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Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere

Brenda on Frugal Luxuries: “Starbucks coffee, Harney & Son teas, silver serving pieces purchased in thrift shops, good chocolate, Mrs. Meyers cleaning supplies, a class to learn cake decorating or gourmet cooking, great olive oil, Einstein’s bagels and coffee, a new book by my favorite author, Tresor, Lang Calendars, Half & Half, real butter, flowers, leather bound Bibles, broadband Internet…”

Brenda (Coffee Tea Books and Me) again on Jerry Falwell: “Contrary to much that has been written, Falwell wasn’t trying to take over the country and make it “Christian”. He was trying to take back what we had lost, those morals that were based on the Bible.”
Homemaking Through the Church Year on babywearing: “I’ve found more and more often that the answer to many homemaking dilemmas can be found when you answer your question with another question. That other question being: ‘How did women accomplish it in the eighteenth century?’ Or, as an missionary kid, I more often ask, ‘How do women do it in third-world countries?'”

Cindy at Dominion Family on book-reading in public: “Then there is the iPod option. You could listen to A Distant Mirror or The Warden via audiobook and that would be so respectable but then you would look so terribly modern and it would go against your agrarian ideals which whisper in your ear that you are probably going to lose your hearing because you have sold your soul to an iPod.”

The Christy Awards 2007 nominees are listed at Faith in Fiction. The Christy Awards are given in several categories to fiction books published by Christian publishers. I’ve read one of the nominees, Winter Birds by Jamie Langston Turner (Semicolon review here), and I must say I thought it was quite good. My seventy something mother read it, too, and liked it.

Finally, Ariel at Bittersweet Life has links to the Christopher Hitchens/Doug Wilson debate at Christianity Today. Good stuff.

Bookspotting #24

I just found this series of Reading Interviews posted by Josh Sowin at Fire and Knowledge. He interviews various friends and folks including pastors, professionals of various stripes, and authors Doug Groothius and Justin Taylor. I’m very tempted to “borrow” his idea, tweak the questions, and interview some homeschool moms and others that I admire. Maybe, maybe not, in the meantime, read the interviews. They’re great.

Pick the Brain on 5 Types of Books That Increase Intelligence: “A great amount of time is wasted reading books that are forgotten a short time after they’re completed. But time spent reading books that cultivate intelligence and wisdom is a labor that yields continuous benefit over a lifetime.”
I don’t agree with everything in this article or at this website. Sometimes I read simply for entertainment and recreation. However, the article is interesting, both as to the types of books he included and the types he didn’t. (Biography, anyone? Or is that a part of history?)

The Headmistress on commonplace books.

Not exactly a book, but I am very much enjoying (chuckling audibly) Sarah Beth Durst’s take on Obscure Fairy Tales. This one involves cabbages, sentient household tools, and Death. Scroll to the bottom of the post for links to the rest of her Obscure Tales. Then, come back and tell me which one you liked the best. I choose the one I linked to, formally titled: Godfather Death.

The Happy Wonderer: “This year I took a suggestion to read through the Bible in a different way. Retention is not my strong point. I have to write things down and read them over and over to really get the point, so this Bible reading method was a great suggestion for me. I am reading every book of the Bible 20 times before I move on to the next. I’m starting with the shortest New Testament Books. At this rate I’ll not finish till I’m dead…but that’s OK. I find myself in 2 Timothy on my 17th read.”
I had planned to follow a method something like this one this year, but I haven’t done it. Maybe I can get back to reading one book at a time daily for a month or so. I think it might be quite profitable.

John Mark Reynolds’ list of 30 books every college student should read.
Joe Carter’s 30 Essential Books for Students and Autodidacts.
Both of these are good lists. Reynolds’ list is, commendably, skewed toward the classical and the ancient. Carter tries to cover important disciplines outside of literature, such as philosophy, military science, architecture, and business. I would make a quite different list, and of course, by the time we all got through making our lists, our poor college student would be overwhelmed with reading material. On second thought, not such a bad thing, to be overwhelmed with books. An embarrassment of riches.

Of Mice and Men

“While modern Darwinists may wince, eugenics clearly drew inspiration from Darwin’s theory. In fact, Galton was Darwin’s cousin. He took evolutionary theory seriously, arguing persuasively that hospitals, mental institutions and social welfare all violate the law of natural selection. These institutions preserve the weak at the expense of the gene pool. In the wild, such people would die off naturally, thus keeping the human race strong. As Darwin himself declared in ‘The Descent of Man,’ ‘No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this has been highly injurious to the race of man. … Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.'”

And so as we continue as a nation to debate the ethics and efficacy of embryonic stem cell research, it might pay to remember the history of the eugenics movement. Read here for a reminder of what can happen when we decide that some people are dispensable and not worth perpetuating or even living.

Hat tip to Amanda at Wittingshire.

Homeschool Blog Awards

hs blog awards

Voting for the Homeschool Blog Awards is going on through Friday, April 13th. I’ve seen some great blogs nominated and found some new-to-me gems while visiting about. And Semicolon has been nominated for Best Curriculum or Business Blog —either because the nominator loves my Around the World curriculum that I haven’t posted about lately or because someone likes my book, Picture Book Preschool, available via the graphic link in the sidebar. Either way I think I’m in last place, but I was nominated. Somebody likes me.

So go check it out and vote for Somebody.

Actually, I think it was this blogger who nominated me, so vote for her –because she has good taste.

Thinking Bloggers

While I was out, my favorite un-blogger, Mental Multivitamin, nominated me for a Thinking Blogger Award. I’m honored, and I’d nominate her right back, but I think that would defeat the purpose of the award: to publicize and honor MORE blogs that make you think. So here, as instructed by the originator of this award, are my five nominations for The Thinking Blogger Award:

1. The Thinklings: Jared, Bird, Blo, Shrode, Kenny, Michael, and De. It doesn’t look as if these guys, who do manage to intersperse a lot of actual thinking into their group blog, have been nominated yet. Or else they haven’t responded to their many accolades. After all, it’s the “nexus of the intellectual universe,” and they’ve got a lot of thinking to do. You’ll find down-to-earth Christian thought at Thinklings with a debt and proper credit to C.S. Lewis and other thinkers of that ilk.

2. Phil and Lars at Brandywine Books are also busy thinking, and reading, and writing the great American novel. That would be Lars Walker who is, I’m convinced, busy writing that novel —in between house maintenance and repairs. Brandywine Books was also nominated for a Litty Award recently. They didn’t win, but they should have.

3. Debra of As I See It Now makes me think all by herself (it takes nine guys working together in the first two nominees :)). Debra writes about the everyday thing of life in away that makes me take another look —and see God in the details.

4. Finally there are the ladies at The Common Room: Headmistress, and her progeny, Head Girl, Equuschick, Pipsqueak, and Jennyanydots. They always have much wisdom to impart; most recently Headmistress has an excellent post on narration.

So, those are my nominations for Thinking Bloggers —although I could have named at least a couple of dozen more. May we all continue to read, think and learn ala Mental Multivitamin, and may iron sharpen iron as we blog together.

Pictures, Pictures, Get Your Pictures

the_children's_praise_songIllustrations from St. Nicholas magazine (public domain)

More vintage children’s book illustrations.

Illustrations from old Bible story books, coutesy of La Vista Church of Christ. Also public domain.

Old book covers.

Coloring pages of famous artists’ pictures, including Cezanne, Picasso, Monet and others.

I found these sites with beautiful vintage pictures thanks to various and sundry blog friends before I went on break, and unfortunately I can’t remember who you were. Thanks to all anyway.

Bookspotting #23

Leif Enger’s second novel, So Young, Brave and Handsome is set for publication in early 2008 according to Dave at Faith in Fiction. It’s a “tale of passion and adventure in early 20th century America, about an aging train robber, pursued again after years of obscurity, seeking to reconcile the claims of love and judgment on his life.”

I’m looking forward to it.

Doesn’t this book sound like a great idea for boys? And will it be challenged or censored in U.S. libraries —or just not selected? So far, it’s not even available in the U.S., but you can pre-order it at Amazon.

Sarah Vine reviews a book she’s never read, but it’s OK. The book is called Comment Parler des Livres que l’on n’a pas Lus (How to Talk About Books that You Haven’t Read) by M. Bayard, and it’s a best-seller in France. “Bayard himself confesses to never having finished Ulysses, by James Joyce. Personally, I have a theory that there is a very good chance that Joyce himself didn’t even finish writing the book, since I have never actually met anyone who has read the thing cover to cover.”

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere: Love and Marriage

Justin on Marriage and Honeymoons and Sustained Committment: “We must find the balance between a comfortable taken for grantedness and a fiery passion…”


What better way to show love than to read to and with your family? Jennifer Snapshot is sponsoring the Read To Me 2007 Challenge. Click on the picture for more details.

Kelli shares some Valentine’s Day traditions, several of which would be suitable for anytime this month. SHe’s got a picture of my favorite Valentine’s Day book, All for Love by Tasha Tudor.

Happy Catholic Julie’s favorite romantic movies and books.

Absolutely nothing to do with love and marriage, but one of the Bees at the Beehive has found a new link to my favorite music video: The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. Think of it as a collaboration collision between Tolkien and Star Trek.

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere

Ian’s found some error messages we can all understand and enjoy.

Barbara Curtis of Mommy Life has a great slide show of pictures she took at the March for Life in Washington, D.C. on Monday, January 22nd. I missed out on the whole anniversary of Roe vs. Wade commemoration this year, but I have not forgotten those who have died in the name of Choice and Reproductive Freedom.

At a Hen’s Pace on monastic communities and their integration with or relation to the everyday world. I’m always interested in posts and articles and books on this subject. How do we create, or allow God to create, community in the (post)modern world?

From the new-to-me blog Claw of the Conciliator: “At the very least, I think that the experience of being launched outside one’s quotidian, self-centered world, and the impulse to awe-struck wonder, are shared by science and religion. So it’s no wonder that a lot of people delight in both at the same time, and don’t want to have to choose just the one or the other. It’s not surprising that someone as brilliant as Isaac Newton spent more time doing theology and biblical studies than he did on science. Even a hard-headed skeptic like Martin Gardner can be a devoted fan of the laughing, joyous, poetic spirituality of G.K. Chesterton.”

At another new-to-me blog, Vivid Just Like You, Denise writes about Transformation: “I learned to cook, penciling notes in the margins, and bought my first bottle of wine. I began to look for the grace that creeps through the cracks of our lives, usually through the flukes and mistakes and the feeling that we don’t know what on earth we are doing. I embraced the mysteries my mind cannot touch. I didn’t give up on my teenage faith: I filled it, or left it open at last for God to fill to overflowing.