The lack of capitilization is not my fault. Regine Pernoud titled her book without capital letters.

I usually am delighted by Ignatius Press’ books. They publish high-quality and hard-to-find titles and, while they do print mostly (only?) paperbacks, all their bindings are sewn. However this book - those terrible middle ages: debunking the myths - was definitely a bit uneven. The topic was interesting and the writer obviously passionate but the prose was clunky and the reasoning easily drifted over the head (mine). The fifth chapter, on women, was fantastic. It has made me change my mind about whether or not I could have enjoyed living in another era. Turns out that the 20th century was not actually the first to recognize that women had brains. The “dark ages” for women were the 16th through the 19th centuries; not the 6th through the 15th.

The book has other high-points including a 40-years-early take down of Dan Brown. So do read it but don’t give up hope in the first few chapters.

I finished up Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosphy last night just before bed. Alex was up way past his bedtime reading one of daddy’s “mageenz” (magazines) and interupting me every five seconds to ask me to name the letters for him. He was adorably imitating Jared’s lay-on-stomach technique for late-night reading - Jared finds it easier to stay awake that way. Alex doesn’t have to make any efforts that direction.

The book was uniformly delightful. I enjoyed every page of it and highly recommend it to one and all. It is a slender volume and worth taking time over. I would read it slowly over the course of a few weeks if I were you.

I have now lined out my reading list for the next six weeks (until school starts).  I am only taking one lit course this semester and it is focused on Medieval Arthurian lit. Much fun! I will be trying to pre-read all of the assigned books - Malory, The Mabinogion, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, The Complete Romances of Chretien De Troyes and multiple translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I will also be trying to read some addtional literature including English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, The Allegory of Love, Medieval and Rennaisance Literature & The Discarded Image all by CS Lewis and Those Terrible Middle Ages by Pernoud and The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend.

I should be busy…

School:  I start my TA training Aug 12th. I am excited of course but also a little overwhelmed. I need a babysitter for the 12th - 21st and haven’t a clue what to do. My actual school schedule is coming together nicely though. Also, I saved books from an undergrad course that I will be using this fall saving me $50 or more!

Wedding:  Quinn’s wedding plans continue apace. We are now less than a month away and the bad dreams are starting. Last night I dreamed that the wedding was today and I didn’t have a single bite of food prepared.

House:  We are getting the library plans finalized. When Quinn moves out, the boys will move upstairs and their bedroom will become a library with shelves lining all walls and a desk built into the closet space. I am beyond excited aobut this. All of my books will soon be alphabetized!!!

Me:  I am doing a presentation at an event called Ignite Boise 2 two days before Quinn’s wedding. My presentation will be on my 200 books project, will be only five minutes long and will be in front of 750 people. All the tickets are already sold out but a video of my presentation will be available online after the event.

Reading: I am perusing The Collected Letters of CS Lewis Vol 3 for the third or fourth time. I find them to be very motivating and infomative. I am also just finishing up Boethius and getting started on Capote’s In Cold Blood. Soon I will start pre-reading books for school including: Malory, History of the Kings of Britain, Chretien De Troyes’ Complete Romances and  The Mabinogion. It will be my second reading for each of them.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I also recently finished Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons. It was a decent read. Certainly well-written but not what I would consider a good book or an enjoyable one. It follows a middle-aged couple through a long Saturday’s events but doesn’t manage to be particularly insightful or revelatory. It was easy to read though and went quickly.

I also just finished another PG Wodehouse. I love that man’s work. Picadilly Jim was amusing and heartwarming, so basically all you need in a comic novel. I mus also say that I am ever more in love with the Overlook Press editions. They are just fantastic. Lovely jackets, lovely pale-blue bindings, and the perfect size and shape: a little short and a little squat.

…because then I’d get to read all the time.

Our house came down with a nasty stomach flu early last week and while most of the nastier effects of that kind of thing were over by Tuesday, the weakness, weariness, and achyness continues yet today. I spent most of the week flat on my back and by Friday I could spend some of that time reading. Conveniently enough, a box of books arrived from my good friend Amazon that afternoon. I inhaled a Wodehouse and then settled in to read a slim paperback entitled Notes From the Tilt-A-Whirl(N.D. Wilson - Thomas Nelson 2009). This is a shocking and disruptive book. I am not certain who it’s intended audience is; Wilson’s fellow Christians, potential converts or the philosophical and religious opponents of Christianity. But whoever they are, they are in for quite the ride. I don’t know if it is his devastatingly rich prose - the metaphors just tumble off the page at you - or his unsettlingly frenetic view of the universe but reading this book is very much like eating quantities of funnel cake and corn-dogs and then going for a spin on the eponymous carnival ride. There is too much to take in (wait, he really believes God spoke Katrina into existence?), too many autobiographical details to absorb (he’s from Idaho? and he married a surfer? is that legal? she knows that Lewiston’s not much of a port city right?), and it’s all too quease-inducing (he’s fascinated with bugs, at ease with death and destruction), so let’s just say Notes From the Tilt-A-Whirl shouldn’t be read in the car, should be read in small chunks, and should be read by the strong constitutioned. Just the idea that Nietschze made Wilson laugh out loud will probably be unnerving to the Phil 101 types.

Now that I’ve gotten the warnings off my chest I should probably say something about what the book is. Well, it is an odd book. It is an observation of the world, and of the God who created it, structured around the cycle of the four seasons, as seen by a sunny disposition who is inclined to be amazed. It is a catalog of the wonders of our world, an analysis of who could possibly be responsible for it and a bit of autobiography for good measure. I’ve been reading Wilson’s work since he was penning short stories about Pookies with his sisters and this unexpected book is just what I would have expected from this unique and gifted author. I might be overstating things but it is just possible that if my generation is going to have it’s own C.S. Lewis his name is N.D. Wilson.

So I am back from a week-long camping trip/family reunion on Tahoe’s North Shore with the entirety of Jared’s Dad’s family. Theoretically I like camping. I even backpack (usually with a ridiculous number of books in my pack). However, I have a hard time understanding how anyone can regard camping (bracketed by two 9 hour drives) with small children as a “vacation”. My husband is extraordinary with our children, their grandparents are sweet and helpful, and my brother- and sister-in-law are also great. Still, between nap-times, rain, and cold I did very little that was vacationesque. And in the midst of this not-so-exciting but mildly pleasant vacation I got a phone call that was the most singularly horrid one I have ever fielded. I say this as someone who has dealt with their fair share of unpleasant phone calls, hang-ups, and cuss-fests. It was odious. Nasty. Vile.  And I’m apparently still not over it…

I did read. Quite a little bit. And that was lovely. I started and finished Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers which was quite good. Since he published 62 novels, I feel confident that I shan’t run out of good books soon. I also read all of Will Bagley’s academic treatment of the Mountain Meadow’s Massacre; Blood of the Prophets and found it fascinating and informative. And finally I picked up a little paperback of Eats Shoots & Leaves and fell happily in love with it’s very English author, who’s name escapes me (she won’t be offended right?).

It felt like 2008 with so many good books lined up and waiting and such concentration on reading. I didn’t get Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy started or Kipling’s Poems finished but will be done soon.

Now here are some photos mostly from the few times the sun was out.

Everyone needs to go out and get a copy of this unbelievably wonderful book by Gilbert Highet. My (borrowed) copy is a slim paperback and though it came with high recommendations I wasn’t quite sure how amazing it could be. Even the first few chapters didn’t blow me away but the book built up it’s effects and in the end, I am astonished by it’s power.

All that Professor Highet does is simply examine the history of man’s intellect, memory, and reason and from this make simple and reasonable predictions about what the future possibilities are. If you happen to be a bit down from reading too many apocolyptic novels (like, say, The Road) then Highet’s book will be an antidote. But beware, it will likely join other greats like The Abolition of Man, Jane Eyre and need to be read and reread every year.

I have finished a couple of books in the last few days and it makes me happy.

I reread The Handmaid’s Tale and liked it even more the second time around. It is especially notable for its unheroic heroine and relatable villains. I admire Atwood’s restraint and style.

I also read Flannery O’Connor’s Everything That Rises Must Converge. It was disturbing, excellent and further evidence that Evangelicals will never be the artists that Catholics are. I can just imagine the horrible endings Jenkins or Peretti or LaHaye would cook up for these elegant, rich little short stories.

I bought two books last night. They were paperbacks. Sad I know, but they were all I could afford and the only way to quickly get a copy of the books I wanted to read. They are The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison. I have wanted to read The Road since finishing McCarthy’s Border Trilogy last year. I’m 75 pages in and it’s about as bleak a novel as I could imagine.

After a long conversation last night I am newly inspired to start writing again…may be nothing, may turn into a different project but I may just be going back to the book…we’ll see.

This pseudo-biographical work by Daniel Defoe about the 1665 outbreak of the plague that nearly wiped out London is a compelling read. We had a pandemic spook this spring with the H1N1 virus and it is possible that it could return this fall so the book is quite topical despite the hundreds of years that seperate us from it’s publication.

I found the book difficult to read simply because of the tragedy of the story. Knowing what hundreds of years of epidemiology has taught us about the spread of the plague makes me want to reach through the pages and scream at 17th century Londoners “IT WAS THE RATS!!”

Since falling in love for the first time, five years ago, I have developed an incredible sensitivity to sadness, heartbreak and true tragedy in art. I find it impossible to sit through movies depicting war, infidelity or terminal illnesses. Books can make me cry now. Becoming a parent has only heightened this delicacy of feeling. Life is much more perilous than I used to feel or think. I once recklessly risked my life and sometimes even the lives of others. I drove aggressively, speeding, cornering too tightly, pushing the limits. I hiked, scrambled and climbed cliffs, dove into swift, deep rivers enjoying those moments on the edge, unsure of my grip, tasting the metallic after-flavor of adrenaline. Now, I could still do those things but can barely stand to see my husband taking much milder risks and have to discipline myself not to scream whenever my sons test their physical limits. I cannot imagine how I will manage when they are grown and pushing more serious boundaries.

All of this to say that A Journal of the Plague Year is sad and difficult but it should remind you to be grateful for 21st century Western medicine. Grateful for vaccines. Grateful for penicillin, IVs, X-rays, and all the other things that contribute to the dramatic lowering of infant mortality and increased life expectancy that we enjoy almost unconsciously.

This may come as a surprise to some (or all) of you but I have decided to shelve work on my book, at least for now. My reasons are many but chiefly I am stopping because I don’t feel like the idea of the book has developed into anything worth finishing. I have struggled with it for more than a year and just don’t feel like the structure is sound enough to carry an entire book. I may just make it into a long personal essay. Also, I have many other things in my life demanding my time right now and I think it will be more fruitful to focus my energies on them. I plan to revisit the manuscript later, possibly reworking it into another project and possibly strip-mining it for ideas for other projects. For those of you who have enjoyed reading this blog, this is actually good news since I will now have a surplus of writing energy to devote to new posts…