Ringworld

This is my third science fiction novel this month. I am weary of this genre! So that is why I couldn't wait to finish this book. It never really grabbed me. Sigh. I am going back to my type of fiction. I am hoping to read The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. More my speed and one I have wanted to read for quite some time. 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

“Hard” science fiction—heavy on technical detail and informed with scientific precision—reached a pinnacle in the best work of Larry Niven, who, in his heyday, seemed to occupy a galaxy all his own. His headlong and engrossing novel Ringworld, which spawned several sequels, illustrates his most captivating qualities as a novelist.

NOVA

Meh. Not really gripping to me. 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

A perfectly realized rehabilitation of the hoary space opera, Samuel R. Delany’s Nova is still as forward-looking and peerless today as at its birth, when it catapulted its twenty-five-year-old author to the top of the science fiction scene. The contending Shakespearean dynasties; the quirky, deeply inhabited characters; the poetic language (rococo, yet somehow still limpid); the portrait of a future radically estranged from ours, where our era is mythic to theirs, while they are myths-to-come for us; the layered symbolism—all these aspects are drawn from past masters, yet are fused into an organic whole whose likes had never before been seen. Most novas burn out to cinders, but this one—vital, prescient, affecting, a genuine work of art—blazes as brightly as ever. 

The Hours

Since I just read Orlando, I thought I would read this book about Virginia Woolf and the stories of two other women: Carissa (who is like a modern-day Mrs. Dalloway - a book I read years ago), and Laura (a LA suburban housewife of the 60s - the place and era in which I grew up). 

It is written so well. It is sad, but it is so beautiful at the same time. 

I even found the movie on Freevee TV. The acting is perfect. Beautifully done and the role that won Nicole Kidman her Oscar. 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway, set on a single June day in London, is punctuated by the tolling of Big Ben, the bell inside the clock tower at the Houses of Parliament. Its regular marking of the time—“First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable”—reminds Clarissa Dalloway of both the day’s passage and the evanescence of all things. This indelible symbol provided Woolf’s novel with its working title: The Hours. Seven decades on, Michael Cunningham, a writer of uncommon sensitivity and an unabashed Woolf lover, retrieved it for his best novel, a stunning invocation of Mrs. Dalloway and a masterful fiction in its own right. The Hours (1998) is a book that leaves the reader feeling hopeful and blessed, suffused with the ever-present, ineffable wonder of life. Really. 

Orlando

What an incredibly creative story. This is my third book by Virginia Woolf, and she really is a great writer. (But a tortured soul.) 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

James Mustich

Woolf’s words invariably dance across her pages with an enthusiasm that engenders delight. None of her books is more joyful than Orlando, a mock-biography that follows the fortunes of its protagonist across four centuries, from the era of Elizabeth I to the stroke of midnight on the eleventh of October, 1928. Orlando grows up as a young nobleman in thrall to love and literature, travels as an ambassador to the Ottoman court in Constantinople, returns to the England of Pope and Dryden, and enters and exits the Victorian era, having achieved in the end the ripe old age of thirty. Traversing more than the borders of nations and centuries, Orlando is transformed along the way from hero to heroine, a willing victim of the author’s exuberant invention as Woolf engages, with playful abandon, themes of gender, biography, writing, and desire. Written in tribute to her friend and lover Vita Sackville-West, Woolf’s biographical fantasy is a delicious celebration of the exhilarating powers of infatuation and imagination.

The Long Loneliness

I am part of the Order of the Mustard Seed, and this was a book club read, but I wasn't able to attend.

Here is the intro from the Order of the Mustard Seed that I thought was a good summary:

The Long Loneliness – Dorothy Day

Following our last book group read, “Making Room’, our next book opens up very practically, some of the themes it introduced. Christine Pohl mentions Dorothy Day frequently in ‘Making Room’ and so we are going to look at her life a little more and the ways in which hospitality and justice where completely interlinked for her. They were ways in which she determined to live.

Dorothy Day (1897 – 1980), was a brilliant, radical American social activist, writer and journalist. Along with Peter Maurin, she founded the Catholic Worker Movement.

 The Long Loneliness is her autobiography. It describes her faith journey and also the ways in which she determined to live her life in ways that worked for peace, justice for the poor, nonviolence and racial justice. Her story is an important one for anyone who longs to live, loving their neighbours as themselves. She demonstrates a faith in action and gives an insight into the sacrifices often needed to place oneself on the frontlines of the struggles for peace and social justice.

Dorothy Day and those with whom she worked, intentionally lived alongside the poor, becoming poor themselves, giving up possessions and sharing all that they had. Through Houses of Hospitality, they gave refuge and home to those experiencing homelessness and also began farms where people could have work.

A dynamic, lifelong pacifist and passionate social activist, Dorothy Day was frequently on the frontlines of protests against racism, war and injustice. These protests often landed her in jail. Her story is one of a woman who engaged her entire life in the injustices that she saw here around her.  It’s a story that echoes with the words of Old Testament prophets and that is focused on the life of Jesus and the ways in which he loved and lived alongside those pushed to the margins.

Through the book, the theme of love is prevalent. To Dorothy Day, love was central to everything. “We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know Him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.”

And so, in the spirit of that companionship and with the words of Dorothy Day as our guide, the next Book Group is on Thursday 28th April, 7:30pm (BST).

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

The Long Loneliness, published in 1952, is the autobiography of Dorothy Day, the American political activist, pacifist, and cofounder of The Catholic Worker newspaper and movement. While Day has lately been put forth for canonization by the church, she might bridle at that idea: “Don’t call me a saint,” she once wrote, “I don’t want to be dismissed that easily.” In any case, like Saint Augustine, she spent her early years in the embrace of worldly pursuits—“the wisdom of the flesh is treacherous indeed” she would later reflect—before a conversion led her to focus her considerable energy on “[making] it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe and shelter themselves as God intended them to do.” Her personal testament is as revelatory as Augustine’s Confessions, although the difference in the two books’ perspectives is striking: Where Augustine’s autobiography is a conversation with God, Day’s narrative is a conversation with the world.

The Day of the Triffids

This was a really engaging story! I loved it (surprising for me since science fiction is not my thing). 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

James Mustich

Yes, in The Day of the Triffids the human race does go blind and people die in immense numbers from sheer sensory incapacity—to say nothing of the genetically engineered predatory plants given star billing in the book’s title. Yet, the novel exudes a holiday air, a sense of liberation from artificial constraints and social falsities, and seemingly welcomes the prospect of a fresh relaunch of civilization and its contents. The fate of the masses might be horrific, but the plucky survivors on whom the narrative instinctively focuses will inherit a planet full of treasures, both natural and man-made, and—just maybe—find beyond the dark days of collapse a new Golden Age. And, of course, over all looms the menace of the rampant triffids, carnivorous plants with an urgent hunger that gives their energy what appears to be a malevolent intelligence. These inspired inventions give Wyndham’s book a creepily delightful, uncannily titillating appeal.

The Big Sleep

It is no Maltese Falcon, but I liked it, especially since it is set in LA where I grew up. The writing is also engaging. 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

James Mustich

Dashiell Hammett may have invented the hardboiled detective story, but nobody wrote it better than Raymond Chandler. With his stylized prose and flair for similes, he gave his detective Philip Marlowe a voice that would become the hallmark of the genre. Marlowe is the protagonist in all of Chandler’s novels, and the movies drawn from these fictions proved to be a heavy influence on American film noir, just as the books influenced generations of detective novelists.

Saturday Sixteen Freewrite

I am listening to the woman with the hemorrhage on Pray as You Go. 

"Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well." How do I encounter the Lord in the busyness of my day? 

I try to look up continually throughout the day, and I do that more naturally now than ever. It has been a good few years, Lord. 

My biggest desolation over the last couple of days was getting the response of a pastor to my friend who is in an abusive marriage. I was angry. He was condescending and "I am the authority here, and you are not in an abusive relationship. You are in sin. Your friends and advisors don't know how to handle accurately the Word because I am a pastor and a man, and those people don't know anything because I am a big cheese in the evangelical world." (Not those words, but that is how it comes across IMHO.) It was arrogant and judgemental and I need to pray about it because I am angry. 

No address of the many years this woman has had to endure a narcissistic husband. It is always the woman who has to adapt to narcissism. The narcissism doesn't get addressed, and everyone is reacting to the action of the wife who is tired and just wants help. 

So, I need to pause and listen to You, Lord about this. 

"I am always on the side of the innocent." 

Thanks God. 

I am out in my deck sanctuary (my sanctuary sign is coming very soon). I have been here since about 4 am. I am so glad we didn't do a closed room. I have listened to the gentle sounds of the morning so many times this summer. It is lovely. I now know the deer love to eat the leaves on our apple tree, and they start even before sunrise. 

Today is going to be hot. So after this freewrite, I am going for a walk (or maybe a bike ride). At 9:30 am, we are going to go to Beaver Creek for kayaking/Stand Up and Paddle with Maddy, Katherine, and John.

Then, I will come back and put the final photos in the book that is supposed to come sometime today and write dates in the other book that I just finished and in my Christmas album.

I also need to find the November/December 2022 pictures. (I probably should order the Amsterdam/Dublin/Belfast/Castlewellan from October-November since I decided not to include them and just have the book be of the Camino since that is the most meaningful thing.) 

I will do freewrites all this next week. I am in-between devotionals right now. I will continue with Celtic Daily Prayer.

This went over 16 minutes. Time to go walk. 

The Life of Jesus: Harmonized Gospels Passion Translation

I purchased this on Kindle several months ago, and I gave the gorgeous leather-bound copy to a friend we visited in Turkey. 

As soon as I was done with the Bible Book Club reread/update (cleaned up broken links, added YouTube videos and exercises to facilitate encounters with God) that took me from April 23-June 23, I went into the Gospel Harmony Book Club, reading through this translation as I did the same kinds of updates. What a joy to read where I was all those years ago and where I am now. 

It was lovely. Some of the chronological order in this rendition of the Harmonized Gospels differs from the chronologies I used to craft the book club. But it was close enough, and I enjoyed a fresh translation (it is more of a paraphrase). 

Flaubert's Parrot

This was not my cup of tea. It took me FOREVER to read, but it must not be very popular because I checked it out multiple times. Usually, there are people waiting in line and I cannot renew it!

Flaubert was a dreamer and a lost soul, but I have read Madame Bovary, and the guy could write!

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Sophisticated literary inventions are seldom as charming as this one, an intricately composed but inviting exploration of the nature of desire. The intricacy of the composition comes from Julian Barnes’s playful orchestration of a variety of styles, combining fiction with literary criticism, biography, diversions scholarly and reflective, a chronology, even a mock exam; the charm comes from the unfailing tunefulness of his sentences—they are shaped with a confidence, clarity, and concentrated energy that give great pleasure. With digressive progress, Barnes leads us on a delightfully comic pursuit of large questions: Is love, like art, finally unknowable, except in the imaginative experience of it? Is memory itself an art, in which we shape, in story, our subjectivity? Filled with literary fun of a very high order, Flaubert’s Parrot is a seriously delicious confection.

Diary of a Provincial Lady

This was a delightful break from the more sober books I have been reading from the 1000 Books list! LOL!

The narrator on this is excellent, and I am glad I don't live in that time anymore! 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

E. M. Delafield’s Provincial Lady first appeared in 1930. Her first Diary would be followed by three more in the course of the next decade. These charming volumes proved immediately and enduringly popular, and Delafield’s creation is today seen, in her deceptively casual chronicling of her domestic activities, as a style-setter for later writers who deployed aspects of her mode of self-address in both journalism and fiction. Readers seeking astute yet gentle social satire at its British best will be richly rewarded by acquaintance with Delafield’s wonderful Provincial Lady.