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Reading Lists

What did you read this past year? What were your favorites? What did you try to read but couldn’t quite get into? Which books made a real impression on you? What was overrated? What did you waste time reading? What do you recommend?

What do you plan to read in 2006? Why?

Post a link in the comments to your own reading list for 2005–or your reading plan for 2006, and I’ll link to it here.

Writing and Living lists the books she read and the ones she planned to read in 2005: 31 books read in 2005 and a year of Dickens coming up for 2006.

Melissa of the Bonny Glen plans to read Dickens, Chesterton, and a few other books. Did you know that Chesterton wrote a biography of Dickens?

Todd is reading Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion and blogging about it.

Mental Multivitamin’s Year in Review, including a list of her ten favorite reading experiences in 2005 (scroll down).

Laura in a strange land posts her edition of THE LIST. She’s going to read Dorothy Sayers and Louisa May Alcott among others–two of my favorites.

Stefanie at So Many Books read 55 of them this year, and she lists the five best ones. C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces is at the top of the list. Yes! I love that book.

Fimble Fowl’s organized and ambitious list—from the bathroom floor??

Susan(Pages Turned) has her lists for 2004 and 2005 of books read in the sidebar. She’s read some of the books I plan to read: The March, Canticle for Leibowitz, Never Let Me Go. Maybe that’s where I found them, or maybe I should check them out at her place before I commit myself.

Tim Hutchison, missionary doctor in Nairobi, has read some good stuff, including a lot of Patrick O’Brian. (Master and Commander and all that nautical jazz). Who’s Neal Stephenson, and what kind of stuff does he write?

Kathryn Judson’s Book Recommendations from 2005. I added The Privateer by Josephine Tey to THE LIST because I like Josephine Tey’s Daughter of TIme very much.

A blatant display of Amanda’s lit-geekery. Her words, not mine. I think it just looks like an interesting year of books.

Here’s Carrie Mommy Brain’s Reading List for 2006. And here’s a list of the books she read in 2005.

Sparrow at Intent implies that THE LIST is much too long and shows no restraint. What can I say? She’s right. Her list for 2006, on the other hand, is much more ladylike and sane: Jane Austen, Edith Schaeffer’s What Is a Family?, Till We Have Faces (second appearance in these links). Her list is eminently respectable, but she cheats. Wodehouse, Sayers, McCall Smith, and Ellis Peters don’t count!

Chicken Spaghetti posts her 2005 favorites in the sidebar.

John M. is reading Gibbon.

Sandra at Book World confesses that she buys more books than she reads and that she is not really reading the classics she thought she was reading. Then on New Year’s Eve she posts a plan for the new year: science, poetry, classics, Shakespeare. Buy fewer books.

Ella has a picture and commentary about her first ten books of the new year. She’s already started on War and Peace. And she’s planning on reading Thomas Hardy, Edith Wharton, Oscar WIlde, and Thoreau.

Anita just started her book blog: It’s All About the Book. She’s planning to read modern classics, mostly twentieth century stuff. I think she should start with LOTR if she hasn’t read it.

A Somewhat Dated and Highly Subjective Real Book Lover’s Guide to the Ten Best Books of 2005 by Doppelganger at 50 Books. She likes Thackeray and Wodehouse and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Anne in Hawaii (Palm Tree Pundit) has this list of books read in 2005. Ooooh, she read Kristin Lavransdattar which I am definitely planning to get around to reading this year. I’ve been planning to read it for a long time.

At Half-Pint House, Megan read 40 books in 2005, Her goal was three books per month. I see that she read The Eyre Affair; maybe she can tell me what it was supposed to be about.

Craig and Doug blog and list books at Twenty Someone. Twenty Someone is the title of the book they co-authored, and they’re a couple of young Christian guys just out of their twenties. It looks as if they run a good blog.

CDR Salamander list seven books he read and enjoyed this past year. Nonfiction as befits a military guy.

Cinnamon at Nose in a Book posts My Reading: Year in Review. She included some Alcott, some Austen, and two-thirds of LOTR. Keep going; the ending is a tear-jerker.

Danielle at A Work in Progress is planning to read the Modern Library 100 best novels. She’s starting at the bottom of the list and working her way up, hoping to reach #80 by the end of 2006. #100 is The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. I’ve never read it, but I have read Penrod. Does that count for anything?

Jamie from Canada has his list, mostly theology, N.T. Wright and others. No fiction!?

Amy at Perpetual Thursday read a variety of genres and subjects. In fact, I think hers is the most varied reading list I’ve seen yet.

Jonathan would like to read Total Truth and God Is the Gospel, among others. I’d like to finish those two, too. I wonder which one of us will do it.

Tym all the way over in Singapore read 19 books, including LOTR, The Lion the Witch , and the Wardrobe and several dense-sounding philosophy books.

Circle of Quiet Reading for 2006. I am honored; she says she got some of her ideas for reading material from me.

Kate’s Favorites from 2005 I disagree with her about Case Histories, but I would like to add a couple of her other favorites to THE LIST.

The lady at Seasonal Soundings has a plan for 2006–morning reading, educational reading, evening reading, even beach reading.

Roger of the A-Team group blog is starting a new blog, Never Enough Tea: Reflections on all Th.ings C.S. Lewis “My goal is to blog 2-3 times a week reflecting on Lewis, his writings, and writings about him and his writings. Though I�m reading chronologically, I�ll likely pull from stuff I�ve already read anyway. I�ll also be reading and reviewing books on Lewis and his works. From time to time I�ll branch out a bit and go into works that influenced Lewis- such as Boethius, Chesterton, MacDonald, etc.”

Kate at The Little Bookroom, who recommended several of the books on THE LIST, read some fine books last year,including Madeleine L’Engle’s Ring of Endless Light which is also one of my favorites. She also has some interesting plans for this year, books from The Modern Library list of 100 Best Novels of the Twentieth Century. I’d prefer the 19th century, but we’ll see how it goes for Kate.

Last but certainly not least, I’m going to end this list of lists with Eldest Daughter’s Top Ten of 2005. I must gloat a little; one of her top ten I recommended, and another I gave her as a Christmas gift. Am I good or what?

***(This is really fun–seeing what everyone else has read and is reading and is planning to read.I’m moving this post to the top of the blog for New Year’s Day one more time since I’ve added several more lists.)

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. Blaise Pascal

Sallie at TTL has some good ideas. Here she posts about “past goals I’ve successfully met that have had a tremendous positive impact on my life.” I’m going to try to incorporate some of these into my life.

Melissa Wiley, author and homeschool mom, Here in the Bonny Glen has become one of my favorite blogs since I discovered it about a month or two ago.

Amanda Witt writes about scars and allowing our children–and ourselves–to acquire them.

Spunky, on the other hand, writes about keeping and protecting our children’s hearts. She has some excellent reminders about how to keep our teenagers, especially boys, looking to parents for love and guidance.

Steve Rivkin at OUP Blog presents the Six Deadly Sins of Naming–good stuff to think about in naming blogs, businesses, or even children.

An interesting story about an adventurous autodidact. I don’t share her passions–feminism, yoga, vegetarianism–but her story of pursuing her goals, making her own way in the world, is inspiring. HT: Carnival of Education

I found this new-to-me blog while looking around this week: Wish Jar Journal. Here’s Keri’s list of good books for an artist.

HAPPY FRIDAY, EVERYONE!

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. Blaise Pascal

Roberto Rivera on Japan’s declining population.

And what do we lose when we don’t have children? Well, here’s a great story from Kathryn about a wild rabbit hunt going on in her backyard. I’ll bet those kinds of hunts are dying out in Japan.

Continuing in the same vein, George Grant writes about the Feast of the Holy Innocents (yesterday) in which Christians commemorate the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem and Judea by Herod the Great and also remember the many children who have died as a result of men’s greed and cruelty.

There seems to be a continuing theme here: to add to the chorus, here’s Dignan’s 75 Year Plan on Abortion, Adoption, and Compassion. He’s right that adoption in certain Christian evangelical circles seems to be a trend, a good trend. I would estimate that more than half of the families in my church have adopted children.

One of the better commentaries on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie that I’ve read is Will Duquette’s review at The View from the Foothills. I agree that it was a good movie with a few “Hollywoodisms” thrown in. What else could one expect?

If you’re up for reading more, more, more about C.S. Lewis and his writing, David Mills has lots of links at Mere Comments.

Sallie’s Carnival of Beauty. Christian women bloggers pick their favorite posts from the year to share. Enjoy.

Homeschool Blog Award Winners. Some of my favorites are there (congratulations MMV), and maybe I’ll find some new favorites. Check it out.

DawnTreader picks out six important stories/influences to sum up 2005.: Terry Schiavo, US Supreme Court, biological design, C.S. Lewis, Katrina, and the Emergent church.

Tulip Girl suggests, instead of resolutions, a Mondo Beyondo List for the new year, “the list of all the wild and crazy dreams we have, the things that are so out there it is almost scary to write them down . . . the ideas that tug at your heart and are almost out of reach even of day dreams.. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to post a such a list on the internet. I want to see Tulip Girl’s list first–or yours.

Christmas Eve Eve Center of the Blogosphere

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. Blaise Pascal

Happy thoughts for Christmas:

Joseph Bottum on Christmas-time and finding the right style to celebrate.

Patry Francis writes about happy families, and not-so-happy families and family mottos. Does your family have motto, a phrase that epitomizes the ethos of your family, the message that your family conveys to each other and to the world? I’m going to have to think about that. (By the way, Ms. Francis is a wonderful writer. I’m looking forward to reading her book when it actually gets into print.)

Wilfred McClay at Mere Comments chooses his most striking Christmas carol for the year: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

We are constantly reminded to “keep Christ in Christmas” and to remember “the reason for the season.” And of course that’s entirely right. But it’s also important, if I may put it this way, to keep Satan in Christmas, and not to skip too lightly over the lyrics that mention him. It changes the way we understand Christmas, if we also hold in our minds an awareness of the darkness into which Christ came, and comes, to save us.

Peregrine Ward at Mere Orthodoxy on vacations and holidays: ” . . . whereas a break or absence from life is etymologically the primary significance of “vacation”, “holiday” only implicitly includes absence, but primarily includes observance, engagement, celebration—in other words, one takes a holiday in order to do something, not stop something.”

The blog of the American Chesterton Society looks to be a great place for discussion of all things Chesterton.

Gene Veith defends the commercialization of Christmas.

Charmaine Yoest on what a real lady looks like.

Finally to “balance” the “happy thoughts” (so I don’t feminize the blogosphere), I offer for your consideration iMonk on Prissy Protestants: Why We Need More Men Like Peggy Noonan. I’m not sure what I think about all this interest in crude language, pro and con, but it’s interesting. It seems to me that the English language is rich in words, and my mama always told me that people who use crude or profane language have limited vocabularies. Read the comments, too.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good day, or night. I’ll see you on the other side of Christmas.

Best Canadian Homeschool Blog

I liked the squirrels at Dewey’s Treehouse, lots of good ideas and activities. I’ll be back to this new-to-me blog.

My Bountiful Life has bountiful photos–mixed with a bit of homeschooling angst and some wonderful thoughts on books.

I frequently see links to and quotes from Kim of The Upward Call on other blogs that I read, but I’ve never made it over there. It turns out we have a lot in common.
Our age: 40-ish (I’m closer to –ish than 40.)
Our decorating scheme: “books and chairs” My tree won’t win any awards either. I prefer to call my style “eclectic.”
Our compulsion: “It’s very difficult for me to sit, speechless in a group of people, for any length of time.”–Kim Me, too. That’s why I have a blog. I just post all those thoughts that want to come out, but might not be welcome.

Farm School has this movie quote in the sidebar:

“I’d like to give you a piece of my mind.”
“Oh, I couldn’t take the last piece.”
Ginger Rogers to Frances Mercer in “Vivacious Lady” (1938)

Your giggle for the day.

I found this post at The Joy of the Lord is my Strength to be fascinating. It’s about the author’s growing up years in Northern Ireland, and then later as an immigrant to Canada.

Ann at The Holy Experience already won the Blogs of Beauty “Best Quiet Spirit” award earlier this month, and I can see why. She’s blogging mostly about the Jesse Tree for the month of December.

Mary Poppins is in Florida for Christmas, but she usually runs a “feminist, secular, relaxed/classical blog with a flippant sense of humour, an eclectic taste in links.” And I read it even though I’m none of the above. (I do like the word “eclectic”, though.)

Carol’s Storybook looks like a breast-feeding friendly, corporal punishment non-friendly, zone with lots of good advice and thoughts on Christian mothering and homeschooling.

This was a hard choice, but I think I liked The Upward Call best. I’ve got a soft spot for anyone who looks at the book collection first.

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere

Good Reasons for Avoiding Prayer: Steve Riddle at Flos Carmeli has a million of them. Funny, they’re some of the same excuses I use. No, not funny.

Dawn Treader on The Briliance of C.S. Lewis. Both Dawn Treader and I were Lewis fans way before Lewis was cool.

Now I really hope the powers that be translate this book into a proper movie. Ramona Rocks! HT: Book Moot

Then there’s Jane Austen. Is she a Christian writer? Anne’s Cafe has some thoughts on just how “Christian” Austen’s novels are.

Jolyblogger speculates on the death of the book. Methinks reports of such a death are somewhat premature.

Mr. Walker and I agree on Little Drummer Boy.

Melissa Wiley in the Bonny Glen tells the secret of how she feeds the book habit without going broke. HINT: Books first, clothes and vacations later.

Debra (As I See It Now) gives out a whole slew of early Christmas gifts. Enjoy, and read some of Debra’s other posts while you’re there. She’s an inspiration.

Kate at The Little Bookroom gives me (and you) the scoop on some of her favorite books I asked about.

And Dani Torres lists her ten favorite books of 2005. I’ve only read two of the ten–yes, the old ones. Housekeeping and Never Let Me Go are both on The List, however.

OOOh! Take a look at M-MV’s cape and walking stick. Gorgeous. (Read the story about dreams deferred, too.)

Best Team/Homeschool Blog

Lots of good blogs and bloggers in this category. I love to read whatever Amanda and Jonathan have to say at Wittingshire, but I have my eye on them for another category in the Homeschool Blog Awards.

Carla and Peggy at Women of Simplicity have weekly tips on keeping house (my downfall) and lots of posts on keeping a Christ-centered Christmas right now.

The Harris twins, Alex and Brett, run a fine blog at The Rebelution, and it’s a good place to keep up with the younger generation of “rebelutionary” homeschoolers.

Gentle Christian Mothers looks like an encouraging place for mothers who “listen to their God-given mothering instincts and strive to respond to and meet the needs of their children with a servant’s heart.”

I’m going to send a note to my friend Martha about Scout Blog, a weblog for Christian homeschool Scout families. She’s got five boy scouts in the family, and I think they’d find some good stuff there.

However, in the midst of all this good company, my top choice in this category is ChoosingHome Blog. Holly, Molly, Lydia, Ann, and Jenna are all great writers and fantastic home-makers. Read Molly on arguing with a two year old or Lydia on finding time to write, and I think you’ll agree that these five ladies deserve an award.

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. Blaise Pascal

Will at The View from the Foothills pointed me toThe Cavalcade of Bad Nativities, originally posted last year. You must see these to believe.

Tim Challies reviews the movie March of the Penguins.

Via Joanne Jacobs’ blog, Starting next year, all British school children will be taught to read using phonics. And how long will it take the U.S. education system to follow suit?

Speaking of reading to children, Susan of Chicken Spaghetti ask us what our favorite children’s book of the year is. I’ll be posting later in the month about my favorites for this year. In the meantime, what’s yours?

Finally for this week, Neo-Neocon writes about Clive Wearing, a British conductor who lost his long term memory in an attack of encephalitis, and his wife Deborah. The story is that despite the extreme difficulty of sustaining a marriage in which one partner can’t remember anything for more than a minute, Clive and Deborah are still married, still in love, still committed. Neo-Neocon says that Deborah sustains herself “with the help of religion, which she found a few years ago.” What religion, I wonder?

Weblog Awards

And the winners are: The 2005 Blogs of Beauty Awards

Spunky Homeschool is still taking nominations for the Homeschool Blogger Awards through Sunday December 11th. Voting begins on Monday the 12th.

Also through January 5, 2006. Voting begins on the 6th, and the winners will be announced on the 16th.

Voting continues for the 2005 Weblog Awards, the BIG ones, through December 15th. You can vote in each category once every twenty-four hours. I’m recommending the following blogs in the following categories because I like them and because I nominated some of them:

Best Blog Michelle Malkin
Best Group Blog Brothers Judd
Best Conservative Blog The Anchoress
Best Religious Blog Thinklings
Best Business Blog Blog for Books–Mind and Media
Best Africa Blog Mission Safari
Best Australia or New Zealand Blog AllThings2All
Best of the Top 251 – 500 Blogs Betsy’s Page
Best of the Top 501 – 1000 Blogs Reasoned Audacity
Best of the Top 1001 – 1750 Blogs The Rebelution
Best of the Top 3501 – 5000 Blogs PseudoPolymath
Best of the Top 6751 – 8750 Blogs Bittersweet Life

I checked out the nominees in the category Best of the Rest, and on the basis of a quick visit, my favorite was Sensible Mom.

So go nominate and vote already; it’s an encouragement to your favorite bloggers.

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. Blaise Pascal

Acute observation from my pastor: In Narnia it’s always winter and never Christmas. As I fight my way through the stores listening to the Chrismas elevator music, I’m convinced that in Houston it’s always Christmas and never winter.

Go To Bethlehem and See is an advent blog run by “The Friends and Fellows of the Boar’s Head Tavern.” It looks as if someone is trying to change the focus of the conversation, and I’m looking forward to enjoying the contributions.

George Grant at King’s Meadow, again, focuses my attention on the tragedy of abortion, and one of its unintended (?) effects: “the prevalence of abortion and infanticide targeting girls has caused a critical global gender imbalance–with a disparity of more than 200 million worldwide.” Do feminists who support abortion for any reason, at any time during the pregnancy, also support the genocidal destruction of females around the world?

Donna on True Love. “True Love takes on a much less naive and romantic bent when one looks up the word for ‘true’.”

Cindy Swanson has an email interview with Steve Beard of Thunderstruck.org. Thunderstruck is a linking blog that provides a daily list of links to stories on the web concerning the intersection of faith and culture.

Zach Wendling of In the Agora tries to figure out why people give gifts. Maybe it doesn’t make economic sense at all; maybe it’s just a fun game?

Tim Challies reviews The Jim Elliot Story, the first in a series of animated biographical videos about Christian heroes set for release this year and next. The series is called the Torchlighter video series, and if they’re as well done as Mr. Challies indicates, the videos sound as if they’d be a great homeschooling resource. Available from Vision Video.

Via Worldmag Blog, a Flickr post documenting the updates to Richard Scarry’s books. Apparently, the author approved or did the updates himself, but I still think it’s a shame that all the policemen must become police officers complete with skirts. And the little Indian (native American) mouse in a canoe has lost his feather; now he’s just a plain old mouse, no fun at all.

Kate at The Little Bookroom adds her list of the 100 Best Novels. Anyone, including Kate, want to tell me more about these novels from her list that I haven’t read: Possession, Tam Lin, Bread Alone, In Pursuit of Love, The Deed of Paksenarrion?

I just discovered this Carmelite Catholic blog by Steven Riddle, Flos Carmeli. Good stuff about literature and faith.