Books on an Island

Leather Books with LadderIn my younger years, I dreamed of buying an island and declaring it a sovereign nation.

To some degree, I still hold this fantasy.

My fledgling state is entirely self-sufficient, meaning that no-one need ever leave.

I mean, why would the even want to, right?

Among many as-of-yet-undetermined admittance requirements, one stands out:

Each citizen must provide five books to the public library.


Giving credit where credit is due, I am obviously not the first person to hypothesis what books one would desire on an island. Specifically, I am indebted to The Christian Humanist Podcast episode 66: Desert Island Books, which challenged listeners to pick five books to take with them on a desert island. As with most hypothetical games of this nature, there are a few ground rules:

1. The Bible is given

If you so desire you may have any version/language/translation

I’ll alter this somewhat to allow your own preferred religious text

2. Anything you can find in a single volume counts

This means books must be physical copies!

3. The library is communal, meaning that we all share our books.

There’s no need to repeat a given work.

4. This is the only way our library will be stocked.


Using the host choices from said podcast, our library currently contains

Confessions by Augustine of Hippo; Henry Chadwick (translator)

Church Dogmatics: A Selection by Karl Barth; Helmut Gollwitzer (editor)

The Rule of St. Benedict by Benedict of Nursia; Timothy Frye (editor)

The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius; Victor Watts (translator)

Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy by Walter Brueggemann

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri; John Ciardi (translator)

John Donne – The Major Works: Including Songs and Sonnets and Sermons by John Donne; John Carey (editor)

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky; Constance Garnett (translator)

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Complete Poems and Major Prose by John Milton; Merritt Y. Hughes (editor)

Complete Works by Plato; John M. Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson (editors)

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Riverside Shakespeare by William Shakespeare; G. Blakemore Evans and J.J.M. Tobin (editors)

The Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas; Fathers of the English Dominican Province (translators)

Rabbit Angstrom: A Tetralogy by John Updike


I suppose I should count myself fortunate that two of my essential books were previously chosen; namely, The Divine Comedy (in my preferred translation, no less!) and The Riverside Shakespeare.

Therefore, my own five contributions are:

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien; 50th Anniversary, One Vol. Edition

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Bulfinch’s Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch. New York: Sterling, 2015

Great Political Thinkers: Plato to the Present by Alan Ebenstein and William Ebenstein

The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

In addition, I’ll specify my Bible translation as Martin Luther’s translation


What five books would you contribute?


Have a suggestion for a poem, photograph, or future post?

Drop a note in the prompt box!

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Teaser Tuesday: The Casual Vacancy

The weatherman forecasts rain this week.

Just in time for the wheel of time to turn to:

Teaser TuesdayJust in case you don’t know, Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! All you have to do is grab the book you’re currently reading, open to a random page and share a few sentences from that page. But make sure you don’t share any spoilers!*

*I wish I could take credit for this introduction, but I shamelessly stole it from Heather over at bitsnbooks. To help me make amends, you should go check out her blog.

This week I’m reading The Casual Vacancy by J.K Rowling.

Yes, that J.K. Rowling.

No, it’s not about Harry Potter.

The Truly Random Number Generator sends us to page 138.

A tourniquet of fear was released; relief gushed
through three of the watchers; Simon stopped 
pulling his Neanderthal face. 

The Casual Vacancy coverI’ve read Rowling’s two mystery novels written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith and found them quite engaging; here’s hoping The Casual Vacancy passes muster.

In Retrospect

I gave All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 5 stars.

I found the subject and style of the book engaging; so engaging I finished the novel in under a day.

The book even made it onto my “Books To Buy Even Though I’ve Already Read Them” list.

In my opinion, it certainly lived up to the hype.

Bingo Square: set during a war or conflict

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman earned 3 stars.

The storyline was a tad obvious and the ending somewhat unsatisfactory.

Billed by some as a “sequel” to American Gods, Anansi Boys has little – if anything – to do with its predecessor.

Bingo Square: involves magic

John le Carré’s A Most Wanted Man scored 5 stars.

A well-written suspense/thriller novel that had me guessing.

Bingo Square: suspense/thriller

 

What have you been reading?

 


 

Have a suggestion for a poem, photograph, or future post?

Drop a note in the prompt box!

 

Don’t forget to follow me on:

Facebook – where I share news stories, articles from other blogs, and various and sundry miscellany that happens to catch my eye. It’s stuff you won’t see here! Well, mostly.

Instagram – where I show you my Life in Motion and share quotes and such. The widget only shows my last three photographs – don’t you want to see them all?

Twitter – where you can see my thoughts in 140 characters or less. Also, funny retweets.

Teaser Tuesday: All the Light We Cannot See

Having finished most of my Netflix queue, I’ve also polished off my at-home TBR.

Taken together, the wheel of time has turned to:

Teaser TuesdayJust in case you don’t know, Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! All you have to do is grab the book you’re currently reading, open to a random page and share a few sentences from that page. But make sure you don’t share any spoilers!*

*I wish I could take credit for this introduction, but I shamelessly stole it from Heather over at bitsnbooks. To help me make amends, you should go check out her blog.

This week I’m reading All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr.

1. It’s on my TBR

2. It’s a one-week loan from the library

3. It’s longer than 500 pages

Book Bingo Card 1The Truly Random Number Generator sends us to page 97.

She smells smoke and knows. Fire. The glass has
shattered her bedroom window, and what she hears
is the sound of something burning beyond the 
shutters. Something huge. The neighborhood. 
The entire town. 

All the Light We Cannot See cover

In Retrospect

I gave Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton 4 stars.

The book was well-written and engaging; however, I deducted points for three things:

Mrs. Clinton persists in calling the United States a democracy.

It is not – it is a democracy in a republic.

Mrs. Clinton acknowledges her faults only twice.

Everything other failing is a vast conspiracy to undermine her or her goals.

Mrs. Clinton presents progress for progress’ sake as a desirable ideal.

It was like reading a defense of Dolores Umbridge by Dolores Umbridge.

In summary, I would probably get along with Mrs. Clinton so long as politics never became a topic of discussion.

Bingo square: a biography of someone you dislike.

What have you been reading?


Don’t forget to follow me on:

Facebook – where I share news stories, articles from other blogs, and various and sundry miscellany that happens to catch my eye. It’s stuff you won’t see here! Well, mostly.

Instagram – where I show you my Life in Motion and share quotes and such. The widget only shows my last three photographs – don’t you want to see them all?

Twitter – where you can see my thoughts in 140 characters or less. Also, funny retweets.

The Bookshelf of Roy G. Biv

The Roy G. Biv challenge proved especially difficult given my colorblindness.

I flat-out annoyed K to no end asking “is this indigo?” and “is this violet?”

Most of the time they weren’t; but she helped my finally get it right.

I present to you the bookshelf of Roy G. Biv:

Roy G Biv Books

For the record, the Pretty Little Liars book is K’s.

Does it matter?

I guess not.


 

Have a suggestion for a poem, photograph, or future post?

Drop a note in the prompt box!

 

Don’t forget to follow me on:

 

Facebook – where I share news stories, articles from other blogs, and various and sundry miscellany that happens to catch my eye. It’s stuff you won’t see here! Well, mostly.

 

Instagram – where I show you my Life in Motion and share quotes and such. The widget only shows my last three photographs – don’t you want to see them all?

 

Twitter – where you can see my thoughts in 140 characters or less. Also, funny retweets.

Choose Your Own [Instagram] Adventure!

I delight in finding quotes and sharing them with others.

You already know this if you follow me on Instagram, where I routinely use the hashtags

Terry Pratchett Tuesday

and

Philosophy Friday

click to embiggen

However, that’s not enough.

There are five other days of the week.

I dabbled with Theology Thursday and Philosophy Thursday;

rolled them both into Philosophy Friday.

Here’s where you come in:

I need help filling up the week.

Give me your suggestions in the comments!

 

Emerson Book Quotation Quote


 

Don’t forget to follow me on:

 

Facebook – where I share news stories, articles from other blogs, and various and sundry miscellany that happens to catch my eye. It’s stuff you won’t see here! Well, mostly.

 

Instagram – where I show you my Life in Motion and share quotes and such. The widget only shows my last three photographs – don’t you want to see them all?

 

Twitter – where you can see my thoughts in 140 characters or less. Also, funny retweets.

Teaser Tuesday: 1916: The Easter Rising (3.0)

Yesterday I cut down the brush encroaching my house.

Last night a piece aluminum siding broke free, blowing in the wind.

This morning I fixed it, and

I had actual, honest-to-goodness wired internet installed.

That’s right:

No more relying on my phone as a hot spot.

No more mooching off my in-laws to download/upload large files.

But let’s be honest, I’ll still spend quite a bit of time there.

Family

Good Food

On the Water

No more using the work WiFi to blog.

Unless I want to, of course.

Disclaimer: I didn’t use it during work hours;

I come in early and stay late.

They don’t mind.

And so, thanks to the packet-switching that drives the internet, SuddenLink Communications, and the wheel of time, it is my pleasure to bring you my first post via my own cabled internet:

Teaser TuesdayJust in case you don’t know, Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! All you have to do is grab the book you’re currently reading, open to a random page and share two sentences from that page. But make sure you don’t share any spoilers!*

*I wish I could take credit for this introduction, but I shamelessly stole it from Heather over at bitsnbooks. To help me make amends, you should go check out her blog.


This week I’m reading 1916: The Easter Rising by Tim Pat Coogan.

Actually, this marks the third time I’ve tried to read it. This should not be a reflection on Mr. Coogan, time and life simply stalled out the other attempts. Thus far, it’s quite readable and enjoyable.

I used the Truly Random Number Generator to pick the page number; it chose page 35.

I must admit, it isn’t the most riveting of passages, but that’s what you get when you leave things to fate/chance.

The British system was based on:

 (a) The grasp of human weakness and vanity.

 (b) A correct appreciation of the value and use 
       of duplicity and Pecksniffianism.

 (c) A clear conception of the truth that success in 
       governing depends on well-contrived 
       antagonisms in the economic and social 
       structure of the state. 

1916 The Easter Rising Tim Pat Coogan Cover

In Retrospect

I finished two books since the last Teaser Tuesday:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré socred 4/5 stars. It was a fairly decent mystery story, but the pace may be a little slow for those accustomed to modern thrillers. After reading, I also understand why people complained the movie was incredibly slow [I haven’t seen it; I wonder if it’s on Netflix?]. However, I loved the story for the story’s sake – even if I did figure out whodunnit about a quarter of the way through – and am thankful my library has more of le Carré’s works.

A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie scored 2/5 stars. I found the plot slightly less than intriguing, the characters flat, and the resolution bordering on Deus ex machina. I also new whodunnit by the time Miss Marple made her appearance – it wasn’t that hard to figure it out. On the plus side, my edition didn’t yet exist on Goodreads, so I got to add it to the list!

What have you been reading?


 

Don’t forget to follow me on:

 

Facebook – where I share news stories, articles from other blogs, and various and sundry miscellany that happens to catch my eye. It’s stuff you won’t see here! Well, mostly.

 

Instagram – where I show you my Life in Motion and share quotes and such. The widget only shows my last three photographs – don’t you want to see them all?

 

Twitter – where you can see my thoughts in 140 characters or less. Also, funny retweets.

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