I love the idea of prioritizing books I already have and keep meaning to read. I'm going to have to consider how many I can realistically put on the list with baby on the way, though.
Wonder Weeks is a pretty good add to the list (if you treat the underlying theory as v v speculative but use it as a rough roadmap for new things your baby is going to be up to explore)
I mostly read fiction with a sprinkling of history/biography. Last year, Hannah's Children by Catherine Ruth Pakaluk (a survey of college educated American women choosing to have 5 or more children) was a standout among my Non-fiction reading. The Feast by Margaret Kennedy was a surprise buzzer beater in fiction, as I read it during the week of Christmas.
I just started Our Mutual Friend as my Dickens audiobook for the year and Green Dolphin Street as my bedside table read. Both are off to a delightful start.
I have a book club on Little Women this week and one on The Awakening of Miss Prim later this month (a sort of Hallmark channel light-romance-style novelization of Dr. John Senior's The Restoration of Christian Culture, the book is a first novel and in translation from Spanish, so the writing itself isn't remarkable, though it's an easy two-day read, but I'm very interested to discuss steps other people are taking to build community -as the book shows- in their real lives).
I may dive into The Civil War vol 2 by Shelby Foote, but then again, I'm having a baby this year and my hormones may not be ready for that much death, even though the first volume was great. (I was impressed how modern 1860s was! When telegraphs can communicate across the country and the newspaper can print by the next day, it really felt like President Lincoln could receive text messages and the country was fairly quickly informed about the latest news (or misinformed, as the case may be!).)
I always pick a book to be reading before/after giving birth that I can tell that child was "their" book, so they can read it when they're a teenager if they choose. (In eighth grade, I read the mystery book my Mom was reading the day I was born, which felt so fun!) I reread the Anne of Green Gable series after having my daughter and read Master and Commander as a fun boy book for my son. We're having another boy and I'm deciding on what book to pick for him. Treasure Island? Around the World in 80 Days? The Jungle Book? Peter Pan? I'll have to put some thought into it!
Right?! It was even funnier for me to read since I live in a walkable Catholic neighborhood that takes great inspiration from Dr. John Senior's ideas and our community is called St. Irenaeus. And the town in the book is San Irenaeo. We have a monkish man living in a theological library in an old house who teaches community Bible studies and teaches Latin to children and in the summer there are always gaggles of kids running through his garden and sword fighting with him. It was so weirdly spot on to my life that I found myself arguing with the book, like, "But he wouldn't say that." Forgetting that these are fictional characters and the author doesn't know us! 😅
Ha! I also live in an intentional Catholic neighborhood and our most San Irenaeo trait is that the kids in one of the carpooling cars to my husband's high school decided to make their ride Latin-only for conversation.
Happy New Year, Leah! Among other books, I want to reread “Gunnar’s Daughter” by Sigrid Undset, “The Planets” by Dava Sobel, and “The Lord of the Rings,” and I want to read “In This House of Brede” by Rumer Godden and “Bend Sinister “ by Vladimir Nabokov for the first time.
I really want to read 2 to 3 of the novels from the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold for her exploration of the many potential impacts (positive and negative) of artificial wombs, Chesterton’s father brown series which feel like they would be fun for late night breastfeeding with a newborn and dip my toe into some Marion theology with Adrienne Von Speyr’s Handmaiden of the Lord and Brant Pietre’s Jesus and Jewish Roots of Mary.
The Francis book is great, I read it before choosing him for my Confirmation name. Made me want more historical rigorous work on Saints, since while there is some debunking I found my understanding of Francis's strengths also changed.
As far as nonfiction goes, I'd like to finish Jean Daniélou's "From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers" and Romano Guardini's "The End of the Modern World". For fiction, I'm rereading Garth Nix's Old Kingdom series (childhood favorite) and will hopefully read at least one book by Nick Cutter, maybe Little Heaven.
I don't know. He's British and was asked to write a study of Classical Education and Catholic Education by some of the bishops there. This is the second book. The first one (which blew my mind and will probably be an annual reread for a few years until I understand it better) is Beauty for Truth's Sake and deals with mathematics, music, philosophy,and theology.
For social studies, I hope to work through Peter Brown’s tome “Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West”. Hopefully it lives up to the description and gives insight and nuance into the role of wealth within the development of Christian thought.
Would also like to re-read several books including “Lord of the Rings” (it’s been about 5 years since the last reading). I would also like to re-read Newman’s “Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” (over 10 years since I read that during my conversion to Catholicism).
I’m currently working my way through volume 3 of Ian Toll’s trilogy about the Pacific War in WWII: “Twilight of the Gods”. (A Christmas gift from my wife. 😄)
I also want to get back into some deeper Biblical studies, so will probably read large segments of “A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: Old Testament” by John Bergsma and Brant Pitre.
However, we’re also expecting our 4th child in April, so heavier reading could be difficult this year. We’ll see how it goes. Haha!
Fun fact about Let the Record Show: Sarah Schulman didn't fact check the book and it's got quite a few errors in it. When I wrote about this for The Guardian in 2021, almost every single ACT UP veteran I contacted insisted on being off the record because they didn't want to have to deal with Schulman. And when I told her I'd be reporting that she didn't fact check the book and it had significant errors, she flew into an unfettered rage.
Hoo boy. Can you gesture vaguely in the direction of what kind of complaints people had (e.g. correct events/wrong credit; taking factional sides; something else?)
Allow yourself a bit of grace with the Augustine Thompson biography of Francis. Count it as completed once you get halfway through! Not saying you couldn't read and enjoy the back half, but it's very much a different kind of beast.
The first half is a narrative retelling of the life of Francis, more or less the summary of his method/research. The second half is his academic research, including discussion of each of the sources.
You've convinced me to read LET THE RECORD SHOW!
I love the idea of prioritizing books I already have and keep meaning to read. I'm going to have to consider how many I can realistically put on the list with baby on the way, though.
Wonder Weeks is a pretty good add to the list (if you treat the underlying theory as v v speculative but use it as a rough roadmap for new things your baby is going to be up to explore)
And do a Let the Record Show book club with me!
I mostly read fiction with a sprinkling of history/biography. Last year, Hannah's Children by Catherine Ruth Pakaluk (a survey of college educated American women choosing to have 5 or more children) was a standout among my Non-fiction reading. The Feast by Margaret Kennedy was a surprise buzzer beater in fiction, as I read it during the week of Christmas.
I just started Our Mutual Friend as my Dickens audiobook for the year and Green Dolphin Street as my bedside table read. Both are off to a delightful start.
I have a book club on Little Women this week and one on The Awakening of Miss Prim later this month (a sort of Hallmark channel light-romance-style novelization of Dr. John Senior's The Restoration of Christian Culture, the book is a first novel and in translation from Spanish, so the writing itself isn't remarkable, though it's an easy two-day read, but I'm very interested to discuss steps other people are taking to build community -as the book shows- in their real lives).
I may dive into The Civil War vol 2 by Shelby Foote, but then again, I'm having a baby this year and my hormones may not be ready for that much death, even though the first volume was great. (I was impressed how modern 1860s was! When telegraphs can communicate across the country and the newspaper can print by the next day, it really felt like President Lincoln could receive text messages and the country was fairly quickly informed about the latest news (or misinformed, as the case may be!).)
I always pick a book to be reading before/after giving birth that I can tell that child was "their" book, so they can read it when they're a teenager if they choose. (In eighth grade, I read the mystery book my Mom was reading the day I was born, which felt so fun!) I reread the Anne of Green Gable series after having my daughter and read Master and Commander as a fun boy book for my son. We're having another boy and I'm deciding on what book to pick for him. Treasure Island? Around the World in 80 Days? The Jungle Book? Peter Pan? I'll have to put some thought into it!
I got an enormous kick out of The Awakening of Miss Prim
Right?! It was even funnier for me to read since I live in a walkable Catholic neighborhood that takes great inspiration from Dr. John Senior's ideas and our community is called St. Irenaeus. And the town in the book is San Irenaeo. We have a monkish man living in a theological library in an old house who teaches community Bible studies and teaches Latin to children and in the summer there are always gaggles of kids running through his garden and sword fighting with him. It was so weirdly spot on to my life that I found myself arguing with the book, like, "But he wouldn't say that." Forgetting that these are fictional characters and the author doesn't know us! 😅
Ha! I also live in an intentional Catholic neighborhood and our most San Irenaeo trait is that the kids in one of the carpooling cars to my husband's high school decided to make their ride Latin-only for conversation.
Amazing.
Other book ideas:
The Hobbit? Tom Sawyer? The Call of the Wild?
Happy New Year, Leah! Among other books, I want to reread “Gunnar’s Daughter” by Sigrid Undset, “The Planets” by Dava Sobel, and “The Lord of the Rings,” and I want to read “In This House of Brede” by Rumer Godden and “Bend Sinister “ by Vladimir Nabokov for the first time.
Just popping in to recommend Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary; I loved it and keep meaning to reread it.
I really want to read 2 to 3 of the novels from the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold for her exploration of the many potential impacts (positive and negative) of artificial wombs, Chesterton’s father brown series which feel like they would be fun for late night breastfeeding with a newborn and dip my toe into some Marion theology with Adrienne Von Speyr’s Handmaiden of the Lord and Brant Pietre’s Jesus and Jewish Roots of Mary.
I love Brant Pitre's books! Haven't gotten to the Mary one yet, but loved the Eucharist one.
The Francis book is great, I read it before choosing him for my Confirmation name. Made me want more historical rigorous work on Saints, since while there is some debunking I found my understanding of Francis's strengths also changed.
As far as nonfiction goes, I'd like to finish Jean Daniélou's "From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers" and Romano Guardini's "The End of the Modern World". For fiction, I'm rereading Garth Nix's Old Kingdom series (childhood favorite) and will hopefully read at least one book by Nick Cutter, maybe Little Heaven.
I loved Daniélou's Prayer as a Political Problem.
I loved Sabriel and Lirael, but not Abhorsen, alas.
I liked the original trilogy but the later books weren't as good IMHO, they seemed unnecessary.
I'm so glad there are other women and mothers whose reading list skews intellectual!
On mine:
Beauty in the Word -Caldecott Spaulding - second half of his treatise on Classical education
The Intellectual Life of the British Working Class - a study of how literacy came to the working class in Britain and what was read
Going to Church in Medieval England
Stripping the Altars
Ask of Old Paths
The Divine Comedy
That will take me through the first half of the year and then I reevaluate as I see where my intellectual needs and interests lie.
I loved Stripping of the Altars and I've got Ask of Old Paths on my shelf.
Is Caldecott the namesake of the Caldecott medal?
I don't know. He's British and was asked to write a study of Classical Education and Catholic Education by some of the bishops there. This is the second book. The first one (which blew my mind and will probably be an annual reread for a few years until I understand it better) is Beauty for Truth's Sake and deals with mathematics, music, philosophy,and theology.
For social studies, I hope to work through Peter Brown’s tome “Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West”. Hopefully it lives up to the description and gives insight and nuance into the role of wealth within the development of Christian thought.
Would also like to re-read several books including “Lord of the Rings” (it’s been about 5 years since the last reading). I would also like to re-read Newman’s “Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” (over 10 years since I read that during my conversion to Catholicism).
I’m currently working my way through volume 3 of Ian Toll’s trilogy about the Pacific War in WWII: “Twilight of the Gods”. (A Christmas gift from my wife. 😄)
I also want to get back into some deeper Biblical studies, so will probably read large segments of “A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: Old Testament” by John Bergsma and Brant Pitre.
However, we’re also expecting our 4th child in April, so heavier reading could be difficult this year. We’ll see how it goes. Haha!
The excerpts I've read from Through the Eye of a Needle were so good!
I will join you on Song of the Lamb, and perhaps more!
Fun fact about Let the Record Show: Sarah Schulman didn't fact check the book and it's got quite a few errors in it. When I wrote about this for The Guardian in 2021, almost every single ACT UP veteran I contacted insisted on being off the record because they didn't want to have to deal with Schulman. And when I told her I'd be reporting that she didn't fact check the book and it had significant errors, she flew into an unfettered rage.
Hoo boy. Can you gesture vaguely in the direction of what kind of complaints people had (e.g. correct events/wrong credit; taking factional sides; something else?)
This was four years ago, so my memory isn’t fresh. If you really want to know, DM me and I’ll look through my notes maybe later today.
Allow yourself a bit of grace with the Augustine Thompson biography of Francis. Count it as completed once you get halfway through! Not saying you couldn't read and enjoy the back half, but it's very much a different kind of beast.
What kind of turn does it take?
The first half is a narrative retelling of the life of Francis, more or less the summary of his method/research. The second half is his academic research, including discussion of each of the sources.
That is a v helpful note!