What I Have to Show for My Summer

A broken foot

A lovely vacation, up until (and quite frankly, even including) the aforementioned foot

Catching up with a long-neglected friend in California

A lot of grading:

- 2413 question-1s on the 2010 AP Chemistry exam

A lot of cleaning:

- A better cleaning of a friend's refrigerator than I have ever done to my own.

- An organized pantry, two bedrooms, and an office (in progress), inspired by the aforementioned friend's pre-move cleanout.

A lot of reading:

- Francis Chan, Crazy Love

- Donald Miller, To Own a Dragon

- CS Lewis, The Four Loves

- Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance

- Henri Nouwen, Spiritual Direction

- Ravi Zakarias, Light in the Shadow of Jihad

- Ted Dekker and Carl Medearis, Tea with Hezbollah (in progress)

- Jim Wallis, The Soul of Politics (in progress)

- Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love (in progress)

- A year's worth (or so) of backlogged Saveur magazines

A lot of book-buying:

- Several by Jim Wallis

- Several by CS Lewis

- Several by Kahlil Gibran

Lots and lots of cooking and baking.

I'm never as productive as I intend, but I'd say this was a summer well-spent.

Summer Reading

My summer reading pile, in no particular order:

Here in Daytona - not that I envision a ton of time for reading, but better to have too much reading material than not enough - I have brought the Lewis, the Miller, the Johnson, and the Kirn. I'm halfway through the thin-though-dense Lewis and am sorry for having put him down for his fiction for so long. And I'm sort of glad for having lost the copy from the library over Spring Break - I'm reading The Four Loves at just the right time.

Required Reading

It's Spring Break (finally!), and I have an overly ambitious reading list. To which I will permit myself to attend once my term grades are finished. At this rate - and now that I've trimmed it a little - I've got to read about a book per day - ambitious indeed! But I think I will plan to spend a couple days at the beach, which will make for good reading time.

Tea With Hezbollah, Ted Dekker

The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

Orthodoxy, GK Chesterton

The Four Loves, CS Lewis

Miracles, CS Lewis

Up in the Air, Walter Kirn

Atonement, Ian McEwan

To Own a Dragon, Donald Miller

The Curve of Binding Energy, John McPhee

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion

I know I've poo-poohed CS Lewis and his fiction for so long, but now I want to read some of his apologetics. Some of these books have lingered on my to-read list for so long, others are first-in-first-outs. Such is the nature of my bookcase. And with the gigantor Alachua-County book sale coming up this month, I'd be doing well to get some of these read before I inevitably buy more.

I've been doing a lot of just-in-time reading lately. I'll pick up a book, read a few pages, and then have occasion touse what I read in conversation not a day or so later. Today, another interesting synchronicity. Almost two years ago, I heard a a reading at the wedding of two friends - part of which I made note in my notebook. I always intended to ask them what it was from but never did (and I see them all the time!), and my paraphrasing didn't help me google it. After an emphatic recommendation, I requested delivery of The Prophet from the library. It arrived today. I slipped it out of the envelope and opened it to casually flip through it, when right there, on the first page I open, in the middle of the page, is the very passage I noted at the wedding:

"And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course."

Bookstravaganza

Alternate Title: Because Jess Did

My haul from the ridiculous used book sale in Gainesville a couple weeks ago.  I was going to list them here, but it's far more efficient to photograph them.  Even if there is a wonky shadow across the spines and the angle is kind of weird.

A February Resolution

One thing I've decided I need to do is get back into reading scripture. I've been meaning to read Isaiah for years now, and I'm not going to wait any longer. I also have a brand-spanking-new annotated copy of G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, plus a discussion partner. The rest of my "resolutions" have crashed and burned are still waiting for departure clearance, but this is one I'm determined to take action on sooner rather than later.



In other news, I'm planning to make pickles tomorrow with a group of students - sour pickles (with dill conspicuously absent from the recipe), sweet pickles, and some pickled fruit (plums and pears). I love me my crunchy, garlicky Polish dill pickles, but I have never liked sweet pickles. They're the scourge of the relish tray, along with the green olives. I'm going to give them a go, nonetheless (the pickles, not the olives). Perhaps fresh sweet pickles will change my mind. Anyhow, this pickling venture starts off a series of food-preservation activities that will include some jelly/jam. I'm leaning toward lemon marmalade - or perhaps a killer pear jam recipe I discovered last year. Few teenagers have ever made preserves at home, and it's fun to introduce them to something so (unfortunately) foreign to today's kitchen.

Summer Reading

I had an ambitious summer reading list (to say nothing of the teetering stacks and bowing shelves of books -yet-to-read here at home) that I wanted to finish during summer, when I actually have time to read. During the school year, my reading-for-pleasure consists of rereading the same paragraphs night after night as I barely finish a page before falling asleep.

So, my (hedonistic-scale - I loved it! I hated it!) reviews:

The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
I liked it - plain and simple. I like books that plop you down in the middle of another culture and just let you experience it through the text. This was one.


Wonderland, Michael Bamberger
A quick read about a year in the life of an American high school. Interesting, but nothing terribly fascinating. Best lines:

"His career had spanned eras. When he began teaching, the role of the teacher, as Mr. Cunningham saw it, was to get inside the lives of the students and shape them. Now the job was all about, he said, 'covering your ass.'"

The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
This was a re-read for book club. I hadn't picked it up since high school, and was antsy to read it now that I'm (almost) a grown-up. A lot of ladies did not love it. I thought it was great, still. I'm sure I had more profound things to say about it two months ago.


A Separate Peace, John Knowles
Also a reread for book club. This and Catcher were my favorite books that I was ever assigned to read. I wound up reading A Separate Peace twice during high school. And so I was looking forward to re-reading, particularly since I teach at a boarding school now. I still like it, but I was expecting much more from it. It has given me a wonderful quotation, something I want to devote an entire blog entry to someday:

"...when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love."

Actually, I want to do an entire series of posts on the nature of love. I have a lot of scattered writings to condense into some posts. Maybe it will make a good school-break task.


Notes on a Scandal, Zoe Heller
I loved this. It was such an easy read, and really fascinating. A total bait-and-switch. It's billed as a story about a teacher who has an affair with a student, but it's really about the predatory friendship that the teacher suffers at the hands of another teacher. Which is a far more captivating story. There were some passages that made my commonplace book.(1) Maybe I'll get up and grab it. Maybe later.

Okay, it's later.

"I keep staring at things, willing myself to remember them. [snipped] Of course, memory is not really as obedient a faculty as that. You can't consciously decide what is going to adhere. Certain things may strike you at the time as memorable, but memory only laughs at your presumption. 'Oh, I'm never going to forget this,' you say to yourself when you visit the Sacre-Coeur at sunset. And years later, when you try to summon up an image of the Sacre-Coeur, it's as cold and abstract as if you'd only ever seen it on a postcard. If anything unlocks the memory of this house for me, years from now, it will be something - some tiny, atmospheric fragment - of which I'm not even aware at the moment. I know this, and yet I still persist in making my little inventory, trying to nail down my recollections."

"What is romance, but a mutual pact of delusion? When the pact ends, there's nothing left. That's the thing about people who believe in God, isn't it? The love they have for Him never ends. He never lets them down. I read some writer once who said that love - he was talking about romantic love - love is a mystery and, when the solution is found, it evaporates."

"Talking to him is rather like attempting to converse with a school play."

"Any break in my routine - any small variation in the sequence of work and grocery shopping and telly and so on - tends to take on a disproportionate significance. I'm a child in that respect: able to live, psychically speaking, on a crumb of anticipation for weeks at a time, but always in danger of crushing the waited-for event with the freight of my excessive hope."

All Loves Excelling, Josiah Bunting III
Exceptionally predictable. A decent beach-read, which is exactly where I read this. One portion made the commonplace. Again, later. Maybe. It's not as good as the other quoted text here.


The English Teacher, Lily King
A used-book-sale find. A pleasant read, interesting characters. A bit slow in parts, but enough character development to keep my interest.


Only Child, Siegel and Ulviller
I've already described my thoughts at length. Enjoy them.


Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science, David Lindley
I'm so enjoying this book, but I've made it my bedstand book for six weeks now (thank you, OCPL online renewals...), which means that I collapse, exhausted, into bed and reread the same paragraph or half-page three nights in a row, like I reference up there^. Not a great way to read a book; I don't recommend it. I'd like to make it a point to finish this one, in one swoop. Maybe tomorrow, but that's highly unlikely.


There were many I didn't so much as even think about. Actually, that's not true. There are a few books that I at least obtained, even if I didn't read them:
- The Headmaster, John McPhee (2)
- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (A re-read; my husband and I had BNW inside jokes at the beginning of our relationship. Maybe that's too geeky for public release...)
- Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road, Donald Miller (A treasured birthday gift, it was to be the first thing I read this summer, but I put it off. I don't know why. I should crack it open.)


There were several others I didn't so much as investigate the availability at the library. Still, I think I did some serious work on a pretty lengthy list. What with traveling and whatever else it was that I did this summer. It feels like ages ago already.


(1) I have sucked at writing in my commonplace book. It needs a more prominent home, and I might actually remember to write in it.

(2) I strongly encourage the reading of any John McPhee. Florida readers will enjoy Oranges, though it is somewhat dated, having been published in the late 60s, if I recall correctly. Rock-heads (geology, not death-metal) will enjoy his Annals of the Former World. The Control of Nature is worthwhile. Or if you want a sampling, The John McPhee Reader. On my McPhee short list are The Curve of Binding Energy, the aforementioned Headmaster, and Common Carriers, his latest.

Book Lust

So after my class(*) finished this afternoon, I popped into a thrift store near campus. First thing inside the door are the bookshelves, and I never hold out too much hope for good finds. I've been spoiled by the ridiculously good - no, phenomenal - Alachua County Library Sales, for one, and it seems as though thrift shops just don't stock the kinds of books I like. Used book stores, yes, but thrift shops, not so much. So consider my surprise when I find all kinds of good stuff today!

Today's finds:

• Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (on my to-re-read list for summer)
• The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger (on my to-re-read list, also one of my July Book Club books)
• A Separate Peace, John Knowles (currently re-reading, but it's the other of my July Book Club books, so I bought it to give away)
• All Loves Excelling, Josiah Bunting III (blurb on the front from the Washington Times reads "Should stand on the same shelf as A Separate Peace and The Catcher in the Rye." Are you picking up on a trend...?)
• Peace Like a River, Leif Enger
• A Wedding in December, Anita Shreve
• The Sunday Philosophy Club, Alexander McCall Smith (why can I never find his No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series in used bookstores? v. annoying.)
• The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, Robin Maxwell (I can't remember if I've read this one, or one like it - I don't think I have)

And the best part? Apparently it was 50% off day, because I got all those for 6.42 + tax. Sweet!

The rest of my summer reading list (gotta get reading if I'm going to make any progress:

• Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference, Philip Yancey (small group selection)
• Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road, Donald Miller
  
• The Curve of Binding Energy, John McPhee (I highly encourage reading of any John McPhee)
• The Headmaster, John McPhee
• Common Carriers, John McPhee
• Notes on a Scandal, Zoe Heller
  
• In Revere, In Those Days, Ronald Merullo
• High School Confidential, Jeremy Iversen
• The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan
• The Republic, Plato
• Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
• Somebody's Heart Is Burning: A Woman Wanderer in Africa, Tanya Schaffer (Potential Future Book Club Selection)

So many books, so few days. Looking forward to 22h on planes in a week!

(*) I have much to type about this class I'm taking. More later, either tonight or this week.