Typically I have an initial post at
the beginning of the year on the upcoming plans for the year, and then I post
an update at the end of each quarter with the fourth quarter being the
conclusion of the year’s reads. This
year I had that initial post in January and a first quarter update, and then I
abandoned my poor blog readers without an update the rest of the year. I apologize, and if you thought I had given
up on reading, you were mistaken.
Anyway, you can tell by my posts throughout the year I was certainly
reading. Here is the final quarter’s
update which summarizes my reads for 2018.
First a listing of what I read by quarter, and then I’ll break it down
in a summary.
Completed
First Quarter:
From Islam to Christ: One Woman’s
Path through the Riddles of God,
a confessional memoir by Derya Little.
The Inferno, 1st part of the epic poem, The Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri, translated and annotated by Robert and Jean Hollander.
The Inferno, 1st part of the epic poem, The Divine Comedy by
Dante Alighieri, translated and annotated by Anthony Esloen.
"Behind the Veil," a short
story by Dhu'l Nun Ayyoub, translated by S. Al-Bazzazz.
The Way of the Cross, a non-fiction devotional by Caryll
Houselander.
A Man Could Stand Up, the 3rd novel of the Parade’s End
Tetralogy by Ford Madox Ford.
The Magician’s Nephew, a novel from the The Chronicles of Narnia
series by C. S. Lewis.
“The Call of the
Cthulhu,” a short story by H. P. Lovecraft.
“Hard Times,” a short
story by Ron Rash.
Completed
Second Quarter:
“The Dead,” a short story by James
Joyce.
“Arrangement in Black and White,” a
short story by Dorothy Parker.
Humanae Vitae, a Papal Encyclical by Pope Paul VI.
The Book of Isaiah, a book of the Old Testament, KJV translation.
The Power of Silence: Against the
Dictatorship of Noise, a non-fiction work of theology by
Robert Cardinal Sarah.
Completed
Third Quarter:
The Everlasting Man, a non-fiction book of Christian apologetics by G. K.
Chesterton.
“Flowering Judas,” a short story by Katherine
Ann Porter.
Purgatorio, 2nd part of the epic poem, The Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri, translated and annotated by Robert and Jean Hollander.
Purgatorio, 2nd part of the epic poem, The Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri, translated and annotated by Anthony Esolen.
Completed
Fourth Quarter:
“Letter to the Corinthians,” a papal
epistle from Pope Clement I.
The Book of Isaiah, a book of the Old Testament, RSV (Catholic Edition)
Translations.
Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics, a non-fiction book by Daniel Ali and Robert Spencer.
Confessions of a Convert, a non-fiction memoir by Robert Hugh Benson.
Not All of Me is Dust, a novel by Frances Maureen Richardson.
Blood Pressure Down: The-10 Step to
Lower Your Blood Pressure in 10 Weeks—Without Prescription Drugs, a self-help, non-fiction book by Dr. Janet Bond Brill.
The Gospel of Luke, a book of the New Testament, Revised Standard Version,
Catholic Edition.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a novel from the The Chronicles of Narnia series by
C. S. Lewis.
The Letter to the Hebrews, an epistle in the New Testament attributed to St. Paul,
KJV and RSV (Ignatius) translations.
Joy to the World: How Christ's
Coming Changed Everything (and Still Does),
a non-fiction work on Christian theology by Scott Hahn.
Vol 4 of Les Misérables, “Saint-Denis,
the Idyll in the Rue Plumet, and the Epic in the Rue Saint-Denis” a novel by
Victor Hugo.
Currently Reading:
Julius Caesar: Life of a Colossus, a biography by Adrian Goldsworthy.
The Virgin and the Gipsy, a short novel by D. H. Lawrence.
Hildegard of Bingen: Selected
Writings, a collection translated and edited
by Mark Atherton.
Fra Angelico (Metropolitan Museum of
Art Series), a non-fiction work on art by
Laurence Kanter, Pia Palladino, and others.
The Life of Saint Dominic, a biography by Augusta Theodosia Drane.
The Fathers of the Church: An
Introduction to the First Christian Teachers,
3rd Edition, a non-fiction work by Mike Aquilina.
As
you can see, being the moderator of the Catholic Thought Book Club at Goodreads
shapes my reading list. I would say that
more than half—perhaps three quarters—is determined by the book club selection,
and since I’m moderator I can’t really opt out of a read. The readings break down in the following
manner. Nine works of fiction, eight
works of non-fiction, only six short stories, five books from the Bible, and
two papal documents. Let’s take the categories
individually.
In
the nine works of fiction, I include two individual canticles of Dante’s Divine
Comedy separately. It is a poetic epic,
but I count it as fiction because it is narrative in nature, and I count the
canticles (Inferno and Purgatorio) as separate works. Each are book length. Also I count the two different translations (Hollander
and Hollander and Esolen) separately since I read them both. In all four of the nine works stemmed from
Dante. As you may know I’ve been reading
Ford Madox Ford’s tetralogy of novels set during World War I collected under
the title Parade’s End. This year I read the third of the four, A Man Could Stand Up. One more to go. In that vein, the last few years I’ve been reading
the over 1200 page epic Les Misérables
by Victor Hugo. Because of its length I’ve
been reading annually one of the five volumes and counting each as a
novel. This year I read the fourth
volume, “Saint-Denis, the Idyll in the Rue Plumet, and the Epic in the Rue
Saint-Denis.” One more year to go on this
too. I’ve been reading C. S. Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia series with my
son. This year we read the first two, The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They are delightful and frankly not just for
children. Finally, I read Not All of Me is Dust, a novel written
by an incredibly nice woman I met in my Catholic Thought Book Club at
Goodreads, Frances Maureen Richardson. I
would classify this as a Catholic novel since the faith of the characters is at
the center of each of their lives, but it is way more than that. It’s a journey through the second half of the
20th century with its declining faith and one person whose example
stands against it. I haven’t posted on
this novel here yet, but I intend to do so.
Seven
of the eight non-fiction works have a theological element to them. Two of the books I would classify as
confessional memoirs. They are
autobiographic and focus on a particular element of their lives. Both books were religious conversion
stories. Derya Little’s From Islam to Christ tells of her conversion
from growing up with Islam in Turkey and becoming Roman Catholic. Robert Hugh Benson’s Confessions of a Convert also speaks of a conversion to Roman
Catholicism, he being an Anglican priest and son of an Anglican Archbishop at
the turn of the end of the 19th century.
Both took the reader through their theological reasoning and personal
emotions. Four of the non-fiction books were
theological discourses. Robert Cardinal
Sarah’s The Power of Silence
discussed the need for silence as a means to communicate and understand
God. G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man identified the
importance of man and Christ in the shaping of human and salvation history. In Inside
Islam: A Guide for Catholics, Daniel Ali—also a convert to Catholicism—provided
a handbook of the differences between the two religions. Scott Hahn’s Joy to the World provided a wonderful exegesis to the Christmas
narrative. The final non-fiction was a
self-help book by Dr. Janet Bond Brill, Blood
Pressure Down on how to lower one’s blood pressure, as the title
states. It’s becoming an issue for me.
I
only read five short stories this past year as opposed to my usual
twenty-four. Actually last year I only
read eighteen, so my trend is toward fewer short stories. That’s a shame because I get so much
diversity from reading so many different writers. I need to try to do better on that. With only six, I won’t go through a whole lot
on what I thought of them. I’ll just
rate them as exceptional, good, ordinary, and duds. “Behind the Veil” by Iraqi writer Dhu’l Nun
Ayyoub, was ordinary. “The Call of the
Cthulhu” by H. P. Lovecraft was also ordinary.
“Hard Times” by Ron Rash was good.
“The Dead” by James Joyce was exceptional. “Arrangement in Black and White” by Dorothy
Parker was a dud. “Flowering Judas” by
Katherine Ann Parker was good. So the
winner of the best of the short stories read this year is James Joyce’s “The
Dead,” a classic and one of the best works Joyce wrote.
I
read five books out of the Bible this year.
I am counting The Book of Isaiah
and The Letter to the Hebrews twice
each because of two different translations.
As those who have read my blog may know, I am trying to read through the
Bible both in King James Translation (to get a feel for the English language of
the time) and a contemporary Catholic translation (to get the most
comprehension of the work). The fifth
work from the Bible read this year was The
Gospel of Luke and since I had read this before I only read it in RSV
translation. We are in the C lectionary
year for readings at Mass, which means the predominant Gospel readings will
come from Luke. So the book club read the entire Gospel up
front as a way to prepare us for this year’s readings. We did this last year with the Gospel of Mark.
The
book club also read two papal documents.
We read Humanae Vitae, a papal encyclical which had reached its fifty year anniversary, from Pope Paul
VI. The book club also read the Letter to the Corinthians by church
father Pope Clement I. Pope Clement I was
the fourth Bishop of Rome and held office from 88 to 99 AD.
On
the list of currently reading but unfinished are three reads from the past I have
not gone back to this year: Goldworthy’s Julius
Caesar, Lawrence’s The Virgin and the
Gypsy, and the selected writings of Hildgard
of Bingen. The art book on Fra
Angelico’s work and the biography of St. Dominic were added this year, and
every so often I will read a few pages.
Also added was Mike Aquilina’s The
Fathers of the Church, which is a survey book of good portion of the church
fathers. This is a book we’re reading at
my parish Bible study this year.
As
you can see, almost everything I read these days is related to Catholicism in
some way.
