Books

Over the past couple of months I've checked the following off my Reading List: The Four Loves, Follow Me, The Jewel That Was Ours, The Way Through the Woods, The Daughters of Cain, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Empty Mansions.

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis.
Firstly, I felt more intelligent just starting to read this book; followed by periods of thoughtfulness and reflection; and lastly uncomfortableness about whether I am, or am not, doing an even mildly acceptable job of loving others as God has intended. The question, am I or am I not, is actually why I bought this book. So, I would say the purchase and read were very worth while for me.

Follow Me by David Platt.
We read this as part of a group study (although I didn't finish it until after the study was over) and I had high expectations because of how his book Radical changed my thinking about lifestyle, goals, and the other people on our planet. It was okay.

The Jewel That Was Ours, The Way Through the Woods, and The Daughters of Cain by Colin Dexter.
Morse and Lewis are like pleasant friends now. I really enjoy their interactions and I still haven't been able to completely solve the crime puzzle that Dexter creates until Morse explains it to Lewis at the end of each book. The Jewel That Was Ours is my favorite of these three books; The Daughters of Cain contains a spot of writing that was too graphic for my tastes and left me wishing I could unread a page. I have two books remaining to read about Inspector Morse, but I'm taking a break to read a biography of Augustus.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.
I remember being thoroughly bored as a high schooler reading The Old Man and the Sea but Hemingway is supposed to be such a classic author that I finally read this novel about the Spanish Civil War (and learned that the Spain apparently had a civil war in the 1930's!). I use the term finally because I stole borrowed this book from a neighbor during my freshman year of college. I'm glad I read it. I can't say I rushed in anticipation to the ending, but I did enjoy reading it and was impressed how he told the story - there is so much dialogue and I found his ability to write that many conversations impressive.

Empty Mansions by Bill Deedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.
R got me this for Christmas. It's a perfect book for a nosey person like me who likes to spend time in the past. Well researched and well presented, this story is fascinating without embellishment. Ask R and MMD - I will talk, and talk, about this story if you ask me (or, in their case, if they just happened to be around me while I was reading).