GAMES: GameSpot: Best of 2008 | GameFAQs | SportsGamer MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com

millerem99

Summer Reading?

So are any television junkies out there reading anything interesting this summer? My high school English teacher would be so proud - I have been on a Victorian literature kick the last several weeks, having just re-read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, published by the youngest and perhaps least known of the three Brontë sisters, Anne, one year before her untimely death from influenza. Great novel, and of the three literary sisters, second only to her sister Emily's equally dark and controversial Wuthering Heights in my opinion. I just checked out Charlotte Brontë's Shirley from the library, and plan to read that next. Right now, per my sister's recommendation, I'm halfway through Thackeray's Vanity Fair (which I bought in Germany ten years ago and never read). I've heard college kids forced to read it as part of their syllabus decry it as "stupid," not understanding its sarcastic and satirical tone, but I find it hilarious. With its richly comical insights on society, it just goes to show that people - and human nature - do not change, and are the same today as they were 150 years ago in Victorian England. (The difference is, back then they had the grace to hide it better!)

Vanity Fair

Normally I read a lot more non-fiction and usually am in the middle of something somewhat educational or spiritually invigorating at the same time as I'm reading a piece of fiction. A friend gave me a stack of political hardbounds from a variety of pundits, but I've had no appetite for that lately. Last week I finished The Other Side of Death by Scottish Theologian J. Sidlow Baxter. The youth pastor I work with gave me Francis Chan's Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God which I'm about to delve into next. Chan is a youth pastor in Simi Valley, California, and I enjoyed hearing him speak at a national conference for youth leaders in Pittsburgh last year. (The guy's a bestselling author and all, and I recently discovered he chooses to live in a humble apartment with his family despite his means...which always leaves me with a faint feeling of self-reproach over my own desire for nice digs! [sigh])

Crazy Love Paperback Stedman

For the beach I'm checking out one of Irish authoress Maeve Binchy's novels, best known perhaps for her made-into-feature-film Circle of Friends. That's as close to "light reading" as I'll probably get, nerd that I am

bookshelf

Anybody else?

Posted by millerem99, 06/08/2009 5:21am
24 Comments |

Comments

Previous | Next »

Page: 1 | 2

HelloStuart

The last novel I read was "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb. I did it to impress a girl, but it didn't work out.

Posted 06/08/2009 7:42am

millerem99

Oh, I read that one several years ago. haha, read it to impress a girl, huh? And she wasn't swooning, how brutal! What did you think of the book itself? I remember being surprised that a man wrote so well about a female protagonist.

Posted 06/08/2009 8:06am

Woolsey

I'm plowing through Gone with the Wind for the 2nd time right now. I'm hoping to read All quiet on the Western Front sometime during the summer.

Posted 06/08/2009 9:21am

millerem99

Gone with the Wind I have to say is one in which I actually like the film better than the book. I remember reading All Quiet on the Western Front in high school...very sad, and of course, subsequently banned in Germany during Hitler's rise to power.

Posted 06/08/2009 9:26am

historyseeker22

Let's see... well, I just finished re-reading Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, am currently reading The Sign of the Ram (which was made into a great movie, which I've yet to see.

), and plan to re-read Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone (since I've been watching this cool show called Expedition: Africa).

I'm also hoping to get the 8th Confession, by James Patterson, and The Guernsy Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows sometime this Summer.

Enjoy your reading!

Posted 06/08/2009 12:38pm

thecomedianky

i just reread a book about Second City.

Posted 06/08/2009 3:22pm

mtjaws

Can't say I'm planning to read anything, but you never know. That bookshelf staircase is very cool. People can be so creative.

Posted 06/08/2009 4:34pm

IndianaMom

I'm always reading. Believe it or not, I chose 3 books at the library because they are small enough to fit in my purse. I'm reading the first one now. I usually read Christian fiction. I recently read a non-fiction book by a guy I know, titled Manna. It's really good.

Posted 06/08/2009 7:54pm

sallenj

Well, I read a small poetry book by a cousin of mine called "A Minstrel's Musings." It had everything from dragons to fishing with grandpa. Then, Darwin's "The Descent of Man"--just because I could. He never does make his point--probably because he didn't have a point too make! Lately, I've been reading an 8 volume history of the Civil War by Allan Nevins, called "The Ordeal of the Union." It was published in 1947. I'm 2 volumes in (550 pages each!), and he has covered from the end of the Mexican War up to the election of 1856. Of the 8 volumes, the Civil War doesn't actually start untill volume 5, so it's going to be a long, weary road. But, I've got all summer!

Posted 06/09/2009 3:35am

sallenj

Oh, by the way, what is "light reading"?

Posted 06/09/2009 3:36am

millerem99

historyseeker, what did you think of Angels and Demons? I was thinking about checking it out...
Sounds like you are a true bookworm.

Posted 06/09/2009 9:30am

millerem99

Comedian, I had to google Second City but now I've been enlightened with a crash course in history on it.

Posted 06/09/2009 9:33am

millerem99

mtjaws, yeah, I hadn't read anything for a while outside of all the material I use to teach senior high youth, but lately I've made more time for it.

Posted 06/09/2009 9:34am

HelloStuart

I must agree, Emily; I kept forgetting that the book was not written from a woman's perspective, that's how effective Lamb was. I also liked the whole water metaphor.

Posted 06/09/2009 1:16pm

millerem99

IndianaMom, I read the synopsis of Manna and it looks like something I would really enjoy. Somebody gave me the Beth Moore Beloved Disciple study and I've been pursuing that off and on...they did it at our church earlier this year and I wish I had done it as a group study.

Posted 06/09/2009 3:08pm

millerem99

Posted 06/09/2009 3:08pm

millerem99

sallenj, Very cool that a cousin of yours published a volume of poetry. My grandma self-published her life story last Christmas and gave a copy to all us grandkids, and we couldn't put it down - amazing the difference in lifestyle of two generations! The Civil War book sounds like what I'd deem "heavy" reading - requiring some thought and maybe re-reading some passages...

Posted 06/09/2009 3:11pm

thecomedianky

it's the history of comedy in america.

Posted 06/09/2009 8:19pm

historyseeker22

Angels and Demons is a very good, fast-paced thriller (with a lot of fun history facts thrown in

), IMO.

The DaVinci Code was good as well, is you remember that it is just a story.

I know quite a few people who refuse to even touch the book, simply because they percieve it as an affront to Christianity.... but it's not.

Also, might I recommend The Kitchen God's Wife (a wonderful mother-daughter story, with a perspective on life in China during and after WW2) and Three Cups Of Tea (an inspiring true story of a man who truly embodies goodness and perseverence in these troubling times.)?

Posted 06/10/2009 8:52am

froggysfriend

I agree with Gabby on Three Cups of Tea - I read it a short while back and really enjoyed it. I am starting to get into Jack Canfield's The Success Principles, which is a textbook for success in any field of life (or so it seems to me). The first chapter (lesson) is about taking responsibility for EVERYTHING that is in your life - quite a challenge.

Thanks, Emily, for sharing on your reading - I read a lot (though often bits and pieces of different books) it's good to hear about what others are enjoying.

Posted 06/14/2009 11:01am

Previous | Next »

Page: 1 | 2