The Songs of Me

Sep3

The British Guardian has launched a project called “Six Songs of Me,” which seeks to answer a question for as many people as possible. It wants to know which six songs would be on your playlist, if you had to pick one track for each of the questions below.

What was the first song you ever bought? Something by Glen Campbell, probably Gentle on My Mind.

What song always gets you dancing? Me? Dancing? This song, In the Mood by Glen Miller makes me wish I could dance.

What song takes you back to your childhood? Jesus Loves Me, This I Know.

What is your perfect love song? Laughter in the Rain by Neil Sedaka.

What song would you want at your funeral? I Know Whom I Have Believed.

Time for an encore. One last song that makes you, you.

Your turn.

Not Just a Political Statement

Sep2

This is not just a political statement by a guy who happens to believe that he should be elected vice-president. It’s a religious statement. The government cannot, and should not try to, provide for all our needs and wants. Jesus said, “You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.” That truth is two-fold:

First of all, we will never be completely want-free, totally satisfied, without any problems or needs, here on this earth. We live in a sin-marred, incomplete, imperfect world, and no government instituted among men, by men, can change that fact. The purpose of government is to “provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” We can argue about the lines that limit government in those basic duties, but any government or politician who promises the moon and everything in between is over-stepping his or her boundaries and responsibilities and giving out empty promises.

Secondly, freedom, adventure, and security are found only in Christ. Neither the Republican Party nor the Democrat Party nor Congress nor the President nor any other person or institution in all creation can provide us with true freedom, true joy, and true peace of mind. Those things are found only in Christ, imperfectly and partially here, perfectly and completely when we see Him face to face. If we are not free to pursue Christ and obey Him as the Holy Spirit guides us, then we are not free at all, no matter how we are blessed materially.

Sunday Salon: Books Read in August, 2012

Sep1

Children’s and Young Adult Fiction:
Freaks Like Us by Susan Vaught.
Going Underground by Susan Vaught.
The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi. Semicolon review here.

Our Read-aloud Books in Progress:
Galveston’s Summer of the Storm by Julie Lake. Z-baby is studying Texas history this year, and this is the perfect time of year, hurricane season, for this story of a girl caught in Galveston’s deadliest hurricane ever. Semicolon review here.
First Man to Cross America: the Story of Cabeza de Vaca by Ronald Syme. Not exciting, but informative.
The Shining Company by Rosemary Sutcliff. Betsy-Bee and I are listening to this book to accompany her medieval history studies as we drive back and forth to dance each day. So far it’s rather boy-intensive, lots of hunting and boy-type friendship bonding.

Adult Fiction:
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

Nonfiction:
The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy. Semicolon review here.
Catherine the Great by Robert Massie.

I liked what I read this month, but I can’t say that any of these books really got me excited. Maybe in September.

Saturday Review of Books: September 1, 2012

Aug31

“A labyrinth of passageways and crammed bookshelves rose from base to pinnacle like a beehive woven with tunnels, steps, platforms, and bridges that presaged an immense library of seemingly impossible geometry.” ~Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

SatReviewbutton

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

55 Books I’d Like to Read from the Reading Lists I Perused

Aug29

1. Overseas by Beatriz Williams. From NPR’s Lesser Known Lit List.

2. Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary Of A Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale. From NPR’s Summer Reading List. Nonfiction about a Victorian scandal.

3. Canada by Richard Ford. Recommended lots of places, but I saw it at NPR’s Summer Reading Critics’ list.

4. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce.From the Man Booker long list. Actually what sold me on this one was not its place on the list, but rather this review by Susan Coventry. Thanks, Susan.

5. The Fault in our Stars by John Green. Recommended everywhere, and no, I haven’t read it yet.

6. The Jane Austen Guide to Life: Thoughtful Lessons for the Modern Woman by Lori Smith. Recommended by Gina Dalfonzo at NRO. I read Ms. Smith’s first book about Jane Austen and loved it, so this one one should be a good read, too.

7. Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics by Ross Douthat. Recommended by Patrick Lee at NRO.

8. One Second After by William Forstchen. Recommended by Clifford May at NRO.

9. And the Show Went On by Alan Riding. Recommended by John O’Sullivan at NRO. Paris during WWII’s German occupation, “a story of secret heroism, hypocritical cowardice, subtle evasion, or double-dealing on every one of Mr. Riding’s pages.”

10. Wish You Were Here; Travels Through Loss and Hope by Amy Welborn. Recommended by Elizabeth Scalia (The Anchoress) at NRO.

11. The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy. Recommended by Al Mohler. Actually, while I was in the process of making this list, I read this book and enjoyed it immensely.

12. The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA’s Clandestine Service by Henry A. Crumpton. Recommended by Al Mohler.

13. The Grace Effect: How the Power of One Life Can Reverse the Corruption of Unbelief by Larry Taunton. Recommended by Eric Metaxas at Breakpoint.

14. Dark Eyes by William Richter. Recommended by Kim Moreland at Breakpoint Youth Reads.

15. The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King Roland, the world’s last gunslinger, tracks an enigmatic Man in Black toward a forbidding dark tower, fighting forces both mortal and other worldly on his quest. Recommended at NPR’s list of 100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Favorites.

16. Stardust by Neil Gaiman. In the quiet English hamlet of Wall, Tristran Thorn embarks on a remarkable journey through the world of Faerie to recover a fallen star for his lover, the hauntingly beautiful Victoria Forester. Recommended at NPR’s list of 100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Favorites.

17. The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon “Hurtled back through time more than 200 hundred years to Scotland in 1743, Claire Randall finds herself in the midst of a world torn apart by violence, pestilence and revolution, and haunted by her feelings for a young soldier.” Recommended at NPR’s list of 100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Favorites.

18. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I’ve heard good things about this novel somewhere else. Recommended at NPR’s list of 100 Killer Thrillers.

19. Teenager in the Chad Civil War: A Memoir of Survival, 1982-1986 by Esaie Toingar. Recommended for the Olympic Reading Challenge at Lists of Bests, this book fits inot my North Africa Reading project, and it sounds educational.

20. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie King from Independent Mystery Booksellers Association list of 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century.

21. A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong from Independent Mystery Booksellers Association list of 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century.

22. The Thin Woman by Dorothy Cannell from Independent Mystery Booksellers Association list of 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century.

23. The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos from Image Journal’s 100 Writers of Faith.. I have this one on my Kindle, ready for the right reading mood on my part.

24. Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell from Independent Mystery Booksellers Association list of 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century.

25. Godric by Frederic Buechner from Image Journal’s 100 Writers of Faith..

26. I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb from Image Journal’s 100 Writers of Faith..

27. All Hallows Eve by Charles Williams from Image Journal’s 100 Writers of Faith..

28. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton from Image Journal’s 100 Writers of Faith..

29. West With the Night by Beryl Markham from National Geographic’s 100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time.

30. The Gay Place by Billy Lee Brammer. From Book Lust to Go and also recommended by A.C. Greene in Texas Monthly’s The Fifty Best Texas Books. In my library basket right now.

31. Life After God by Douglas Coupland. Recommended by Garry DeWeese, Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Ethics at Biola.

32. Between Two Worlds by Miriam Tlali. Recommended by Natasha Duquette, Professor of English at Biola.

33. Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation by Jonathan Kozol. Recommended by Bradley Christerson, Associate Professor of Sociology at Biola.

34. The Shadows of Ghadames by Joelle Stolz, translated by Catherine Temerson. Set in 19th century Libya.

35. The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela: Through Three Continents in the Twelfth Century by Uri Shulevitz.

36. Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger. Recommended at Longitude’s 86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time.

37. Down the Nile, Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff by Rosemary Mahoney. Recommended at Longitude’s 86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time.

38. The Nomad: The Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt. Recommended at Longitude’s 86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time.

39. Me, Myself and Bob by Phil Vischer. From the Hutchmoot reading list.

40. Real Love for Real Life: The Art and Work of Caring by Andi Ashworth. From the Hutchmoot reading list.

41. Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl by N.D.Wilson. From the Hutchmoot reading list.

42. Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok. From the TAYSHAS list.

43. Illegal by Bettina Restrepo. From the TAYSHAS list.

44. Across the Universe by Beth Reavis. From the TAYSHAS list.

45. We Are Anonymous: Inside the HackerWorld of Lulzsec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency by Parmy Olson. Recommended by Janet Maslin in the New York Times. Nonfiction about computer hackers.

46. Off Balance: A Memoir by Dominique Moceanu. Recommended in the Chicago Tribune, but I heard Dominique being interviewed on the radio just before the Olympics started I would like to read this memoir, even though it promises to be somewhat disillusioning and heart-rending.

47. Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden. Recommended by the panelists of the PBS program Washington Week.

48. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson. Recommended by Sarah Bessey.

49. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. Recommended by Sarah Bessey.

50. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. Carnegie Medal Winner.

51. The Lark on the Wing by Elfirda Vipont Foulds. Carnegie Medal Winner.

52. River Boy by Tim Bowler. Carnegie Medal Winner.

53. The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. From the Man Booker long list.

54. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. Recommended at Hermeneutics.

55. Noticing God by Richard Peace. Recommended at Hermeneutics.

Beautiful Lies by Jessica Warman

Aug27

Confusing. Twins, Rachel and Alice, go to the carnival in the village. One sister gets on the Ferris wheel, and the other disappears. Can the narrator, the twin who rode the Ferris wheel and stayed safe, find her sister before it’s too late? Is our narrator at all reliable? And which twin is which? Can identical twins really feel each other’s pain?

I must admit that although I was absorbed and intrigued by this YA thriller up until the very end, I’m not sure I got it. One of the narrators is delusional (or is she?), and I never did figure out what was real and what was imaginary. I even went back and re-read the beginning and the final chapters, and I still didn’t understand. It made me feel dumb.

So, I recommend this novel, with all its twists and turns, to readers who are smarter than I am, or who pay better attention, or who don’t mind ambiguity. Actually, I don’t mind ambiguity, if I know that’s what it is and if it’s not just me being slow-witted. Would someone else out there read it and ‘splain it to me?

The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi

Aug26

The Drowned Cities is a companion novel to Mr. Bacigalupi’s award-winning dystopian novel Ship Breaker. Both stories take place in the same nasty, war-torn world: “a world destroyed and reconfigured by climate change and the greed of oil hungry corporations and industries. By the time the story opens, oil is an extremely scarce commodity, and the world’s transportation systems run on other forms of energy, for the most part.”

The Drowned Cities, however, is a much more violent and horrific novel than Ship Breaker was. Mahlia and Mouse, the two children who are the central characters in the story, are the victims of a society in which war has become the focal, salient fact of life. Mahlia is a half-breed, the daughter of a Chinese peacekeeper/soldier and his Drowned Cities (American) wife. Deserted by her father and with her mother dead, Mahlia has already experienced the horrors of a civilization in chaos that has become the playing ground for competing factions who war incessantly against each other for the sake of power. Mahlia and Mouse are so powerless that they don’t even count as pawns in the schemes of the groups that are fighting each other. They are nothing, “war maggots”, insects to be ignored or carelessly squashed unless they get in the way or are unfortunate enough to capture the attention of someone powerful.

I read this one with a kind of sick horror. The violence is the violence of war, not gratuitous in the sense that it is true to the realities of war. But on the other hand, the violence of war is gratuitous, unnecessary, and certainly unwarranted in the case of children who should never suffer or be enlisted as soldiers in the wars that adults start and prosecute. Just as we react with outrage when we hear of the child soldiers in some African conflicts, I wanted to pluck Mahlia and Mouse out of their appalling situation and somehow save them.

I predict you’ll feel the same way as you read The Drowned Cities. My other thought was: could The United States of America ever come to be such a barbaric, brutal place? I’m fairly sure we could. The Germans thought themselves to be one of the most civilized nations on earth before World War II. No one would believe the horrors perpetrated by such a civilized, Christian nation until they saw the proof of the Holocaust after the war was over. If our economy fell apart, for whatever reason, and our infrastructure collapsed, and most importantly, we had no real sense anymore of moral responsibility before a holy God, we could very well fall into anarchy.

Saturday Review of Books: August 25, 2012

Aug24

“. . . reading is more important to me than eating. If I went blind, I would pay to have someone read to me. I would try to learn Braille. I would buy books on tape. I would rather go without food than go without books. ” ~John Piper

SatReviewbutton

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

While you’re here, check out the List of Lists below this post for even more book suggestions to make your TBR list even more ungovernable, unwieldy, and endlessly amaranthine.

55 Reading Lists That I Would Love to Read Through . . .

Aug19

IF I could live to be 300 or 400 years old. Maybe eternity is still linear enough for us to read all the books that we never got around to in this life? In the meantime, summer is not over yet, and I’m going to do all the reading I can before it ends.

1. Got Summer Reading? by NRO’s Symposium. Books recommended by Hunter Baker, Joseph Pearce, Gina Dalfonzo, Elizabeth Scalia (The Anchoress)and other like-minded and erudite people–what a treat!

2. Al Mohler’s Recommended Reading List for the summer of 2012.

3. 2012 Summer Books: NPR Critics’ Lists. Several lists here, including historical fiction, romance, sci-fi, and teen reads.

4. Devon Corneal: Summer Reading 2012, Books for Kids of All Ages.

5. New York Times: New Under the Sun, Books for Basking

6. Chicago Tribune: It’s summertime, and the reading is easy.

7. Texas Monthly: The Fifty Best Texas Books. I would love to at least take a look at each one of these and see what’s really good out of the bunch.

8. A Fuse #8 Production: Top 100 Chapter Books

9. A Fuse #8 Production: Top 100 Picture Books

10. Washington Week Summer 2012 Reading List. Lots of politics and history on this list, but those are some of my fascinations.

11. 10 Books a Day series by Sarah Bessey

12. Girl Detective hosts The Summer of Shelf Discovery: (Re)reading Teenage Classics I just couldn’t fit this odyssey inot my schedule this summer, but you can still read along with Girl Detective and others as they rediscover the YA books of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.

13. Byliner’s 101 Nonfiction Stories, not exactly a book list, but I do want to read all of these stories from the world of journalism, what they used to call “human interest stories” and “investigative journalism.”

14. Carnegie Medal Winners. Wouldn’t it be fun to read through this list of children’s literature from the U.K., roughly equivalent to our Newbery Award winners? This same list at Lists of Bests.

15. Recommended summer reading from professors at the University of Texas at Austin.

16. Jared Wilson’s Fave Fifty. This list is just a list of favorites from a guy whose blog and taste in literature I happen to admire.

17. Great Summer Reading Suggestions by the team at Breakpoint.

18. Youth Reads Summer 2012 Recommended Reading List at Breakpoint.

19. 2012 Longlist for the Man Booker Prize.

20. NPR 100 Best Beach Books Ever.

21. NPR Top 100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Books

22. NPR’s Top 100 “Killer-Thrillers”.

23. Olympic reading list: everything you need to know about the history, legacy and risk of the Games. From the blog run by social scientists from the London School of Economics.

24. bartzturkeymom’s 2012 Olympics Reading Challenge The point is to read one author per each of the 205 nations participating in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games by the end of the games. Obviously, I won’t make the challenge, but I do like the list.

25. 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century, compiled by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. All of my favorites are on this list: Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Ellis Peters, Josephine Tey, P.D. James. Plus there are several I’d like to read more of: Ruth Rendell, Laurie King, Carl Hiaasen, Minette Walters, and more.

26. Image Journal’s 100 Writers of Faith. Some of my favorite writers are on this list, and I’d really like to at least try all of the books listed here. I have started a couple of the books that are listed and found that were not for me, or it wasn’t the right timing, or something. (I’m not a fan of Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany nor of Updike or Walker Percy.) Still, there are some great books on this list.

27. National Geographic’s 100 Greatest Adventure Books, courtesy of Carol at Magistra Mater. Here is the same list at Lists of Bests.

28. Jesus Creed by Scot McKnight: Top 10 Jesus Books. I’ve not read a single one of these “best books to read about Jesus.” But maybe I should?

29. What Are You Reading This Summer? from Hermeneutics, the Christianity Today blog for women.

Oh, my, while making this List of Lists, I found this website called Lists of Bests where you can check off the books (or movies or places or music) you’ve “consumed”, and it saves your lists and tells you how much you have to go to finish the list. And I love it. I could spend all day long on this website, just checking off lists. Am I obsessive or what?

30. Christianity Today’s 100 most spiritually significant books of the 20th century at Lists of Bests.

31. Newbery Medal Winners at Lists of Bests.

32. Newbery Honor Books at Lists of Bests.

33. Petersens’ 100 Christian Books That Changed the Century at Lists of Bests.

34. Books from The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer.

35. 25 Books Every Christian Should Read from Renovare at Lists of Bests.

36. Hugo Award Winners for Excellence in Science Fiction at Lists of Bests.

37. Nebula Award Winners for Science Fiction and Fantasy.

38. Edgar Award Winners for Mystery Novels at Lists of Bests.

39. Printz Award Winners at Lists of Bests.

40. Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography at Lists of Bests.

41. Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize at Lists of Bests.

42. The Ultimate Summer Reading List from Biola Magazine.

43. Evan Johnson’s Reading List.

44. Horn Book International History List.

45 NPR’s Best Ever Teen Novels. Just published on August 7th, this list includes some of my favorites: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hobbit and LOTR, Anne of Green Gables, and Divergent. It also includes some un-favorites, which I won’t name. So I’d like to read the rest to see where they fall.

46. Longitude: 86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time.

47. Hutchmoot: Recommended Reading. (Even though I can’t go ’cause it’s full, and it’s in Nashville, and I’m in Texas, and I wish I could, but I can’t. But I can read the books.)

48. 2012 TAYSHAS Reading List. This list comes from a committee at the Texas Library Association, and it focuses on books, adult and YA, that are of interest to young adults. Of course, if you’re young at heart, like me . . .

49. Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List 2012-2013.

50. Excellent Books for Teens Between Cultures by Mitali Perkins.

51. 55 Biographies and Memoirs I Want to Read.
52. Reading Through Northern Africa for my Northern Africa Project.

53. My own Classics Club List.

54. My Own To Be Read List.

55. Dr Peter Boxall’s 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die at Lists of Bests.

‘

Saturday Review of Books: August 18, 2012

Aug17

“Good literature erects bridges between different peoples, and by having us enjoy, suffer, or feel surprise, unites us beneath the languages, beliefs, habits, customs, and prejudices that separate us. When the great white whale buries Captain Ahab in the sea, the hearts of readers take fright in exactly the same way in Tokyo, Lima, or Timbuctu.” ~Mario Vargas Llosa

SatReviewbutton

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.