No Book Club Tonight
Too few attendees and to much other stuff to do. Sad. We’ll reschedule, maybe next week.
Archive for February, 2009
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Right now I’m not sure who originally recommended this novel by Susannah Clarke to me but Amy B loaned it out so first thanks go to her. I was enthralled. The writing is definitely top-notch for a modern author though not up to the standards of classic literature and the Idea Clarke created was unexpected [...]
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
Bill Bryson’s memoir of growing up in the fifties was an unexpected treat* delivered by my good friend Amy. I laughed so hard I cried. Several times. I don’t have the book with me to quote but please, do yourself a favor and nab a copy to laugh over. It will cheer you up. I [...]
Scones
I posted the scones recipe over at The Complete Woman. Go make some and make everybody happy this morning.
The Mind of the Maker
Dorothy Sayers’ The Mind of the Maker is brilliant and, as far as I know, unprecedented. To look at and try to concieve of the character of God by examining the nature of the artist provides not only startling insight but great motivation to work harder and better. Sayers deftly handles such essentially complex ideas [...]
Lost in the Cosmos
This “Last Self Help Book” by Walker Percy is quite brilliant. Very thought-provoking, very funny and very open-ended. I want to review it. I am, however, brain-dead. I cannot seem to think of anything to write. I planned my day very carefully trying to maximize my creativity and time during the boys’s nap and I [...]
Life in a Medieval City
This is the last of Geises books that I plan to read this year. I’ve really enjoyed their trilogy about medieval life and am looking forward to doing more reading from and about the Middle Ages. I’m so glad to live in our day and age though I think that there were definitely some good [...]
That Hideous Strength
This is one of the books that is simply transcendent for me. It almost defies description (not that Iwon’t try). I love it so much that (almost) every word speaks to me but when I try to describe what Lewis does with the elements of the story it is hard to describe it without cheapening [...]
Travels With a Donkey
I had only ever read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which I thought ok, and Treasure Island which was a childhood favorite of Stevenson’s works. Travels With a Donkey seemed a very modern work. Stevenson wrote about religious schism with a self-conciously tolerant air, about poverty and ignorance as local curiosities [...]
A Long Road Trip and No Reading
Well, not no reading but almost none. A four day trip from Boise to Modesto and back was crazy but good. My boys were sweet little angels almost the entire trip and thoroughly charmed all their relatives. I was so impressed by how well behaved they were even under difficult and stressful conditions. Twelve hours [...]