Ashes From Burnt Roses: My 2019 Reads

Sunday, February 9, 2020

My 2019 Reads

Completed First Quarter:

“The Background,” a short story by Saki (H. H. Munro).

“How to Mark a Book,” an essay by Mortimer J. Adler.

“In the Snow,” a short story by Stefan Zweig, translated by Anathea Bell.

“Poldi,” a short story by Carson McCullers.

“Mother,” a short story by Sherwood Anderson.

Book of Jeremiah, a book of the Old Testament, RSV Translation.

“A Sin Confessed,” a short story by Giovanni Guareschi, translated by Adam Elgar.

“Gibberish,” a short story by Thomas Berger.

“A Fire-Stained Cathedral Gargoyle: Léon Bloy and the Catholic Literary Tradition,” an essay by Joshua Wren.

"Why Bugsy Siegel Was a Friend of Mine," a short story by James Lee Burke.

Paradiso, 3rd part of the epic poem, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, translated and annotated by Robert and Jean Hollander.

Paradiso, 3rd part of the epic poem, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, translated and annotated by Anthony Esolen.

Completed Second Quarter:

The Life of Saint Dominic, a biography by Augusta Theodosia Drane.

The Fathers of the Church: An Introduction to the First Christian Teachers, 3^rd Edition, a non-fiction work by Mike Aquilina.

"Thunder and Roses" a short story by Theodore Sturgeon.

"A House on the Plains" a short story by E.L. Doctorow.

Book of Jeremiah, a book of the Old Testament, KJV Translation.

Book of Lamentations, a book of the Old Testament, KJV Translation.

Book of Lamentations, a book of the Old Testament, RSV Translation.

The First Letter of John, an epistle from the New Testament, RSV Translation.

The First Letter of John, an epistle from the New Testament, KJV Translation.

The Imitation of Christ, a non-fiction devotional by Thomas à Kempis.

The Second Letter of John, an epistle from the New Testament, RSV Translation.

The Second Letter of John, an epistle from the New Testament, KJV Translation.

The Third Letter of John, an epistle from the New Testament, RSV Translation.

The Third Letter of John, an epistle from the New Testament, KJV Translation.

Completed Third Quarter:

Death Comes for the Archbishop, a novel by Willa Cather.

“Social Error,” a short story Damon Runyan.

In the Image of St. Dominic: Nine Portraits of Dominican Life, a collection of short biographies by Guy Bedouelle, O.P.

Mariette in Ecstasy, a novel by Ron Hansen.

“The Sin of Jesus,” a short story Isaac Babel.

Pascendi Dominici Gregis, a Papal Encyclical by Pope Pius X.

Completed Fourth Quarter:

Vol 5 of Les Misérables, “Jean Valjean” a novel by Victor Hugo.

“The Worst You Ever Feel,” a short story by Rebecca Makkai.

“The Light of the World,” a short story by Ernest Hemingway.

“The Salvation of the Hearer the Motive of the Preacher,” a discourse by St. John Henry Newman.

“Wilde in Omaha,” a short story by Ron Hansen.

“Blood, Sea,” a short story by Italo Calvino and translated by William Weaver.

The Letter of James, an epistle from the New Testament, RSV Translation.

The Letter of James, an epistle from the New Testament, KJV Translation.

Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, an autobiography of Bishop Fulton Sheen.

“The Martyrdom of Polycarp,” an account on the martyrdom of St. Polycarp by an unknown writer.

Brief Lives: Stendhal, a biography of Marie-Henri Beyle (Stendhal) by Andrew Brown.

Gospel of Matthew, a work from the New Testament, RSV Translation.

The First Letter of Peter, an epistle from the New Testament, RSV Translation.

The First Letter of Peter, an epistle from the New Testament, KJV Translation.

The Second Letter of Peter, an epistle from the New Testament, RSV Translation.

The Second Letter of Peter, an epistle from the New Testament, KJV Translation.

The Letter of Jude, an epistle from the New Testament, RSV Translation.

The Letter of Jude, an epistle from the New Testament, KJV Translation.

“Where Love is, There God is Also,” a short story by Leo Tolstoy.

“A Child's Christmas in Wales,” a short story and prose poem by Dylan Thomas.

“The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son,” a discourse by St. John Henry Newman.

The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home, a novella by Charles Dickens.

The Horse and His Boy, a novel from the The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis.

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I’m pretty late with my 2019 summary. But I have to say, I read a lot last year! It was one of my most read years. This year I read thirteen full length books, twelve books of the Bible (eleven in two different translations), seventeen short stories, and six short non-fiction works. If you averaged that over a monthly basis, it would be roughly one full length book, two books of the Bible, and two short works per month. How did I find the time for that? I don’t really know. I’m impressed, if I say so myself.

Of the full length books, six were non-fiction and seven fiction. Of the non-fiction books, four were biographies. Augusta Theodosia Dranes’s The Life of Saint Dominic and Andrew Brown’s Brief Lives: Stendhal were standard biographies, though Drane’s had a bit of hagiography mixed in. Treasure in Clay was Bishop Fulton Sheen’s autobiography. Sheen has been undergoing the canonization process and should be declared a saint shortly. The last biography, Guy Bedouelle’s In the Image of St. Dominic: Nine Portraits of Dominican Life was a series biographical sketches, all of whom reflected some aspect of St. Dominic’s nature, the founder of the Order of Preachers. The remaining two non-fiction books were non biographical. Mike Aquilina’s The Fathers of the Church is a survey of Church Father’s writings and Thomas à Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ is a devotional, one of the most famous devotionals.

Of the fictional works, four were novels, one novella and the last cantica from Dante’s Divine Comedy, Paradiso, but I read it twice in two different translations, so I’m counting that as two books. Also consider I read the annotations and commentary in both. Both translations are recommended. I would consider the Hollander and Hollander translation as the “gold standard” for both scholarship and poeticism, but the Anthony Esolen translation is just as solid and perhaps simpler for the non-scholar. I also thoroughly enjoyed all four of the novels. I completed the volumes of Hugo’s tome Les Misérables, which I started five or six years ago. The immense opus is divided into five volumes, each volume of about a novel length, and every year I read one volume as a novel. This year I read the fifth and last volume, titled “Jean Valjean.” I made progress on The Chronicles of Narnia series I’ve been reading. I read this with my son, Matthew, and this year we finished The Horse and His Boy. Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop is a wonderful classic that everyone should read, especially Americans since it covers some of history in the Southwest. Ron Hansen’s Mariette in Ecstasy should and I think will be a classic. I thought it was one of the best contemporary novels I have ever read. Finally, Charles Dickens novella, The Cricket on the Hearth was terrible. I can’t believe it was actually more popular in its day than A Christmas Carol. Unless you’re a Dickens fan that feels compelled to read everything he wrote, spare yourself on that one.

I continued to make my way through the Bible. Of the twelve books from the Bible, two were from the Old Testament (Jerimiah and Lamentations) and ten were from the New Testament. The two OT works and nine of the ten NT works were read twice each in two different translations. As I’ve said before, I’m trying to complete the Bible in the King James Version for its value to the English language, but because I also want to understand what I’m reading as best I can I am also reading it in a modern language translation. The modern translation I used is the Ignatius Revised Standard Version (RSV). In the past I think I had been calling it the Ignatius NIV. That was a mistake. There is no such book as the Ignatius NIV. It’s RSV. I’ve now corrected it here. In the NT this year I read all the non-Pauline epistles. The one scripture text I read only in Ignatius RSV was the Gospel of Matthew. I had already read it in KJV. I read Matthew again this year because at Mass we are in the A Liturgical Year where most of the readings are from the first Gospel.

Of the twenty-three short works I read, six were non-fiction. Two are essays. Mortimer J. Adler’s “How to Mark a Book” is a well-known essay that I think every reader should read. Joshua Wren’s essay on Leon Bloy opened me up to a writer I had never heard. Another of my short non-fiction reads was a papal encyclical, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, by Pope Pius X, an argument against the intellectual trend of modernism. Another was the narrative account from the Church Fathers relating the martyrdom of St. Polycarp. Finally there were two discourses from the recently canonized saint, John Henry Newman. A Newman “discourse” is a sort of blend between an essay and a sermon, and both discourses were great reads. I can see how Newman has a fine reputation as a preacher and a prose stylist.

Normally at this point in my annual review I assess the short stories and crown what I consider the best story I read for the year. I’m going to do something different this year. I’m going to dedicate a specific post to review and rate all the short stories. Suffice it to say that I read seventeen stories. They ranged from traditional stories to experimental writing, from realism to science fiction, from religious to anti-religious, from serious to comedic, from well-known writers to unknown writers, from exceptional stories to downright duds,. You can see below their titles and authors. Reading short stories is truly a pleasure and something everyone should squeeze into their reading schedule.

My list of reads above organizes them in roughly chronological reading order, divided by quarter. Below I re-arranged the reads by type of work. I did this two years ago and I like listing it both ways. It gives insight into what I’ve read.

Full Length Books: 13

Non-Fiction: