Et Tu? The Diary of a Former Atheist: “Out of the blue, I suddenly saw writing items on my grocery list in a completely different light: I realized what an incredibly — almost unimaginable — luxury it is to be able to simply write down what I want to feed my children, and be able to go get it. Quickly. Easily. Cheaply.”

iMonk tells the story of a suffering servant: “When I hear this kind of story, it is almost more than I can take. My faith is small and my tolerance for pain and loss is low. Questions of suffering and loss are not easy for me to contemplate. What would I do? Would God keep me? Would I despair, quit, abandon faith?
And here is Doc. Standing in front of our students, saying again and again that God is good. His suffering and loss can’t be measured, but his faith has grown every step of the way. In his gentle, Minnesota accent, he says over and over, ‘God is good. I’m so thankful.'”

Jim at The Culture Beat: “I wonder how many people are caught in a similar dilemma – wanting to thank someone, but not knowing who. I wonder if they feel that predicament more keenly this time of year.
Out of tradition or nostalgia, they may sing a hymn like, ‘Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home …,’ only to stumble at ‘God, our Maker, doth provide for our wants to be supplied.’ They are grateful for their families or their jobs or the food or for living in the richest nation on earth, but who to thank for that?”

Cindy (Dominion Family) suggests some Thanksgiving reading.

At a Hen’s Pace is thankful for candlesticks of abundant grace: “Last week we saw an incredible children’s theater performance of the musical ‘Les Miserables.’ The power of that story is unequalled, and the music is hauntingly beautiful. (I blogged about it the last time I saw it, too–as a parable of grace and law.) It’s been over a week, but still I can’t shake a truth that was conveyed by that story.”

Advice from Barbara at Mommy Life: “Since many of you are about to go into hyper-holiday mode as well – where you are preparing a wonderful event to delight your family, setting the stage to bring them closer to each other and closer to God in gratitude and prayer – I just want to remind you to Practice the Presence of God today.”

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Ariel at BitterSweet Life thought up this whole Indie Blog thing. To be an indie blogger, you’re supposed to have minimal overall influence and negligible financial impact, and also be fiercely unique, illogically dedicated, unapologetically eclectic, and typically ignored. Or at least five out of the seven. Ariel thinks I qualify, and I’m honored to be an Indie Blog. Go here for the origins of the Idie Blog tag.

Now, these blogs that I’ve chosen are INDIE, not likely to become the most influential or talked-about blogs in the blogosphere. In fact they all feature material only a confirmed bibliophile (or bibliomaniac) could love, but I’m hooked:

The Book Inscriptions Project: “We collect personal messages written in ink (or pen or marker or crayon or grape jelly) inside books.
Pictures count. So do poems. So do notes on paper found in a book. The more heartfelt the better.
Send a copy of the cover and the inscription and any details about how, when and where you found it.”

Wonders for Oyarsa is blogging the Bible: “Blogs about reading a book I’ve read all my life don’t sound too exciting. And maybe it isn’t exciting, and I don’t really expect that many readers. However, it does seem like a really good idea for any Christian – to read the entire Bible, reflect on it, honestly write what comes to mind, and welcome conversation from others.”

Postman’s Horn is “a daily selection of correspondence by authors, writers, painters, poets and others: A letter can provide that sense of everyday life, a glimpse of the the trials and tribulations of another human soul; and they can underscore the humanity of writers who have become so very famous. I enjoy reading them, as does my wife, and we thought it would be a type of commonplace book where others could read them as well.”

Chesterton and Friends is “a site dedicated to G.K. Chesterton, his friends, and the writers he influenced: Belloc, Baring, Lewis, Tolkien, Dawson, Barfield, Knox, Muggeridge, and others.” It’s a case of independent bloggers celebrating some rather independent writers.

Cindy Swanson has a post on cutting, the practice of self-abuse that is prevalent among mostly teenage girls in some circles. I didn’t even know that this sad, self-abusive pattern even existed until a few years ago when a friend of one of the urchins admitted that she “cuts”. If this is a problem for you or for one of your loved ones, Cindy offers some hope.

Today at the Mission on God and creation: “The creation story tells me that God is present in our world in ways that are simply beyond our knowing – as scientists or religionists or anything else. The first chapter of Genesis tells me that God created a place where he could connect with people like you, and people like me, and we could all, you know, hang out together. Why? Because God is love and, forgive me if I’m wrong, but maybe love needs to express itself, longs to express itself, exists to be expressed, in the creation of a world with its own solar system; in the creation of a hot meal for a homeless guy who, cold and wet, sits at the dinner table in tears; in the creation of the smile on a little girl’s face as she heads out the door with her cookies; in the warm, safe beds at the shelter: in the coffee shop where a guy who hasn’t been on staff for over two years continues to meet with a former client.”

Kevin Stilley makes the case for Mike Huckabee as the best possible Republican presidential nominee in 2008: “The irony is that there is really only one candidate in the current field of Republican contenders who all Republicans would be willing to eventually invest their trust and support in the general election; and that candidate is receiving little attention, — Mike Huckabee.”

Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer reveals her struggle with panic attacks: “I spent my days huddled in a ball of anguish, feeling the waves of despair and panic wash over me, again and again. I wanted, with all my heart, to die, and I thought about it constantly. And to anyone who would listen, I would say, ‘This shouldn’t be happening to me. There’s no reason for me to feel like this,’ as though if I said it often enough, it would all go away.”

Marvin Olasky’s 100 favorite books from the last seven years of treadmill reading.

His list is mostly nonfiction; I’ve read three of them:
J. Budziszewki—How to Stay Christian in College (NavPress, 2004)
Philip Caputo—Acts of Faith (Knopf, 2005) Semicolon review here.
Lauren F. Winner—Girl Meets God (Algonquin, 2003) Semicolon review here.

I see several others on Mr. Olasky’s list that I’d like to read —someday.

NEWS from the UK: “Tori Amos, the singer, . . . is collaborating with dramatist Samuel Adamson on a hoped-for production of The Light Princess, George MacDonald’s story (which was illustrated by Maurice Sendak) about a princess cursed by a witch.” Sounds interesting.

Book-burning? Ah, but as a protest, it’s acceptable.

50 Books That Defined the Twentieth Century. Guardian and The Book Marketing Society list four, five, or six books per decade. The 1920’s rate seven books. I’ve read twelve of the twenty, and four out of seven for the 1920’s. Maybe the twenties were better.

A compendium of book links for Monday:

I found this publishing imprint, called Persephone Books, via Danielle Torres, A Work in Progress. Persephone claims to reprint “forgotten classics by twentieth-century (mostly women) writers. Each one in our collection of seventy -two books is intelligent, thought-provoking and beautifully written, and most are ideal presents or a good choice for reading groups.” Persephone sees itself as a “feminist press,” but “our titles are different from those of other feminist publishers in that they are more accessible, more domestic, the feminism is ‘softer’.”
The books look to be, therefore, more accessible to traditional homemaking moms such as myself who want something to make us think , but not something designed to indoctrinate us in the dogma of the feminist cause. Just in a quick perusal, I found a novel called The Home-maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, an adult novel by Noel Streatfield about the family stress cause by the dislocations of World II (Saplings), and Good Things in England, a compendium of historical and literary recipes for traditional Britsh dishes such as frumenty and beef broth.

A list of LaShawn Barber’s favorite books.

Mother Reader gives us Twenty-one Ways to Give a Book. You know, you can give books anytime . . .

David Mills comments on Children of Men by P.D. James, both the book and the movie. Or there’s this scathing review of the movie by a fan of the book, Anthony Sacramone at First Things. The movie version is available on DVD now. I think it’s worth the time if you can tolerate the violence.

Marshall Zeringue muses on twice-told tales, novels based on other authors’ novels or plays. Eldest Daughter gave me a copy of Gertrude and Claudius by John Updike. I’m sure it will show up here on the blog after I’ve read it —unless I hate it. I’m trying to think of books that I like that are take-offs from other people’s books. I did enjoy the Nero Wolfe books that were written by Robert Goldsborough and the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Jill Paton Walsh. Both of those authors made a special effort to take the beloved characters of the original authors and remain true to the original while involving them in further adventures. If you’re going to put a new twist on an old story, either in a book or in a movie, you must know that you’ve taken on a huge task. I think movie makers are not as good about giving credit and even homage to the original work while changing and extending it to fit their own vision. West Side Story was a great version of Romeo and Juliet, but it may be the exception rather than the rule. What books based on other books or movies based on books have you enjoyed? (I’m making a distinction here between faithful, or not-so-faithful, adaptations, such as LOTR (good) and Children of Men (maybe not so good), and completely new works that are based on older works, such as Joyce’s Ulysses or the movie O, Brother, Where Art Thou?, another version of the Odysseus story.)

In Newbery news, Nattie Writes has a Newbery Challenge —to read six Newbery Award books by the end of the year. Also, children’s literature fans need to check out The Newbery Project for more reviews of Newbery Award winning books.

The Carnival of Children’s Literature is up for May at Chicken Spaghetti. Don’t miss the fiesta!

Scroll down or click here for the Saturday Review of Books, May 19th. We’ve got reviews of all sorts of books, children’s literature and adult reading, fiction and non, classics and hot-off-the-presses.