What I’ve read so far this year:
- Rob Bell, Jesus Wants to Save Christians (January 6, 2009)
- Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (January)
- Maurice Wiles and Mark Santer, ed., Documents in Early Christian Thought (February, 2009)
- Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (The Penguin History of the Church 1) (February 20, 2009)
- Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why (March 1, 2009)
- J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (April 11, 2009)
- Early Christian Writings Louth, Andrew, ed. (April 19, 2009)
- Henri J. M. Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership
- Eugene H. Peterson, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity (May 26, 2009)
- Reggie McNeal, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church (June 10, 2009)
I think it’s high time for some fiction. I’m thinking either The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck), East of Eden (Steinbeck), The Power and the Glory (Greene), The Moor’s Last Sigh (Rushdie–signed copy! Thanks, R and L!) or restarting One Hundred Years of Solitude (Marquez–I started reading it about 10 years ago; can’t remember why I stopped).
Any suggestions?
The Looking Glass War - John Le Carre
18 responses so far ↓
1 Scott // Jun 9, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Marc: why not something light like Finnegan’s Wake or Ulysses… Sheesh. You are putting the rest of us readers to shame…
I got it! Mac Bolan: Executioner #345 – Random Mayhem…
You can never leave the game…
2 Marc // Jun 9, 2009 at 10:51 pm
No shame if I haven’t read them. They’re all books I simply would like to read.
I *almost* bought a Mac Bolan a couple of years ago.
3 Toni // Jun 10, 2009 at 10:42 am
I mis-read that as Marc Bolan.
D’oh.
FWIW I’ve just been back and read Asimov’s foundation series – the first 3 older books plus the 2 more recent ones (I’m working through the last of them now). It’s interesting to see how he has been influenced and changed his approach over the intervening period. The 2 newer ones are much more relativistic (almost ‘post modern’) and actually have a bit of sex as well as recognising computer technology, while the older series are very traditional 1950s SF, complete with ‘modern’ rational thinking, division of people into groups by profession and training etc.
If books of that era are interesting (they are to me, to show how society and expectation have changed) then can I also recommend some vintage AE Van Vogt. He deals with the ‘Aristotelian’ universe, and the idea of people as individuals and groups. Stories tend to be relatively simplistic and quite short.
4 Toni // Jun 10, 2009 at 10:43 am
BTW That’s a bucketfull of books you’ve consumed. Do you feel like the knowledge is tucked away somewhere, handy for future reference, or have you just ploughed through them and moved on?
5 Marc // Jun 10, 2009 at 10:52 am
Toni: I’ve dabbled in SF a bit, but prefer its Fantasy counterpart. However, I *have* heard lots of good things about the Foundation series. Maybe one day I’ll read it.
I tried reading Dune in university, but didn’t make it through.
As for retaining the knowledge, I’m no Leo Lanoie in terms of ridiculously photographic memory–I retain some (enough?) but certainly not the majority of what I read. I often read a book and without great effort will forget specific details–I will, however, remember where on a page I read a particular quote of note (and I’ll know if I’ve read a book already). My lack of reading memory frustrates me.
The short answer: I often feel like I’ve simply plowed through.
But I *do* think that what I read shapes me and my thinking, even though I won’t be able to regurgitate the information read in a book.
6 Cheyne // Jun 10, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Earnest Hemingway: ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, ‘My Antonia’ by Willa Cather, ‘Their Eyes were watching God’ by Zora Neale Hurston, ‘Sir Gawain and The Green Knight’ by ‘Gawain Poet’, or how about my favourite: ‘The Diving Bell and The Butterfly’ by Jean Dominique-Bauby.
7 Cheyne // Jun 10, 2009 at 4:11 pm
London is always fun. Or if you really want to get your teeth into something, how about Homer’s Odyssey?
8 Cheyne // Jun 10, 2009 at 4:20 pm
If you fancy switching to shorter stories why not try reading some Greek tragedies? – like Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides’. They are eloquent, powerful and fascinating. Greene and Lattimore are a good translation. Some of my favourites are the Oresteia, Antigone, Hippolytus and each Electra.
9 Marc // Jun 11, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Wow. Thanks for all the suggestions Cheyne!
10 Toni // Jun 12, 2009 at 3:34 am
I really enjoyed the Ilyad a few years ago, but that was a translation that also removed a lot of the poetry: a good thing, because the poetic form makes it VERY hard going. I do have the Odyssey in a more directly translated format, and there’s little pleasure to be had grinding through that.
Regarding your comment on Dune, Frank Herbert’s style is later than Asimov’s, and has a distinctly 60s-70s flavour – quite different from the Foundation series. I’d say Asimov’s Foundation has more in common with early Arthur C Clarke and EE ‘Doc’ Smith than Herbert.
Since I know you enjoy slightly left-field stuff I’d also recommend Larry Niven: Ringworld or The Mote in God’s Eye (with Jerry Pournelle) for a longer read and A gift from Earth for a shorter one.
11 Andrew // Jun 12, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Cormac McCarthy – ‘The Road’… or ‘No Country for Old Men’. Anything by him, really. Fantastic stuff.
12 Marc // Jun 12, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Yes! The Road. I bought that a couple of months ago with the intention of reading it immediately, but school got in the way.
I’ve already read No Country for Old Men.
Great stuff.
13 Collette // Jun 14, 2009 at 8:01 pm
of what you were originally looking at, my vote is for The Grapes of Wrath. read it and LOVED it. loved every single second of it, vehemently. it’s good reading during these economic tough times too. but mostly, it’s simple fiction and simple stories. easy to read, especially amongst all that heavier stuff you’ve been reading. it will be like a reading vacation!
the first 100 pages of 100 Years of Solitude were quite possibly the most beautiful pages I’ve ever read. but, the next couple hundred are tough going (once they get into the miltary stuff I got totally bored). that’s probably where you lost interest — well, that’s my guess. the end is good though, I seem to recall.
14 Andrew // Jun 20, 2009 at 10:47 am
Who’s Leo Lanoie?
15 Marc // Jun 21, 2009 at 2:26 pm
L.L. is a person in our congregation who has an incredible capacity to remember more or less everything he has read. He can get halfway through a book, put it down, pick it up again 3 years later and remember exactly what was written leading up to the place he left off.
16 Phil L // Jun 24, 2009 at 2:28 pm
I realize I’m jumping into this discussion a couple of weeks late, but may I suggest the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? I recently re-read it for the first time since my boyhood, and realized what a master of satire Mark Twain was.
17 Marc // Jun 24, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Phil: Huckleberry Finn is high on my list. I’ve never read it–the semester I *would* have read it, the teacher switched the reading to The Great Gatsby.
I started reading The Grapes of Wrath over the weekend, but it’s not really grabbing me. Maybe I should give Huckleberry Finn a go instead.
18 Phil L // Jun 25, 2009 at 9:51 pm
You might want to read Tom Sawyer first, but it’s not necessary. Huck Finn is a much better read. It takes up where Tom Sawyer left off, but it’s aimed at adult readers, not boys.