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life{in}grace

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Read Books and Live Well, part 2

by 250 Comments

Some of you asked what’s on the proverbial night stand.  Be careful what you wish for……..

Flannery O’Connor once got a letter complaining that her writing was not ‘uplifting’ enough. The reader was tired of the dark themes and twisted characters. This was O’Connor’s reply,

“There is something in us, as story-tellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least must be offered the chance to be restored.  The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it.   His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether and so he has forgotten the price of restoration.”



In a larger sense, the stories and essays that we’ve gotten from the greatest authors have come to them at great price.  I live and die by their books—by the hard fought words of someone else.  All day, I hear the drone of culture and the drivel  of my own self-centered voice in my head and I know that I am impoverished.  I don’t have the right words and so I need to borrow them from someone else—–from someone who has read better books ,  lived in a saner time and has paid a steep price for the kernels of truth they so generously share.  The words of my favorite authors color my world and wipe away the fog that our modern, consumerist society has accepted as the new status quo.   I think Flannery O’Connor was right.  We have forgotten the cost of redemption.

Perhaps the masters will help us remember.

**********************

My current stack is influenced by the Circe Conference speakers and by our study of the Ancients this year in our homeschool.  Some of these books, I will read from cover to cover.  Some I will start and never finish.  Some will so capture my imagination that I will read the same chapter or even the same sentence over and over again.  I don’t follow hard and fast rules when I read.  But I’m thirsty for words that aren’t my own.

Here’s my latest reading list.  Hope you find something helpful for your own journey.

1. Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays  Wendell Berry

2.Leisure: The Basis of Culture

3.Flannery O’Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters (Library of America)

4.The Complete Poems and Plays: 1909-1950 T.S. Eliot

5. The Prince and the Pauper (Dover Thrift Editions)

6.The Complete Aeschylus: Volume I: The Oresteia (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)

7.The Catcher in the Rye  J.D. Salinger

8.Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education  James Daniels

9.The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis Leon Kass

10.The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories

11.The Problem of Suffering: A Fathers Hope

12.The Homeric Hymns

13.The City of God  Augustine

14.The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other

15.The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition

16.Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book  Walker Percy

17.Standing by Words: Essays  Wendell Berry

18.The Odyssey

19.Mind of the Maker  Dorothy Sayers

20.Wild Iris

Someone mentioned that maybe we should have an online book club? Whatcha think?  Would you be willing to read the classics with me?   We could be geeks together.    We could have our own cheer and make homemade shirts?  No?  Book worms have more fun 🙂

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. michele says

    If you have a book club, count me in.

    My swoony bust of Odysseus stands guard over our piano and there isn’t a day I’m not meditating on the words of Homer, or Tolkien, or Lewis, or Spurgeon.
    xomichele

    Reply

  3. Rhonda Angeletti says

    Edie,
    I am so intrigued by your blog and your words..they echo through my mind and I wish I really understood them! 🙂 I was so impressed by your response on why you wouldn’t read “fifty shades”, I had not been able form a response myself about why I don’t read books like that but your words captured exactly what I had in mind. Thank you for sharing your life with us. I love your blog and am so happy that you are in a new home! By the way, why do you teach latin in your homeschool? I feel like I’m missing out on something. 🙂

    Reply

  5. becky says

    if i was in your book club you’d kick me out. i couldn’t even get through the first few pages of to kill a mockingbird. which i hear is awesome;) i’m just not a heavy deep reader…these seem challenging. you go girl. wish i could keep up with the deep. btw i’m so proud that you said you weren’t reading that 50 shades book. i’ve had to make a stand in our bookclub and say no to the smut too. it’s just not what we need to be filling our minds with. ‘nough said! this after i half way read through the girl with the dragon tatoo. mercy!

    Reply

  6. Ami Davis says

    There’s a commercial out at the moment with a guy who decides to go for a run and streams an audiobook of The Odyssey and runs until it’s complete. Then he starts another book.
    I always think of your when I see it. 🙂

    Reply

  10. Celeste says

    Wendell Berry, Augustine, T.S. Eliot, Walker Percy, et al: this is “high cotton”…and much needed in what I see as the disturbing “dumbing down of America”. Oh, dear, I sound my age and I’m a positive personal. Let’s make that “positive realist”. Love the direction this is taking.

    Just read this two nights ago: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/goodletters/2012/07/praying-the-divine-office-with-flannery-oconnor/

    Thought of these words by Miss O’Connor: “Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. To be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man, and in the South the general conception of man is still, in the main, theological. That is a large statement, and it is dangerous to make it, for almost anything you say about Southern belief can be denied in the next breath with equal propriety. But approaching the subject from the standpoint of the writer, I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. The Southerner, who isn’t convinced of it, is very much afraid that he may have been formed in the image and likeness of God. Ghosts can be very fierce and instructive. They cast strange shadows, particularly in our literature. In any case, it is when the freak can be sensed as a figure for our essential displacement that he attains some depth in literature.”

    Reply

    • Marie at the Lazy W says

      Brilliant. LOL I realize this is serious business, but you made me laugh out loud anyway. ; ) Just the fierceness and swiftness of those words, “freak” and “whole.” Well written, thanks for sharing!

      Reply

  11. Sharon O says

    Her quote actually fits with my ‘blog’ today. I think redemption… is a word we don’t often think about.

    Reply

  12. Wanda says

    Edie, in the months I have been reading your blog I have paid close attention to your reading list and it has inspired me to enhance my focus out of the easy “beach” reads and return to more classical and thought provoking literature. I would love to be a part if an online reading club!

    The words you have left me with though,” I am thirsty for words that are not my own”, are words I have been searching for for a long time. You have put my thoughts in print and I am grateful to you for helping me find it.

    Bless you!

    Reply

    • Brenda M. says

      Wanda, I agree. I felt like I had been socked in the gut (needed it!) after reading that paragraph. I was just thinking that I crave the encouragement of a book club or even a college class to begin reading again (well, “real” books). A book club with everyone here would be AMAZING. I’m in!

      Reply

  14. Matilda Joyce says

    1. I will be in your book club or any other club you create.
    2. I LOVE Patheos! 2 of my friends helped start it.
    3. I love the rich sharing of prayer tradition between the different Christian sects, as the article cited above by Celeste described.
    Count me in! I will read anything.

    Reply

  17. Marie at the Lazy W says

    YES to the online book club!! I crave the classics and some instructional stuff in the worst way. I see many seriously good titles here for adding to my list, love that you have so much Wendyll Berry too. : )

    I agree, we have in many ways forgotten the cost of redemption, all over our culture, regarding faith but even more than that. For this and other reasons it’s wise to look for what is time tested, what stands and shines through the brackish waters.

    But you have great words too, Edie! We read your blog for more than the lovely photos. XOXO

    Reply

  18. KTG says

    Yes I would join your book club!
    I’m still trying to get through Don Quijote and then Pilgrim’s Progress is next on my list.
    I wish I could move faster on the old testament but I’m only at Ester after a few years at it.
    You are the perfect person to inspire me. And just this evening I declared August no TV month please.

    Reply

  21. Ruth says

    An online book club-reading the classics-would be sensational!! I have frequently wished for it. I have always looked to your book lists for inspiration. This culture Has truly forgotten the cost of redemption. I look forward to discussing the classics and grasping a better understanding of them.
    Hugs

    Reply

  28. mypatsyann says

    I don’t enjoy F. O’Connor while I’m reading it. It’s just not nice. But it sticks with me, and I keep thinking about it after I’m done. So it’s important and valuable, I think. In this country, we like to read for entertainment. But we also need to feed our souls and sharpen our minds. If a book can do all of those things at the same time, then great. O’Connor doesn’t do all of it for me, but like a precious friend, she can do at least one of these things really well, so her work is worthwhile and I’m grateful for it.

    Reply

  31. michelle@Life on the Funny Farm says

    Oh I love books. I’d rather spend money on books than anything else. I don’t have a kindle and I’m not sure that I want one because there is nothing like holding a book, turning it’s pages, underlining passages, and writing thoughts in the margins. No, I won’t get a kindle; I want to hold a book. I am currently reading Assumptions That Affect Our Lives by Dr. Christian Overman.

    Reply

  32. Asiyah says

    It’s been a long time since I’ve participated in a book club. (I draw the line at Harlequin-esque type of nonfiction romance. lol!)

    Count me in!

    Reply

  36. Amber says

    i absolutely say YES to the book club. i’ve read some classics, and desire to read more. i think reading with others, along with some guidance, is perfect.

    Reply

  37. Candi says

    I’ve been wanting to join a book club for so long, but I am struggling with finding one in my area! This would be perfect!!!

    If you need any help getting this thing going, I’d be more than happy to help!

    Reply

  43. Beth says

    Flannery O’Connor’s letters are amazing. Your appetite will be whetted, as mine was, with the collected works book you have, and then you will have to get The Habit of Being, which is a collection of most of her letters. You will LOVE that book. She is just my favorite person, and I cannot wait to meet her in Heaven! And I would adore an online book club!

    Reply

  45. Robin says

    As a homeschooling mom who loves to spend my nights reading for myself. I think an online book club is a great idea!

    Reply

  49. Sharee says

    Yes, please let’s do it! I have been wanting to read some classics…my daughter is starting kinder this year at a classical school. I wish I could go back and redo my whole education career and experience the classical education.

    Reply

  50. Jennifer says

    Yay! And, yes….yes…I would love to join in on your online book club and read classics with some blogging friends. Hope you decide to do it….

    blessings,
    jennifer

    Reply

  51. sarah says

    Edie, I really want an online bookclub with the substance of reading of which you speak. You are just the one to start it. Count me IN. I’m never able to find people reading the sort of stuff I’m reading. Right now it’s Crime and Punishment, and I’ve a tall stack to follow. Would absolutely love to join with others who are steeping their minds in these great works. I read very widely.

    Also, I think you should pick up “Island of the World” by O’Conner. It’s epic, devastating, a beautiful work. It’s 900+ pages but after reading it you cannot see the world the way you did before…

    Reply

  52. Kathleen Jaeger says

    “All day, I hear the drone of culture and the drivel of my own self-centered voice in my head and I know that I am impoverished. I don’t have the right words and so I need to borrow them from someone else—–from someone who has read better books , lived in a saner time and has paid a steep price for the kernels of truth they so generously share.”

    Amen Sister!! Yes, and it just proves to me that I need to be reading more and reading better selections. I would be up for an on-line classics book club — I would prefer an IRL one but don’t know anyone around these parts that would like that. The beauty of the web!

    Reply

  55. Lori says

    EDIE!!! I wanted the club…yay and yahoo. I knew your book list was awesome and you have the depth to lead one! Please add me to this list! I’m in. I can eat a piece of cake and drink large amounts of coffee with yummy cream and and pretend I’m in your pretty living room or kitchen talking about what moved me the most in the book. I’m so excited. Phil. 4:8 AND 9.

    Reply

  56. laura says

    Sometimes we wonder if an idea has merit so we dare to speak it out, and lo and behold, we get a outpouring of confirmation. Methinks that’s what’s happening with your book club idea. Perhaps a partnership of sorts with others who you know and trust so that it’s not all on you, but you hold the reins since where you lead we will follow. So, yes, yes, yes, and again yes, hitch- kicks, cute bags, good coffee, t-shirts, lipstick, a colorful pillow and cozy throw for the cool months, and books – glorious books!

    Reply

  57. Becca says

    I would love to join in the book club. I don’t have a blog, so I don’t know if that will be a problem. Thanks for sharing your list. Becca 🙂

    Reply

  63. Jen says

    I would absolutely join a book club for classics. I am swept away in the classics by the language and the culture, I find it fascinating. This is funny because in high school when I had to read them I was not interested, but last summer I picked up Wuthering Heights and fell in love with it. Currently I am reading Jane Eyre with the same fascination!!

    Reply

  65. StacyAverette says

    Edie, love your book list. You always inspire me to read more. I recently ran across Rumer Godden’s “A House with Four Rooms” and Gunilla Norris’ “Being Home: Discovering the Spiritual in the Everyday”. Have you read those? Waiting on the mail. Love when its a box of books!

    Reply

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