Today, 1930 to September 11, 2001 (Uncle Eric Book)

John Betjeman
Trains and Buttered Toast: Selected Radio Talks
This isn’t specifically a WWII book, but many chapters are BBC radio talks during the war.

Thomas Keneally
Schindler’s List

Stewart Binns and Adrian Wood
Second World War in Color

Theodor Seuss Geisel
Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel

I also plan to listen to Shaara’s WWII books: The Rising Tide and The Steel Wave.

Trolling through other participants’ reading lists, got me jonesing for more books. Hope will write one of her stellar reviews and I’m sunk. But I will begin with what I have available to me. The problem with WWII literature is that the vast number of books written on this subject makes one dizzy.

I’m thankful for a summer and fall immersed in reading, viewing and listening to all things “Great War.” That gave me the foundation (and perhaps the fortitude) to tackle and understand better another grim war.

Onward, then.
A Light and A Glory

The Song of Simeon by Rembrandt

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,

according to thy word:

For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,

Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;

A light to lighten the Gentiles,

and the glory of thy people Israel.

~ ~ ~

This song grabbed my soul when I was 15 years old.
We sang this text in high school choir.
I have never found the musical setting of that “Song of Simeon”.
Every year I look.
When I was 15, I didn’t think to write a composer’s name down.

I wish I could find it.
Because I’d love to share it with you.
No Nunc Dimittus I’ve heard comes close
to the glory of the tune I know,
even though some are quite good.

Rembrandt’s painting is compelling.
I love Simeon’s hands and eyes.
Rembrandt capture’s Simeon’s heart full of joy.

Merry Christmas!
Preston Has Arrived

(Oregon) Baby Preston is here, after a sudden c-section

smiles all around

I don’t think he’s hungry…(he hadn’t had his first meal yet)
…naw, he’s practicing to sing The Messiah, his Nana thinks.

Supreme contentment…Preston has eaten, he’s back at home base,
his very own haven of rest.
Great with Child(ren)

Having two births imminent colors, textures and illuminates this Advent season.

I have great respect for the complexity and fragility of human life, and never take a healthy birth for granted. I’ve thought more this year of Mary, awkward with baby, traveling to Bethlehem. There is no way she could find a comfortable position on or off a donkey. Really, how would she even get on a donkey? Her first birth, away from family, in a strange place, questionable hygiene, Joseph at her side. They were not what one would call, in the parlance of medical speak, favorable conditions.

My Oregon daughter-in-law has been in labor through the night. I am waiting to hear an update.

Today is her due date. Tomorrow is my Washington daughter-in-law’s due date. Deep, cleansing breaths!!

I love the Lutheran Book of Prayer with its section “Prayers for Special Occasions in the Family Circle or in the Life of the Individual.” In this section is a prayer Of a Woman with Child.

O Great God, heavenly Father,
Thou art Creator and Preserver of life.
Marvelous are Thy works.

I magnify Thy holy name for having blessed me.
In humility I appear before Thee
with petitions for my unborn child and myself.
Thou, O heavenly Counselor and Helper,
knowest our needs.
Keep away from us what might be harmful,
and daily bestow health and strength.
Guide me through Thy Holy Spirit
that I may constantly be mindful of my privilege
and my responsibility as a mother.

At all times let me place my trust in Thee
and Thy fatherly care,
knowing that from generation to generation
Thy mercy is upon those that fear Thee.
Grant that, relying on Jesus,
my dear Redeemer,
and His glorious sacrifice,
I may face the future calmly,
cheerfully,
and in quiet happiness.
I ask all this in His name.
Amen.
The Love of a Good Man

Over the weekend I had a lengthy conversation with one of my husband’s co-workers. We are discovering more points of commonality and talked about having lunch in the near future.

“She is eager to get to know you,” my husband reported.

“That’s odd,” I mused, “We’ve barely met.”

“Well,” the good man confessed, “she’s heard a lot about you from me. And…whenever she rants about her husband, I always respond by praising you.”

Cha-Ching! That’s fuel that will get me a long way down the road!
As If I Have Nothing To Do

my, cough cough, dryer lint collection

I’m having a hard time…focusing.
Fourth Sunday of Advent.
Wrapping presents.
Two daughters-in-law going into labor any time now.
One induction was postponed until tomorrow.
Praying one baby doesn’t come during the typhoon predicted in Seattle.

And there are major life questions to ponder…
Do you or do you not collect dryer lint?
I didn’t.
Until.
A friend said that it makes great fire starters.

You use three leftovers.
Using leftovers makes my world rock.
Dryer lint.
Old candles.
Used egg cartons.

Redemption. Recovery.
A beautiful thing.
(smile)