I'm one of those people who starts a number of books and juggles them at the same time. Let's see...

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky [the Volokhonsky and Pervear translation]--one of my all-time favorites

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I forget the translator). This will probably rank up there too, once I get through it.

An Experiment in Criticism, C.S. Lewis.

Studies in Words, C.S. Lewis.

The Latin Letters of C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis. (Among his other feats, Lewis corresponded with an Italian priest who knew little English in Latin; I'm trying to read only the Latin, though occasionally I have recourse to the facing English translation.)

A biography of Johannes Brahms by Ian Swafford, whose title I forget.

Theocritus, Idylls

Herodotus, Histories

Sensus, non aetas, inuenit sapientem.
--Publilius Syrus

Roads to Santiago by Cees Nooteboom. A travel novel about the author's journeys in Spain and one of my all time favorites.

Salt: A world history , Mark Kurlansky.

And in my free time (ha), I try to every so often read a chapter or so of the Iliad (Robert Fitzgerald translation). I need to read that again...

I'm sure there are other books I'm in the middle of but I've forgotten and they're lying somewhere in the book graveyard next to my bed!

* * * * *
“Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow),
That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?”
–Edgar Allan Poe, To Helen

Wish you and I could sit down for half a day and chat, JWPublius. Love your reading list and envy your Latin prowess.

Currently, I rotate amongst the following:

1. The New Testament Book Ephesians and Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest's Word Studies in the Greek New Testament commentary.

2. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1960, paperback I picked up last fall in a huge used book sale).

3. The Essie Summers Story (New Zealander ES' autobiography)

4. The Philosopher's Dog by Raimond Gaita (Thanks to EE for putting it across my path).

5. Gordon MacDonald's Rebuilding Your Broken World (actually, rereading this one) - written after the author, a pastor, had had an extramarital affair and how he found the moral courage and Christian encouragement to repent and fall deeper in love with the Lord.

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The opposite of joy is not sorrow. It is unbelief. ~ Leslie Weatherhead
Picture me with my ground teeth stalking joy--fully armed too, as it's a highly dangerous quest. ~ Flannery O'Connor

A horrible 300 page book on composition theory

Various texts from the Middle Ages (I dealt with Julian of Norwich's Book of Showings (religious reflections...my reading this weekend really sucks) only because we get to Chaucer on Wednesday and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was pretty cool).

Two books on the history of the English language (interesting in parts, but an overwhelming amount of detail).

Various texts on adolescent development (seriously, do I really need to learn about the pruning of neurons in the teenage brain?).

A book on how to teach reading and writing (somewhat useful so far).

And finally, my special education textbook (more a history of...no actual strategies for helping children with disabilities this semester).

School, how I loathe thee.

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"The sleep of reason produces monsters." ~Francisco de Goya

Night Riders of Reelfoot Lake

By P.H. Underwood

I enjoy reading such books because they are based on actual history. Underwood published this book in 1969 (probably as a requirement for his Ph.D.) After the book was published a lawsuite was filed by some of the kinsmen of the Night Riders. The lawsuite must have been settled because a second printing of the book came out in 2003. I had read parts of this book but the copies were so rare that I could not procure my own copy until recently. Between the night riding and the burning and the beatings and the lynchings and all the other violence, the night riders eventually prevailed. Reelfoot Lake became public propety and the movement to privatize the lake failed. The clansmen were disbanned and some were prosecuted. One was prosecuted for manslaughter and spent a spell in prison. The movement succeeded. Reelfoot Lake remains public property to this day. I lived in Obion County for 13 months and during this time I hunted ducks on the lake with local folk.

In the winter of 1981 some of the local hunters torched all the duck blinds on Reelfoot (which was a local tradition). I was personally aquainted with one of the primary arsonist. (He used dynomite to blow up the only duck blind that was constructed of steel.) He was just a good-ole-boy and that was all he would every be until he gave up the ghost in 1989.

Presently, I am still reading Night Riders but I have Ghost Riders to read after I get finished with my NRORL book. Ghost Riders is a work of fiction.

(If the pen is mightier than the sword then what could be shaper than the word?)

The Art of Elementary Band Directing by Eileen Fraedrich- pretty helpful, except for when she recoomends a way to get a stuck clarinet swab out (shudder)

My string methods book.
The online articles for my instrumental education methods class that will be part of my teachers book published sometime this year.
The National Standards for Arts
(If you count score study as reading-- Havendance, by David Holsinger)

'Wisdom comes to all of us. Someday it might even be your turn.' -Polgara the Sorceress
"To the pain!" Dread Pirate Roberts
"People are stupid" Wizard's First Rule

MOBY DICK
or
The Whale

By Herman Melville

I want to be able to say that I have read MD in my lifetime. (Been there, done it)

(If the pen is mightier than the sword then what could be shaper than the word?)

[This message was edited by Phantom_Delta on 02-10-06 at 02:26 PM.]

I have Mary McCarthy's 'The Group' to read properly. I tried to get through it late last year at some point but I was juggling so many others plus school work and then got sick. Needless to say, it found its way back to my bookshelf and has finally been bought out of retirement again for a busride (and WHY not before when I had more time?).

I've read plenty of reviews on it and a few academic articles that refer to it (particularly while I was researching suicide in James Baldwin's 'Another Country') and it seems to be highly thought of as a novel.

Just finished Foucalt's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco. Excellent, up there with The Name of the Rose.

Also picked up The Hobbit for the fifth time; almost done again.

Still have to finish Marquez, Brahms, and the C.S. Lewis books from before, as well as Theocritus and Herodotus.

Also:

Life of Mozart, by Rosselli.

Saint Francis of Assisi, G.K. Chesterton.

Latin Palaeography, by Bischoff.

A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600, M.P. Brown (also palaeographical)


The list is going to expand, probably, as TV is one of the things I'm giving up for Lent.

Sensus, non aetas, inuenit sapientem.
--Publilius Syrus

I'm currently reading Ravi Zacharias' autobiography Walking From East to West (2006). Absolutely riveting read. Born and reared in India for the first 20 years of his life, Ravi then moved to Canada, and now is an international speaker/author/apologist for Scripture.

His spiritual journey is gripping as he describes growing up under the constant disapproval and dislike of his father, ending with Ravi feeling spiritually bankrupt and attempting suicide when about 16-17yo.

I became so interested in Ravi's story, I located his site on the web and listened to Part 1 and 2 of his presentation to Princeton U: "Why I am Not an Atheist" (take-off on Bertrand Russell's Why I am Not a Christian).

http://rzim.org/radio/archives.php?p=LMPT&v=detail&id=617

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The opposite of joy is not sorrow. It is unbelief. ~ Leslie Weatherhead
Picture me with my ground teeth stalking joy--fully armed too, as it's a highly dangerous quest. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Let's see.....

Currently, I'm about halfway thru John Piper's God is the Gospel (2005). He writes of old Bible truths in thought-provoking ways, mostly paraphrasing Jonathan Edwards' Treatise on Religious Affections. Excerpt:

The critical question for your generation -- and for every generation -- is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?.... The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. (p. 15, 47)

Linda L. Chaikin's 1st novel in her historical fiction series about the Huguenots and the tortures of the Bastille: Daughter of Silk

Thanks to Apokryphos, I'm 128pp into his highly recommended Works of Love by Soren Kierkegaard. Talk about a mental workout! Whew! Note aside: Apokryphos, if you see this, did you ever receive my email discussing it with you?

Having finished studying Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, in the NT, I'm once again tackling the Tenach's Ezekial -- my goal is to complete it by the end of the year. Another tough read as most of the prophetic book is devoted to God's judgment of nations, although there are also interspersed words of promise and hope to God's exiled elect. I'm actually studying chapter 37 right now, "Valley of Dry Bones" -- one of the most fascinating in the entire book.

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The opposite of joy is not sorrow. It is unbelief. ~ Leslie Weatherhead
Picture me with my ground teeth stalking joy--fully armed too, as it's a highly dangerous quest. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames

I must say the bright yellow jacket suits the book, it's been a hilarious read and I'm sad to to say I'm almost done.

The novel concerns an alchoholic writer who at the age of thirty has won a $250,000 lawsuit and done what any writer would do- he hires a personal valet named Jeeves! Together they flee to an artist colony, or is it an insane asylm? Well, two hundred and fifty pages in and I'm not too sure either!

This is the first book I've read by Ames and my first impression is that he may be the British version of Kurt Vonnegut.

And now, a website concerning the most Phallic building in the world- it's how I discovered Ames to begin with!
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/phallic/contest.php

Fear less , Hope more
Whine less , Breathe more
Talk less , Say more
Hate less , Love more
And all good things are yours

Bible
All things bright and beautiful

The Shadow of the wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

Re-reading Agatha Christie's "Nemesis"

Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked. ~Lord Chesterfield~

"Do all things with love." Og Mandino