Currently Reading

I just glanced over at the side bar and saw that it said I was still reading "Gilead". Yikes. Truth be told I finished "Gilead" about 2 days after Amon and I got back from Colorado. So much to do, so little time to do it. Updating the sidebar of the blog falls into that category of items reserved for ironing curtains and dusting the top of your book shelf; you know you should do it but somehow it always seems to not be done.

So SINCE "Gilead" I've read the Lemony Snickets books 1-5, part of "Lake Wobegon", bits and pieces of "The Dangerous Book for Boys", and have been brushing up on C.S. Lewis in preparation for the soon to be re-convening Inklings group. I'm currently reading Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughter House Five" as part of my ongoing attempt to read more of those English Lit. class/cultural classic books I some how missed out on. I while back I read "The Old Man and the Sea", and I've also read "Lord of the Flies" recently.

The book we'll be covering in Inklings this semester is "Surprised by Joy". It's Lewis's "autobiography" although I'd think today's literary critics would describe it as more of a memoir. It is certainly told with a point to make (how he became a Christian and what the motivation means for his literary aesthetic) and it only covers a portion of his life. I think it will be interesting to compare his attitudes and approach to life, literature, Christianity in "Surprised by Joy" (written relatively early in life) to one of the books we did last semester in Inklings "A Grief Observed".

Upcoming reads include something by Shakespeare (either a comedy or a history...who's to say), some Chesterton, probably re-read Phantases, some peruse the Annotated Hobbit, and An Acceptable Time, the other 8 Lemony Snicket books, and who knows what else.

Let me know your thoughts on any of the books I've mentioned...I'd love to hear.

Mike