September is always a very busy month for me and this year the busyness lingers into October. A trip to Clifton, a family wedding, Colorado vacation, a trip to Clifton, David's surgery, church library, church chairs, another trip to Clifton... Yikes! who has time to read. I do. The crazier things get the more I need words, words, words to keep me sane.
Vacation reading:
Poole, Ernest: His Second Wife. Kindle. Project Gutenberg. Originally published in 1918. Having enjoyed his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, His Family, I gave this author who is new to me another chance. Another good read by an author I plan to read again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Poole
Showalter, Elaine: A Jury of Her Peers. American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Kindle. This compelling book by the author of A Literature of their Own sabotaged my vacation fiction binge. I've spent the last month reading and chasing rabbits e.g. women authors I've read and those I haven't and I was surprised at the number in both categories. I've got more reading to do than I'll have time to do it. What struck me most was how time and again a woman writer was "silenced as much by her activity in a repressive political movement as by her domestic life." And, I wonder if feminism is not at least to some extent yet another repressive political movement. Women who celebrate heterosexual marriage and motherhood (certainly in the late Victorian era and I suspect in other past eras and the present) are still silenced by women as well as by men with the label "sentimentalist." Surely some of those writers have something of interest to say and a few at least say it well. But then I have a hobbyhorse: http://evelynwhitakerlibrary.org/
Fiction:
Kelley, Jacqueline: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2009. Recommended by my friend, Cathey R. This coming-of-age book focuses on a young girl and her grandfather, interweaving rural Texas in the early 20th Century with Darwin. This a wonderful story beautifully told. Must reading for anyone (of any age, of any gender) who enjoys good fiction. I found it even more delightful as a break from and continuation of the study of Showalter.
Smith, Alexander McCall: Friends, Lovers, Chocolate. New York: Pantheon Press, 2005. Cathey R. passed on this book from her collection as part of the thank you for the border collie puppy adventure. I had read and enjoyed The No. 1 Ladies' Dectective Agency and at least one other book in this author's series. This is the 2nd book in the Sunday Pholosophy Club series and the first that I've read of that series. It stood alone very well and was more to my tastes; probably due to the Edinburgh, Scotland setting. Good light ready with a thought provoking phrase now and then.
Bedside Book:
Peterson, Eugene H.: Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. A conversation in spiritual theology. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2005. Kindle. Yes, a Kindle book works at bedside if I remember to keep the battery charged. I plan to linger with the book for quite a while. It is dense and rich in food for thought. I have long loved the introduction to John's Gospel and his presentation of Christ--the Word, the Logos, the creative speaking of God. Peterson is building on and expanding my appreciation of this text and helping me see application in my own life.
Seasons:
Johnson, Elizabeth A.: She Who Is: the Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: The Crossroads Publishing Co., 1992, 2002, 2003. This month we are discussing the Chapter 1. Introduction: Speaking rightly of God and Chapter 6. Classical Theology.
