The Immediate Book Meme

photo by Evan Laurence Bench

There are plenty of memes that want to know all about your book history and your all-time greats and your grand ambitions, but let's focus on something more revealing: the books you're actually reading now, or just read, or are about to read. Let's call it The Immediate Book Meme.

1. What book are you reading now?
I'm in between many books right now, so the actual current reading is light.

Emma, by Jane Austen.
When I asked what we should do for our next readaloud, the older girls requested Emma. 

The Gospel of John

2. What book did you just finish?

The Intellectual Life, by A.G. Sertillanges, O.P.
First book of 2017. An excellent book about living the vocation of the intellectual life, full of encouragement and practical advice for those who wish to glorify God with their intellect. As it's an older book, the passing mentions of women are rather patronizing. The sort of reader who find themselves triggered by such things would lose much of value by rejecting the book on that account. I thought it excellent nonetheless, and intend to recommend it to my daughter in a year or two.

The Force Awakens novelization.
My girls had it out from the library, and it was sitting around, so I read it. It doesn't really fill the plot holes, and the author seems at a disadvantage, not being able to fully develop the interior life of the characters for lack of information that won't be revealed until later movies.

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Our most recent readaloud, finished (most fittingly) on Christmas Day.

Victorian Cakes, by Caroline B. King
A memoir about the author's childhood in a large household in Chicago in the 1880s, centered around the various cakes her mother, many sisters, and German hired girl made. The recipes are fascinating but hard to translate into modern measurements and oven temps. That's okay, because the reading itself is delectable enough. 

A Civil Contract, by Georgette Heyer
One of Brandon's fortnightly books. My favorite Heyer novel, about a penniless Viscount obliged to marry the daughter of a wealthy upstart trader to save his family's estate. Not your standard romance.

3. What do you plan to read next?

The Case Against Sugar, by Gary Taubes
WSJ review here.

The Mind of the Maker, by Dorothy Sayers
A book I love, which has come up in numerous conversations lately. Sayers examines human creativity in light of the doctrine of the Trinity and the creative power characterized by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Sayers emphasizes that this is not a work of apologetics, or even an affirmation of the doctrine of the Trinity, but I find it provides much food for meditation anyway.

They All Laughed..., by Ira Flatow
A Christmas present from my brother-in-law, about the invention of various modern (up to 1993, anyway) technologies. "It's about how things like the Xerox machine were invented," I told my 14-year-old.
"What's a Xerox machine?" she asked.

4. What book do you keep meaning to finish?

Nothing at the moment. I finally gave up on John Adams and returned it, and my bedside table is clear of everything except...

5. What book do you keep meaning to start?

Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar by Amy A. Kass and Leon R. Kass
My friend lent it to me, and then I got pregnant, and then... I should just buy my own copy to reproach me each evening.

6. What is your current reading trend?
Not exactly a trend, but I want to work through all the books I received for Christmas, once I assemble them in one place.

The Immediate Book Meme

This is October, the two-conference month. I always think that I'm going to get a lot of writing done while Darwin is gone, but I don't. At the end of the day I'm exhausted and find myself falling asleep over my computer, the kitchen a wreck and the rest of the house not much better. God bless all single mothers, and please never let Darwin die so that I have to do this by myself, forever.

In lieu of real writing, I offer you the Immediate Book Meme.

photo by Evan Laurence Bench

There are plenty of memes that want to know all about your book history and your all-time greats and your grand ambitions, but let's focus on something more revealing: the books you're actually reading now, or just read, or are about to read. Let's call it The Immediate Book Meme.

1. What book are you reading now?

Deuteronomy

The Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy, by Roger Scruton.
Scruton is so close -- he's reaching in the right direction, but perhaps he lacks the gift of faith. He senses the transcendent everywhere, but can't seem to pull them together into one Being. His analysis of sex is as good as I've seen from a secular source, but his description of Christian charity is sorely lacking. He turns it into a form of utilitarianism: "Charity hopes to maximize joy and minimize suffering in general, just as each person spontaneously acts to maximize joy and minimize suffering in himself." That's a description of charity I've never seen, though perhaps that's because I've always heard charity analyzed from Christian sources as agape.  Also, he discusses Kant's personalist principle without going beyond to Wojtyla's positive formulation: A person is not simply an end, not a means, but one to whom the only appropriate response is love.

The Best of Myles, by Flann O'Brien
This collection of newspaper writings by Myles na gCopaleen (Flann O'Brien) [Brian O'Nolan] is laugh-out-loud funny. I'm only a bit in, but so far his account of the anarchic ventriloquists terrorizing the theaters of Ireland, and the fee structure for distressing a rich person's unread library of newly purchased books, have been the purest comic gold.

Hallowe'en Party, by Agatha Christie
The big girls are on a Poirot kick, so I'm just picking up what's laying around.

2. What book did you just finish?

Numbers

Maria Chapdelaine by Louis Hémon
I finished this several weeks ago, but for the purposes of writing a post about it, I only just finished it. A beautiful little book which ought to be widely considered a classic, set in remote Canada in the early 20th century. Maria is offered the chance to escape the harsh life of a Canadian pioneer and start an easier life in America, but the decision isn't as easy or as clear-cut as it sounds.

The Clocks, Agatha Christie

The Third Policeman, Flann O'Brien
This is a fascinating book which I was simply not in the right mood to read, and I had to return it to the library partially read. I feel the fault lies with me, but there it is.


3. What do you plan to read next?

more Deuteronomy

La Force Du Silence by Robert Cardinal Sarah, when it is available on Kindle on Nov. 9th. Good thing I brushed up on my French with Maria Chapdelaine. Here is an excellent interview with Cardinal Sarah on the book, and on the essential importance of silence.

“God’s first language is silence.” In commenting on this beautiful, rich insight of Saint John of the Cross, Thomas Keating, in his work Invitation to Love, writes: “Everything else is a poor translation. In order to understand this language, we must learn to be silent and to rest in God.”  

It is time to rediscover the true order of priorities. It is time to put God back at the center of our concerns, at the center of our actions and of our life: the only place that He should occupy. Thus, our Christian journey will be able to gravitate around this Rock, take shape in the light of the faith and be nourished in prayer, which is a moment of silent, intimate encounter in which a human being stands face to face with God to adore Him and to express his filial love for Him.  

Let us not fool ourselves. This is the truly urgent thing: to rediscover the sense of God. Now the Father allows Himself to be approached only in silence. What the Church needs most today is not an administrative reform, another pastoral program, a structural change. The program already exists: it is the one we have always had, drawn from the Gospel and from living Tradition. It is centered on Christ Himself, whom we must know, love and imitate in order to live in Him and through Him, to transform our world which is being degraded because human beings live as though God did not exist. As a priest, as a pastor, as a Prefect, as a Cardinal, my priority is to say that God alone can satisfy the human heart.  

I think that we are the victims of the superficiality, selfishness and worldly spirit that are spread by our media-driven society. We get lost in struggles for influence, in conflicts between persons, in a narcissistic, vain activism. We swell with pride and pretention, prisoners of a will to power. For the sake of titles, professional or ecclesiastical duties, we accept vile compromises. But all that passes away like smoke. In my new book I wanted to invite Christians and people of good will to enter into silence; without it, we are in illusion. The only reality that deserves our attention is God Himself, and God is silent. He waits for our silence to reveal Himself.  

Regaining the sense of silence is therefore a priority, an urgent necessity.  

Silence is more important than any other human work. Because it expresses God. The true revolution comes from silence; it leads us toward God and toward others so that we can place ourselves humbly at their service. 

Perhaps more Roger Scruton.


4. What book do you keep meaning to finish?

War and Remembrance, by Herman Wouk. I have a deadline on this -- a November book club that my sister-in-law's family hosts. And I like it a lot. It reads quickly and has a lot of fascinating detail. The book simply got put down in the shuffle and ended up on the wrong dresser, and so I haven't picked it up when I'm looking for reading.

John Adams, David McCollough.
I'm about to bring the troops home on this one and return it to the Little Free Library in the neighborhood. I just can't get around to finishing it. Sorry, John Adams.

5. What book do you keep meaning to start?

Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar by Amy A. Kass and Leon R. Kass
A friend lent me this collection of essays on courtship and marriage (actually, I saw it on her shelf and said, "Hey, can I borrow this?") and it's been sitting on top of a bookshelf where I don't see it for months. I need to put in on my recently cleared bedside table to it's right to hand.

6. What is your current reading trend?

I don't know that there is one right now.

The Immediate Book Meme

Nope, it's MrsDarwin, despite the attribution. All the computers in the house hate me, it seems. I won't bore you with my electronic woes, but suffice it to say that the nice fellow at the Apple store said that repairing the keyboard of my laptop would cost $750. Thanks, William!

photo by Evan Laurence Bench

There are plenty of memes that want to know all about your book history and your all-time greats and your grand ambitions, but let's focus on something more revealing: the books you're actually reading now, or just read, or are about to read. Let's call it The Immediate Book Meme.

1. What book are you reading now?

Revelation
...and nothing else, because I'm not starting a new book until I've finished packing for vacation

2. What book did you just finish?

The Pauline Epistles in the new testament
Tristram Shandy! At last!
Winds of War, by Herman Wouk

3. What do you plan to read next?

I'm packing my bag, and I'm bringing:
War and Remembrance (both volumes), by Herman Wouk
The Marble Faun, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Leisure: The Basis of Culture, by Josef Pieper

After vacation (because our library branch does not have these books in hardcopy, what gives?):
The Dubliners, by James Joyce
The novels of Flann O'Brien
Exodus, picking up with the law chapters where I left off to finish the New Testament.

Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling as our read-aloud.

4. What book do you keep meaning to finish?

I FINISHED TRISTRAM SHANDY, WHAT DO YOU WANT

5. What book do you keep meaning to start?

Nothing hangs over me just at the moment. I'm probably in denial.6. What is your current reading trend?

Let's be honest: Facebook. God help me, it's really hot in this house, and my brain has turned to mush.

Immediate Book Meme

photo by Evan Laurence Bench

There are plenty of memes that want to know all about your book history and your all-time greats and your grand ambitions, but let's focus on something more revealing: the books you're actually reading now, or just read, or are about to read. Let's call it The Immediate Book Meme.

1. What book are you reading now?

Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain
Twain being Twain. I can only take small doses, but he's worth it.

Arcadia, by Iain Pears
Starts off in the present tense, which puts my hackles up. Professor acquaintance of Tolkien and Lewis wants to create his own fantasy world, without having a story to tell about it. Girl gets into the world. Not really gripping, so far.

The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni

Genesis

2. What book did you just finish?

Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings, by Stephen O'Connor
There was a interesting novel of moral choices buried here, obscured by pages of pretentious abstractions in which we hike literally through Jefferson's psyche, we witness Jefferson watching a movie about himself, we follow Jefferson and Hemings as they check out the Museum of Miscegenation, the author muses about colors, and we squirm through segments of self-righteous wish-fulfillment in which Jefferson is a prisoner being tortured by a sadistic guard for being evil. Perhaps the author doesn't realize, or perhaps he does, that he is creating his own Sally Hemings as much as he convicts Jefferson of doing. And all this, without mentioning the loathed present tense format of the more novelistic scenes. Egad. Special mention, though to the moving depictions of a slave auction and the death of beloved children.

Septimania, by Jonathan Levi
Ludicrous theological errors on page one made it impossible for me to suspend disbelief through a narrative that really needed suspension of disbelief. Also, I've read Umberto Eco, and you, sir, are no Umberto Eco

Plantation Parade, by Harnett Kane
The histories of several notable plantations along the Mississippi, with a keen sense of the wheel of time and fortune turning.

Ghosts Along the Mississippi, by Clarence John Laughlin
The purplest of prose, but the photos are gripping.

3. What do you plan to read next?

Ad Pyrrham, by Ronald Storrs

Scarpia, by Piers Paul Read

Queen of the Night, by Alexander Chee

Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar, by Amy and Leon Kass

4. What book do you keep meaning to finish?

John Adams, by David McCullough

The Iliad, translated by Caroline Alexander

5. What book do you keep meaning to start?

Nothing making me feel guilty at the moment.

6. What is your current reading trend?

New fiction which is highly reviewed by the WSJ.

The Immediate Book Meme

photo by Evan Laurence Bench

There are plenty of memes that want to know all about your book history and your all-time greats and your grand ambitions, but let's focus on something more revealing: the books you're actually reading now, or just read, or are about to read. Let's call it The Immediate Book Meme.

1. What book are you reading now?

Lord of the World, by Robert Hugh Benson

2. What book did you just finish?

Mirrors to One Another: Emotion and Value in Jane Austen and David Hume, by E. M. Dadlez

Cupid and Psyche ~ A New Play in Blank Verse: The Bad Quarto Limited Edition, by Emily C.A Snyder
(Emily was a drama major with me at Franciscan University of Steubenville, and Cupid and Psyche just finished an off-Broadway run.)

Cruel Beauty, by Rosamund Hodge

3. What do you plan to read next?

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club: A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery, by Dorothy Sayers

4. What book do you keep meaning to finish?

Poetics, by Aristotle
The Four Cardinal Virtues, by Josef Pieper

5. What book do you keep meaning to start?

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne

6. What is your current reading trend?

books about philosophy in Jane Austen