One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich By Alexander Solzhenitsyn Page: 159

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu Page: 432

I got eight books in the mail yesterday and couldn’t wait to start a new one even though I’m still working on The Canterbury Tales, The Tale of Genji and Ulysses. I needed something easy to read late last night and early this morning - I can’t quite handle the denser books between 10pm and 8am. So Solzhenitsyn got a workout and I got a bit of a mental break. Ivan Denisovich is a marvelous little book. Simple and deep.

Genji is continuing in it’s already well established themes. Genji falls for many different women, exchanges poems and risks his political career. Kinda like Bill Clinton but with way more culture.

Jared and I went to the Chair Affair gala tonight. I love the word gala. Jared entered a coffee table in the competition. We didn’t get to stick around for the announcement of the winners but that may be up on their website soon. I really enjoyed seeing all the entries but I wish I had known more people there. I’m used to always running into people I know whenever I attend a public event or even just go for a walk downtown. So a whole gala and no friends or even acquaintances to talk to was a little odd. It did manage to highlight one of the pleasant side-effects of marriage. No matter what, there’s always somebody at the party who wants to talk to you.

Baudelaire Poems Page: 256

I cheated. Cheated on my books. I actually read a magazine today when I could have been reading catching up on my page count. Instead I devoured the latest Credenda Agenda when it came in the mail. I grew up reading Credenda which is published by Canon Press. I have long appreciated the writings and the ministries of Doug Wilson, his wife, Peter Leithart and the rest of the clan. Many of their works have been helpful in forming my thinking and theology through the years. I especially appreciate Leithat’s literary criticism and his perspective on Jane Austen was my motivation for starting to read her works.

Speaking of Jane Austen…who’s reading Northanger Abbey?

The Tale of Genji Page: 379

Poems of Baudelaire Page: 95

I wanted to read Baudelaire because of Lemony Snicket and I think I’m getting it. I haven’t actually read all of the Lemony Snicket books (all of #1 and part of #3) but enough to get the gist. I first heard about the series back in 2004 in my Book Arts class at BSU. I didn’t get around to reading any until the sumer of 2006 on a backpacking trip in the Sawtooths. Jared and I stopped at Iconoclast Books in Sun Valley where I bought The Bad Beginning and we ended up packing in Helter Skelter, Case for Faith, Journal of a Trapper, Favorite Father Brown Mysteries, The Barbarian Way, Perelandra, C.S. Lewis Letters to Children. I was five months pregnant with Alex at the time and even though our hike was short (3 miles) it was freakin’ steep and I crapped out about 2 miles in and Jared had to haul both our packs. He looked hilariously weary with my pack belted onto the back of his. We weren’t exactly ultra-lighters that weekend as we packed in two pistols in addition to our books and the usual camping gear. Next camping trip should be pretty interesting with both boys, though I’ve sworn we won’t go until both boys are out of diapers and can at least carry in their own sleeping bags and books.

The Tale of Genji Page: 280

Fairy Tales Hans Christen Andersen Page: 418

The kitchen floor is swept and mopped. Clutter has been cleared and three loads of laundry are folded and put away. I even read all my pages for the day and made Jared dinner. I’m tired but I feel like Wonder Woman.

Before I started spending the majority of my time pregnant I used to be a bit of a daredevil. Not to a great extreme but enough to spend most of time sporting one wound or another. Usually they were tied to great stories of the “I almost ripped my finger off” or “I came this close to dieing” type. Once I had a fellow climber fall while I was belaying him and the combination of my ineptitude (I was a baby-faced beginner) and his greater weight caused the rope to pull through my hand leaving me with some remarkable burns. I frequently “dug” a bit hard playing volleyball and ended up with sandy scabbed knees, spelunking usually left me with bruised legs and climbing took a constant toll on my poor hands. Anyway, these last two years have seen me relatively injury free. Until today. No story, just an argument with the aggressive under-edge of a door. Brace yourself…it’s bloody.

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu Page: 160

I have no idea what to write…I read 160 pages today but it was in a 1200 page book so I don’t have much to say about it yet. The day was fairly uneventful so nothing exciting there…I guess I can just blog about my adorable children.

Alex is kind of hilarious in the bookstore. He can reach up to the third shelf on all the bookshelves which means there are about 12,000 books within his reach. However, he focuses almost exclusively on about 10 books. He likes to pull books off the shelves and carry them around for awhile and then drops them randomly. His favorites are Mary Wollenstonecraft’s Vinidication of the Rights of Women and  Mary and The Wrongs of Woman, Ronald Reagan’s Rendevous with Destiny, and a few Tolkien books. There is also an astrology book he picks up fairly often and a few lesser favorites. The hilarious thing is we can take any of those books and hide them on another shelf and he can find it; even among similar looking books! I think it’s just because he’s the smartest ever…

Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen Page: 304

I squeaked out a decent number of pages today all 214 of them read after 6pm. It was an insane day. It started out pleasantly with both boys sleeping in until 9am. I got up at 8:45 and slipped in a shower before either of them woke up. Understand that is a huge blessing because it is incredibly unusual for me to have a peaceful, uninterrupted shower. Normally Alex is running around the bathroom trying to get into everything that I’ve tried to place out of his reach and Luc is often fussing as he sits atop the dryer in his carseat. Sometimes my legs end up half-shaven if Alex tries to get into the toilet or Luc starts really screaming and I very often find out mid-morning that I failed to get all the conditioner rinsed out of my hair. Anyway my peaceful morning turned very busy when I got to Veritas and grabbed the shopping list only to realize that I’d forgotten I’d made an appointment to go for a walk with a friend. Fortunately she pulled in the driveway just as I was backing out. We had our walk and then I absolutely had to get a handle on the multiplying books lying about the bookstore. I swear they breed at night. Sorting them, finally running errands (bank and Cash & Carry) and cleaning up ate the rest of the day. Quinn took Alex for the evening and Luc and I came home where I finally sat down to read. Luc needed to eat what seemed like every five minutes but I can read with him in my arms so it worked out. I’m still not a fan of the Fairly Tales but now at least I know where “The Little Mermaid” came from.

Fairy Tales by Hans Christen Anderson Page: 90

Blech. Only 90 pages today. I suppose I could have read more but between helping Jared get more bricks from the house they are moving, napping and just enjoying the day off, I didn’t get around to it. We spent a lot of our time talking about how we want to use the bricks we’d just gotten for free. We are planning a 16′ by 16′ patio off the side of the house and a 5′ by 13′ pad in front of our shed. Free bricks are great but of course we still have to do the tedious work of cleaning the old mortar off of them, leveling the patio site and putting down gravel and sand. Of course we won’t even get started on that until we get the sprinkler system in and the grass planted. In our spare time.

I’m not so enthralled with Hans. His fairy tales aren’t interesting, engaging or enchanting. In fact they seem like thinly disguised morality tales. I’ll see how the rest of the tales develop before I pass final judgment.

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli Page: 178 Finished

Marriage Poems John Hollander Page: 255 Finished

I’m going bald. My hair is falling out at an incredible rate. The drain trap in the shower is completely full before I’m halfway through my daily ablutions. All day I’m picking hairs off myself and the boys. Never having had thick hair, the loss is especially keen. Hair loss is a normal side effect of high stress and thus a normal side effect of labor but I’m almost back to my normal weight, wearing my old jeans and otherwise starting to feel like myself again, so why do I have to go bald now?

Poetry has never been my “thing”. I didn’t have the opportunity to learn much about it in school and I never sought it out on my own. It tends to bear a poor reputation among those I know and I can’t help but believe that that is our fault and not poetry’s. Unfortunately what was once a noble art has descended in popular culture to the adornment of greeting cards but we have such a wealth of accumulated poetry that we should be able to find some to understand and enjoy. Other than the great epics there was no poetry on the Everyman’s Greatest 100 lists I used to develop my reading plan. I did get to add a few books to the preset list to round out my numbers and I added two of the Everyman’s Pocket Poets. I chose the poems of Baudelaire because I wanted to know why Lemony Snicket named the children after him and I chose the Marriage Poems because I’m in love with my husband. Unfortunately not everyone thinks well of marriage and while many of the poems are frankly joyful some are indisputably hopeless. I thought Thomas Hardy’s novels were depressing! His poems on marriage? Dreary. And if Hardy is sadly defeatist, Swift is unhappily worse and thank God that Shelley is in the minority.  Hardy believed that marriage was almost always a destruction of ones hopes and ambitions, Swift that the body was gross and it’s marital function grosser and Shelley that we were not meant to be bound to another for a lifetime. I wonder why John Hollander chose to include such overwhelmingly negative perspectives. I did enjoy the anthology despite the downers and am inspired to begin adding poetry into my regular reading routine. I love the Pocket Poets bindings and would love to own the whole set.

I had the privilege of getting up at 5:45 this morning to open Veritas while Jared slept a bit longer. But then he handled both boys and tore down part of a brick house while I hung out and made coffee. On the whole I think his day was more productive because while I had a busy day in the coffeehouse (and GREAT sales) he managed to get us a thousand dollars worth of bricks free.

The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli Page: 141

I had grand plans to finish The Prince and get back to reading The Canterbury Tales. Instead I’m about 35 pages shy of completing Machiavelli and it still looks like I’ve completely forgotten Chaucer existed. I had a fun day anyway. Embee took me shopping and I bought four new shirts for me and two new pairs of boxers for Jared. Quinn and Pam took turns watching the boys so I got to relax and not watch the kids or the clock. I’m not usually much of a shopper (easily bored, incurably frugal and highly critical) but I had a great time today for several reasons: I never get away and I really got away, from the bookstore and the kids; I’ve been wearing maternity clothes for the better part of two years and shopping for normal ones is a lovely change and I got to visit with a friend away from distracting phone calls, precocious children and needy customers. I even got to buy two things at Banana Republic (where I would buy all my clothes if I was rich) and they were on sale!

I also enjoyed my reading today. I love the cumulative effect reading has on one. I’m finding that I’m understanding things I might not have even a year ago. After breezing through four Camus books in a few days I feel like I actually have a grasp of his philosophy and Machiavelli is clear and even seems quite simple to me. Reading constantly is stimulating my mind, exercising my understanding and challenging me to think harder and deeper. Basically this project is doing exactly what I hoped it would. Unfortunately it’s also turning me into an arrogant ass as I get more and more frustrated with other women for not trying harder. I want someone to talk to about some of these books and even among the internet community I’ve not found one. While I like cooking, and love hosting, and like to make my home clean and welcoming and caring for my children is a high priority, but I don’t think those things can or should consume all my mental energy.

Here are a couple of videos illustrating the fun and work of having a toddler in a bookstore.

Selected Essays Albert Camus Page: 656 Finished

Just So Stories by Kipling Page: 218 Finished

Ulysses Page: 60

I’m glad I’m done with Camus. Especially the essay on the absurd. I caught myself using absurd rather too frequently a few months ago but now I think I can claim that it’s completely worn out for me. When I finished the last page, I realized that I had an all too rare feeling; that of knowing and understanding more than I did a few days before. Most of that sense of learning came in opposition to the philosophy Camus was arguing, but I’m grateful to him nonetheless.

I’ve never read much Kipling but the “Just So Stories” are great and a little fantastical and I look forward to reading them to the boys.

Alex and I have a new game to play. He has a soft little car that says “ouch” when you drop it. Now we set it up across the room and throw blocks at it. If you hit it, it yells and you get a point. So far I’m winning.