Justin Cronin Novels

Last year, I read two books I dearly loved by Justin Cronin, an author I accidentally discovered. The Summer Guest  (reviewed in this linked site) was the one I read first. The story’s structure and characters and plot are wonderful, realistic and believable.  Then I had to scramble around and find his other novel, his first, Mary and O’Neill.  They are both about love as the thing most worth living for, not the terrible self-centered kind that we so often see.

The Washington Post review linked above has this to say about The Summer Guest:

"Cronin's unabashed skewing for joy when most authors would spill over into sentiment or only trace the callous missteps of love is brave and bold. The Summer Guest explores love as the binding agent of life, not the factor that pulls it apart."

Since I loved those two novels, I then had to buy Cronin’s latest novel The Passage , because that’s how I operate. What a shock. It is good for the kind of novel it is, but it is nowhere near the same kind or quality of story as Mary and O’Neill and The Summer Guest. (Now I have to admit that my reading preferences are probably different from many people’s.)

The Passage, I was surprised to see, is the ultimate vampire story. It is, like the others, beautifully written. The characters have distinct personalities and their lives have realistic, universal concerns with which a reader can identify. It is about 700 pages long; I thrive on big, fat books. The ending leaves things open for a sequel.  

Reviewers love the novel and call it the most talked-about novel of the summer.  As one Washington Post reviewer notes, "The Passage is for adults who've been bitten but can't swallow the teenybopper misogyny of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series.

I read that the book is already widely read and wildly popular. It was sold to a major movie maker for over  three million dollars, and it is expected to be a blockbuster movie. I’m happy about that for Cronin. But I hope that he will someday write some more wonderful literary novels about the human heart in real life struggles, because he does it with supreme skill. And I have a hard time with vampire novels.

*The picture comes from this site: http://enterthepassage.com/author/ 

Justin Cronin Novels

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/07/justin-cronin-novels.html

Speaking of Reading...

Here are some great Christian books that I've read:

• The Bible
• Bread for the Journey--Henri Nouwen, or anything by Nouwen
• Fearless: Imagine Your Life without Fear, or anything by Max Lucado
• Life of the Beloved--Henri Nouwen
• Mere Christianity--C.S. Lewis, or anything by Lewis
• Rumors of Another World--Philip Yancy, or anything by Yancy
• Same Kind of Different as Me--Ron Hall
• The Irresistible Revolution--Shane Claiborne
• My Utmost for His Highest—Oswald Chambers
• Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana--Anne Rice, and NOT just anything by Rice! I have Called Out of Darkness by Rice, the story of how she came to the decision to follow Christ, to read soon.

Speaking of Reading...

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/11/speaking-of-reading.html

Thoughts on Reading

You can't read and drive at the same time. Well, you could, I suppose, but you might run into a bridge or something worse. I like to listen to audio books as I drive--makes the driving more interesting. I confess that I am an intense bookworm, even the audio kind. Reading is the best entertainment of the world, and listening to books is an excellent substitute.

That’s usually true. However, a recent one I heard was Emma, an unabridged (every last word) Victorian novel by Jane Austen. This book was almost interminable, as the characters conversed on and on about every possible subject, not many of much consequence, mostly relationships. One day as I was agonizing with Emma and her friend Harriet, I thought, This would make a good play, but as a book, it is hard to take. But I was determined, so I gritted my teeth and stayed with it to the long-suffering, happily-ever-after end.

Then I rented the movie, and it was delightful. I was right about it making a good play. Gwyneth Paltrow was perfect in the role of Emma. It was considerably abridged. I even cried at the end.

After that one, I checked out the audio book of Pride and Prejudice, another novel by Jane Austen. Why did I do that? I still don’t know. But after one fifty-mile trip with it, I couldn’t take it any more, and I returned it to the library. I will rent the movie.

I generally love huge, long novels. Last year, when I was going on a three-hundred-mile trip, I bought the unabridged audio version of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. It had over twenty CDs, and I was completely engrossed in that story. I adored Gone with the Wind and Les Miserables and the Mark of the Lion series of three long novels. James Michener’s 900-page The Source and John Irving’s gigantic A Prayer for Owen Meany held me enchanted.

But Emma. Please….no!

The picture was borrowed from Life magazine: http://images.google.com/hosted/life/

Thoughts on Reading

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/11/thoughts-on-reading.html

Same Kind of Different as Me

One of the very best books I’ve read is Same Kind of Different as Me, by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.

It’s the true story of an unlikely friendship between Hall and his wife Debbie, who were wealthy art dealers, and Moore, a homeless man from a sharecropper family in Louisiana. The story is about how their friendship developed, as Ron and Debbie Hall volunteered at a homeless shelter in Fort Worth, Texas.

An article in The United Methodist Reporter (May 29, 2009) says people all over the world buy the books, maybe at airports, and then order quantities of them to pass out to their friends. What Hall and Moore are hearing in the 200-300 daily e-mails they get is that people’s attitudes toward the homeless are changing.

Hall is quoted as saying, “They begin to look at homeless people and think ‘Could that be a Denver Moore?’ Most people used to look at them as trash; now God is giving people eyes to look at them as potential treasures.”

“God gave us a story,” he said, “and he is using us to affect the way that people look at homeless people.” Their web site describes them as “a dangerous, homeless drifter who grew up picking cotton in virtual slavery”; “an upscale art dealer accustomed to the world of Armani and Chanel”; and “a gutsy woman with a stubborn dream.”

Buy it! Read it! Pass it on to somebody else!

Same Kind of Different as Me

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/07/same-kind-of-different-as-me.html

Olaudah Equiano, A Slave (ca. 1745-1797)

In about 1756, Olaudah Equiano was captured at the age of eleven from his African village and sold into slavery. With many other miserable, mistreated slaves, he was dragged across the African continent and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. After ten years of slavery, he was allowed to buy his freedom. He became an eloquent advocate of the abolition of slavery.

According to the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Olaudah Equiano was “the most influential African abolitionist writer in both America and Britain.”

The Norton Anthology of English Literature editors, M. H. Abrams and others, tell us that Equiano’s life story “was an important contribution to [the abolitionist] movement, not only for its explicit arguments against the slave trade but also for its demonstration that someone born in Africa could be humane, intelligent, a good Christian, and a free and eloquent British subject.” Many British people at that time believed otherwise.

The web site of the Equiano Foundation tells us that

At the age of forty four he wrote and published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African. Written by Himself, which he registered at Stationer's Hall, London, in 1789. More than two centuries later, this work is recognized not only as one of the first works written in English by a former slave, but perhaps more important as the paradigm of the slave narrative, a new literary genre.

Equiano’s entire book , The Interesting Narrative . . . , may be found online at the Gutenberg Project . It is fascinating reading. Equiano is the basis for a character in the British-made movie Amazing Grace, the true story of William Wilberforce, who led the decades-long fight against slavery in Great Britain.

To be continued--

Olaudah Equiano, A Slave (ca. 1745-1797)

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2008/02/olaudah-equiano-slave-ca-1745-1797.html

Anne Rice: Supporter of Clinton

Here is an open letter from Anne Rice to her readers, found on her blog. In it she explains in a “soft voice” why she supports Hilary Clinton for President, even though Clinton believes in abortion as a woman’s right.

And here is a link to an equally soft-voiced response, written by Dr. Robert George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University.

Rice has been a committed Christian since a few years ago when she returned to the faith. Ever since, she says nothing but Jesus Christ is worth writing about—faith, rather than the search for meaning, which is what she had always explored in her earlier novels. If you haven’t read her powerful novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, you must do so at once! When I first heard about the book, I was skeptical; I wrote this commentary about it.

The picture of Anne Rice comes from her web site, http://www.annerice.com .

Anne Rice: Supporter of Clinton

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/12/anne-rice-supporter-of-clinton.html

Stephen King: On Writing

I don’t ordinarily read Stephen King’s books—don’t care anything about the horror genre. However, this summer, I am making a study of writing. So I fell into his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

The first part of the book is an entertaining autobiographical account of how he got into his writing. He was a constant watcher and reader of horror movies and books from his earliest days; so it isn’t something he just stumbled into when he grew up. He started writing those scary stories when he was just a child, and his first published work was a novella “in a horror fanzine issued by Mike Garrett of Birmingham, Alabama.” The title of the story was “I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber.” Yikes!

In the second half of the book, King gives very straightforward, practical advice for budding writers. Here are some of his best pointers:

• Don’t get a huge desk that you place in the center of a room, he says. Put a small one “in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind your self why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around.” Don’t abandon your life. Live it; then if you pay close attention, you will recognize good subjects when they show up.
• The “bread of writing is vocabulary.” It’s your most common tool, so keep it handy. Don’t “make any conscious effort to improve it” because if you do, it will become stilted, and it won’t sound like you.
• Read constantly, whenever you aren’t writing. Your handle on the language will improve, and your vocabulary will improve without your having to work at it.
• If you aren’t good at grammar, you need to be. A good help is Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition; “. . .almost all you need is summarized on the front and back endpapers of the book.” A great style manual is Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.
• Avoid adverbs, the passive voice in verbs, and any kind of “dialogue attribution” other than “said.” “Do as well as you can,” he said, “and remember that, while to write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine.”
• Don’t be overwhelmingly wordy.

If you want to be a writer, he says, you have to be seriously committed to it. Stephen King says he writes about 2,000 words a day. He is willing to let us get away with 1,000 words a day, and he will let us have Sunday off. This is a concrete goal, which we need.

Write about whatever you want to; “anything at all . . . as long as you tell the truth.” By truth, he means the things the heart knows. He says, “The job of fiction is to find the truth inside the story’s web of lies, not to commit intellectual dishonesty in the hunt for the buck.” People want to read stories in which they recognize themselves, in which they hear “strong echoes of (their own lives) and beliefs.”

Somehow, King gives me confidence that maybe I can improve my writing. What I have been lacking is the serious commitment part. I’ve been the one who takes care of every other little problem first and then I get around to writing, if there’s still time. I hereby commit myself to write at least 1,000 words every day . . . well, lots of days, anyway. King says there’s a sort of “redemptive power of writing that I had long felt but never articulated.” I think he is right.

*The picture comes from www.msnbc.msn.com

Stephen King: On Writing

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/07/stephen-king-on-writing.html

Thursday Thirteen: Books a Wanna-Be Writer Needs

Thirteen great books that should be on the shelves of people who want to be writers:

1. The Bible

2. A concordance so you can find what you’re looking for

3. A big, fat dictionary

4. A thesaurus that’s almost as fat

5. Strunk & White’s Elements of Style

6. William Zinsser’s On Writing Well, the 30^th anniversary edition

7. Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

8. Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings

9. Zinsser’s Writing about Your Life: A Journey into the Past

10. Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones

11. Jerry Jenkins’s Writing for the Soul

And then about a hundred wonderful books that you love, for example, these and/or many that are like the kinds of things you want to write:

12. Elie Wiesel’s Night

13. Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables

Thursday Thirteen: Books a Wanna-Be Writer Needs

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/07/thursday-thirteen-books-wanna-be-writer.html

Prospero's Book Burning

An alarming story is in the news:

Tom Wayne and Will Leathem, owners of the used bookstore Prospero’s Books, are burning books in protest of the declining rate of book reading in America. They are getting people’s attention. The following is part of an Associated Press article on Yahoo by David Twiddy.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Tom Wayne has amassed thousands of books in a warehouse during the 10 years he has run his used book store, Prospero's Books.

His collection ranges from best sellers, such as Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October" and Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities," to obscure titles, like a bound report from the Fourth Pan-American Conference held in Buenos Aires in 1910. But when he wanted to thin out the collection, he found he couldn't even give away books to libraries or thrift shops; they said they were full.

So on Sunday, Wayne began burning his books in protest of what he sees as society's diminishing support for the printed word.

"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books.

The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn't have a permit for burning.

Wayne said next time he will get a permit. He said he envisions monthly bonfires until his supply — estimated at 20,000 books — is exhausted.

Wayne and Leathem got my attention. This is part of a letter to the public on their website.

Dear Book Lovers;

There are worse crimes than burning books, one is not reading them. ~ Joseph Brodskey
The individual who won’t read has nothing over the individual who cannot read. ~ Mark Twain

For ten years Prospero’s Books has been in the front lines of the literary arts, both as a bookseller (www.prosperosbookstore.com) and as a publisher (www.unholydaypress.com).

As a used bookseller, we have put our money where our hearts are – surrendering our hours and our revenues to sharing the world of books and, more importantly, the ideas they contain with anyone who would listen.

During these ten years we have seen reading decline dramatically. The National endowment of for Arts study on literary literacy in America which painfully highlighted the rapid decline of reading in America. In our own community, we’ve watched as bookstore after bookstore has folded.

Yesterday, we performed an act of art – a wakeup call to all who value books and ideas. Over the last 10 years, Prospero’s Books has 20,000 books we’ve collected that people simply will not read. We receive hundreds more each week.

At Prospero’s we fundamentally believe that the literary arts are not dead. We believe that there is still much about the human condition and our time still needing to be said. In so saying, we challenge you to get involved in two ways:

1. email these stories to your friends
2. call your local TV, radio, newspaper, blogs, etc. and tell them what is going on
3. For $1 a book (+ postage), you can save these books from the flame. We will not take these $s as profit, but will use them to publish new books.

Many of you have great ideas regarding what can be done with these books that’s better than burning them – we agree with you, and encourage YOU to get involved in sharing the gift of literature. For $1 a book + postage, you can support your local school, prison, etc.

I don’t want anybody burning books. I want people to read books. Reading is a lasting pleasure that will be around long after the last computer bites (no pun intended) the dust.

Prospero's Book Burning

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/05/prosperos-book-burning.html

Spring!

O how I love April and May in the Southwest—and just about anywhere else!

Everything shouts God’s glory in bright colors, wind, rain, thunder, wildflowers, colts, cobalt sky. It always makes me think of the poem “Pied Beauty” by a nineteenth-century British poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins—a celebration of the wonderful variety of creation. Here it is:

Pied Beauty

GLORY be to God for dappled things—

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough; 5

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: 10

Praise him.

*The poem and picture are from this linked Bartelby site.

Spring!

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/04/spring.html

Books: Snicker-Snack!

A few days ago, my college English class read “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland. It's a great poem featuring an adventure story about a young hero, a "beamish boy" whose father is overjoyed because he has "slain the jabberwock" with his "vorpal blade" that went "snicker-snack."

"O frabjous day!" the father chortles. "Callooh, callay!!"

Read the poem at this link, if you never have; it's a treat. I told my students I hoped they had read Alice when they were younger.

“Oh, no!” they laughed. “We saw the movie.”

Oh, dear.

Will books become obsolete in some near future technological age?

See the very funny video at this linked site, Girl Talk. You will see a likely (?!) scenario.

Books: Snicker-Snack!

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/03/books-snicker-snack.html

"An Inconvenient Truth"

Al Gore won an Oscar recently for work on his best-documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth.” I believe Gore is sincerely concerned about the environment and truly wants to help find solutions for the damage we humans have done to it.

The full story can be seen at this linked site. "It is the overriding world challenge of our time," Gore said. "I really hope the decision by the academy to honor the work by director Davis Guggenheim and these producers will convince people who did not go see it before to see the movie and learn about the climate crisis and become a part of the solution."

What are some simple but helpful things we could do?

1. Throw trash into designated trash cans rather than out the window of the car onto the roadside.

2. Recycle everything we possibly can.

3. Turn off water while we brush our teeth.

4. Turn off lights when we leave a room.

5. Use those new curly low-wattage light bulbs instead of regular incandescent ones.

6. Remember that powerful picture in TV commercials some years back of a Native American shedding tears over the terribly polluted river in the background.

We are charged by God with taking care of the earth; we should all take this responsibility as seriously as Al Gore does.

"An Inconvenient Truth"

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/03/inconvenient-truth.html

Books about the English Language

My friend TS asked for suggestions. He is looking for a good book to buy with his Christmas money, about roots of the English language. I told him I would be back with some suggestions.

After some research and study, I have decided that I will recommend that TS buy the hardback version of the Oxford Companion to the English Language. It was edited by Tom McArthur, who is one of the world’s foremost experts on the English language(s).

He could buy it in a paperback concise edition beginning at about 64 cents from Amazon. Or he could buy a brand new one from Amazon in the hardback edition for about $70 or so. If I had some Christmas money earmarked for books, I would buy a shiny new hardback one and be very excited about it! Here is a link to information about the book on Amazon.

Three other books that I am sure would be excellent choices are The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language by David Crystal; A History of the English Language by Albert C. Baugh; and The Origins and Development of the English Language by John Algeo and Thomas Pyles. Too, if TS doesn’t have one, I’d suggest he buy a good unabridged dictionary--a big fat one.

These books are all published by the most highly respected publishers in this field, especially Oxford and Cambridge University Presses.

If somebody gave me enough money, I’d buy all four of them and consider them to be great treasures!

Books about the English Language

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/01/books-about-english-language.html

Poetry

I am in love with words. I am amazed at how the human mind can wrap itself around ideas and express them.

My college English students like to think that nobody writes poetry any more and that nobody can understand it. That’s not true, I always tell them. People everywhere are closet poets; they write down their lives in private ways, telling their emotions. I can see by their eyes that many of the students do it too, but peer-fear keeps them from admitting the truth! Here’s a link to a lot of poetry, if you’d like to sample it.

I can identify with what Tim Challies wrote about poetry, in his blog:

As I've thought about words, I've thought about the power of words used in poetry (and song, for what is song but verse set to music?). While I love prose and spend some time out of every day engaged in creating it, there is something about poetry that grabs my soul. There is quality in poetry that allows so much to be said in so few words. So often I can hold onto a line of a word or a poem in a way that just is not possible with prose. A memorable piece of prose may be several sentences or paragraphs. A memorable piece of poetry may be only a few scant words. And yet often the poetry seems to say so much more. John Wain said "Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking." Something in poetry just stirs the soul in a way prose cannot, just as there is a beauty inherent in dancing that is missing in walking.

I love a poem with ideas clothed in beautiful images. One of my favorites is “The Passing of Arthur” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The best part is near the end of the long poem (469 lines) when Sir Bedivere sees that he will be the only survivor of the “last weird battle in the west”—even King Arthur has been mortally wounded and is being taken away to the Isle of Avilion. The old way of life when people lived by their ideals is passing away. Bedivere is alarmed; he cries out,

“Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?

Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?

For now I see the true old times are dead,

When every morning brought a noble chance,

And every chance brought out a noble knight. . . .”

Arthur struggles to answer him:

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfills himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. . . .

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. . . .”

I think Tennyson, through King Arthur, was exhorting the people of Victorian England not to fall away from their faith in God. It was a time of great change—not only because of industrialization, but also because of the proclamations of science and the writings of Charles Darwin. I believe these ideas are applicable to our lives today. More things are accomplished by prayer than we can imagine; therefore, we must keep a fountain of prayer rising to God always.

Poetry

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2006/11/poetry.html

Anne Rice, Christian

We flew up to the Frozen North yesterday. During a layover in the airport at Salt Lake City, we entertained ourselves by browsing through books. I bought a paperback by Anne Rice--Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt.

I remembered reading a few months ago that Rice had shocked the vampire lovers of the world by becoming a Christian. She spent a couple of years reading and researching, and the Christ the Lord novel is the result. The Christianity Today web site tells a little about this.

The novel is at least partially based on the Gospel of Thomas. I will report on it when I finish reading the book!

(By the way, we came up here to meet my new granddaughter. She is very sweet and precious--mellow and peaceful. I would like to take her home with me, but they decline to let me.)

Anne Rice, Christian

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2006/11/anne-rice-christian.html

Half Believers

"Light half-believers of our casual creeds."

That’s what British poet Matthew Arnold said about people in the 1800’s in a poem called “The Scholar-Gypsy.” I think it is still a true indictment of us here in America today. We are casual believers. We often act on the Christian beliefs that don’t require a great deal of us and ignore those that do.

Are we too comfortable?

We like to think we control our own lives. We want to do whatever we want to do, and then when things fall apart, we want to take care of it ourselves, deal with it, solve it. We often make a mess of things. We often blame other people for our actions and choices. The Australian—The World has an article about this tendency, as seen specifically in the Mark Foley scandal.

The Bible teaches that we have a choice to give our lives fully to Christ.

What would happen if we really tried to live by the teachings of Jesus?

Half Believers

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2006/10/half-believers.html

Oops, Another Book to Add!

Okay, I knew I was being a little hasty in getting that book list together. I have found another one that I have been meaning to read: Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne.

My good friend Carolyn tells me that it is the most exciting book she has read in a long time. It disturbs her, and she spends a good deal of time thinking about it. That kind of book is for me.

So it goes at the top of my list, well, actually to the third spot, after I finish Trail of Feathers and Don’t Waste Your Life!

Oops, Another Book to Add!

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2006/09/oops-another-book-to-add.html

Falling into the Book Challenge

Here is my list of books to read this fall, as part of Katrina’s Reading Challenge:

1. First, I will finish Trail of Feathers, by Robert Rivard. I lack about twenty pages.

2. Then I will finish Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper. I was almost halfway through it, got sidetracked, and never went back to it.

3. One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty. I am teaching an online creative writing class this semester for the first time, and I am very interested in this kind of thing.

4. Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother by Carolyn Mahaney. This is a work based on Titus 2, Paul's New Testament book. I'm trying to be a nicer, kinder, more loving wife and mother, and maybe this will help me!

5. Jericho’s Road by Elmer Kelton. I've heard Kelton speak at several literary conferences, and this book is autographed by him. I have read several of his novels, which are Western stories.

6. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans. This book has the reputation of being an "American classic" about tenant families in the deep South. It reportedly was the book that started the genre of "creative nonfiction." Ditto numbers 3 and 7.

7. On Writing by Stephen King. I have read snippets quoted from this book, and it intrigues me, for the same reason as Welty's book.

8. Can Man Live without God? By Ravi Zacharias. I'm interested in this book because the cover says the author "shows how affirming the reality of God's existence matters urgently in our everyday lives." I believe it does.

Okay, I’m a reasonable person. I know that’s too many books for me to try to read in just three months. But that is my stack of books that sit around clamoring for my attention. I hereby pledge myself to read as many of them as I can, while teaching English full time. Probably, I realistically can finish through number 4.

Falling into the Book Challenge

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2006/09/falling-into-book-challenge.html

Excitement in Bookworm-Ville

Want a good book challenge? Do you, like me, have piles of books you have been meaning to read? Look at Katrina’s blog, “Callapidder Days,” and join her “Fall into Reading” campaign.

Tomorrow is the deadline. Sorry! I just discovered it today.

Excitement in Bookworm-Ville

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2006/09/excitement-in-bookworm-ville.html

Best Books

What are the best books? There are so many!!! I was "tagged" to do this by TS, whose list is interesting.

One book that changed your life: The Gospel of John because it showed me God’s gospel of love through Jesus.

One book that you’ve read more than once: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee; The Secret of Santa Vittoria by Robert Crichton; The Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen (I know that’s more than one! What can I say?)

One book you’d want on a desert island: The Bible; Les Miserables by Victor Hugo; A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (I know, I know, it’s more than one.)

One book that made you laugh: Flabbergasted by Ray Blackston

One book that made you cry [or feel really sad]: Night by Elie Wiesel; Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally; The Pearl by John Steinbeck; Four Letters of Love by Niall Williams (not always sad, just sad in spots, touching in others)

One book that you wish had been written: My father wanted to write a book about his experiences, but he never got very far with it.

One book that you wish had never been written: No such thing exists!

One book you’re currently reading: Trail of Feathers by Robert Rivard, the true story of the murder of American journalist Philip True in Mexico, and the difficult road to justice; all proceeds from the sale of this book go to True’s son. I bought the book at a conference for literary nonfiction, where Rivard was speaking.

One book you’ve been meaning to read: New Perspectives on Paul by N. T. Wright

I'm supposed to tag five people to do a list of their own. Hmmm, do I have five regular readers? I don't know. I'm going to tag some who don't have blogs of their own; they can do their lists and send them to me to be posted here, if they want to. I hereby tag RLC, Kansas Bob, Karen, Angela, and Debra.

Best Books

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2006/08/best-books.html