Reading is Fundamental
So The Clam tagged me for a book meme. Ahem. Why she would do that is beyond me. I hate to read, and she knows it. Hahahaha. If there were such a thing as book-buyers anonymous, The Clam and I would be attending weekly, although...(get ready to be shocked) she and I went into our local Super Giant Mega Book Store over the weekend and didn't buy anything! (GASP!) Of course, I'm feeling particularly poor because of all the moolah I've laid out for my new home, so that was probably a contributing factor...
Anyway, here's the meme, for better or for worse, and I tag DJ, The Canuck and...Tim Ferguson. Yeah. OK, dudes, show us gals up!
Three works of non-fiction everyone should read:
1. The Bible (along with the Catechism of the Cat'lik Church). Especially if you are not a Catholic, or not a Christian. If you're going to disagree with something, don't you think you ought to know what you are disagreeing with?
2. Theology of the Body by Pope John Paul II. OK, ok, I haven't actually read the book. I have been working on the Intro to the Theology of the Body. It's just that deep. However, I hope to actually scratch the surface of the TOTB within the next year or two. This is one of those things about being a Cat'lik - nothing is easy. As Ven. John Newman said (I wish I could remember it exactly) "Catholicism is a deep subject. You cannot catch it in a teacup."
3. Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. I know - everyone says that one. What can I say? It's a classic for a reason, and when I read it (in college) even though I was already a Christian, it really started me down the road of critical thinking.
Three works of fiction everyone should read:
1. In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden. I don't know how this book escaped me for so long, but now that I have read it, I am anxiously searching out her other faith-themed books. It was poignant and beautiful, and those 600+ pages flew by!
2. The complete works of William Shakespeare. All jokes aside, the man was a truly timeless writer, and he should be read by everyone.
3. The Little House books. OK, they are technically kind of memoirs, but they are also not, and they give us a first class picture of pioneer life. Always a joy to read.
Three authors everyone should read:
1. Fulton Sheen.
2. GK Chesterton.
3. The Pope. Any and all popes.
Three books no one should read:
1. The DaVinci Code. And not just because it's full of blasphemy. Also because it's very badly written. Seriously. The guy writes like a 7th grader. And that's NOT a compliment. I actually tried to read it so I could debate it with various protty family members, and I couldn't get past about page 60. It was horrid. This guy makes the "It was a dark and stormy night" dude look like Shakespeare.
2. Pretty much anything by Garry Wills.
3. Madame Bovary. Wow, a little controversial, huh? I hated this book. Absolutely hated it. Hated it in English, hated it in French. She was spineless, weak and manipulative, and when things didn't go her way, she topped herself. (Oops! Just gave away the ending, so now you don't have to read it!) It was a horrid book, and I came away from it wishing that I could send Scarlett O'Hara over there to smack her around...
Anyway, here's the meme, for better or for worse, and I tag DJ, The Canuck and...Tim Ferguson. Yeah. OK, dudes, show us gals up!
Three works of non-fiction everyone should read:
1. The Bible (along with the Catechism of the Cat'lik Church). Especially if you are not a Catholic, or not a Christian. If you're going to disagree with something, don't you think you ought to know what you are disagreeing with?
2. Theology of the Body by Pope John Paul II. OK, ok, I haven't actually read the book. I have been working on the Intro to the Theology of the Body. It's just that deep. However, I hope to actually scratch the surface of the TOTB within the next year or two. This is one of those things about being a Cat'lik - nothing is easy. As Ven. John Newman said (I wish I could remember it exactly) "Catholicism is a deep subject. You cannot catch it in a teacup."
3. Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. I know - everyone says that one. What can I say? It's a classic for a reason, and when I read it (in college) even though I was already a Christian, it really started me down the road of critical thinking.
Three works of fiction everyone should read:
1. In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden. I don't know how this book escaped me for so long, but now that I have read it, I am anxiously searching out her other faith-themed books. It was poignant and beautiful, and those 600+ pages flew by!
2. The complete works of William Shakespeare. All jokes aside, the man was a truly timeless writer, and he should be read by everyone.
3. The Little House books. OK, they are technically kind of memoirs, but they are also not, and they give us a first class picture of pioneer life. Always a joy to read.
Three authors everyone should read:
1. Fulton Sheen.
2. GK Chesterton.
3. The Pope. Any and all popes.
Three books no one should read:
1. The DaVinci Code. And not just because it's full of blasphemy. Also because it's very badly written. Seriously. The guy writes like a 7th grader. And that's NOT a compliment. I actually tried to read it so I could debate it with various protty family members, and I couldn't get past about page 60. It was horrid. This guy makes the "It was a dark and stormy night" dude look like Shakespeare.
2. Pretty much anything by Garry Wills.
3. Madame Bovary. Wow, a little controversial, huh? I hated this book. Absolutely hated it. Hated it in English, hated it in French. She was spineless, weak and manipulative, and when things didn't go her way, she topped herself. (Oops! Just gave away the ending, so now you don't have to read it!) It was a horrid book, and I came away from it wishing that I could send Scarlett O'Hara over there to smack her around...
posted by The Big Seester | 3:32 PM
6 Comments:
Wow, aren't you a speedy one? ;-)
I actually put down Laura Ingalls Wilder at first, then turfed her for someone else.
I agree with your choices, but I'm not sure about your rationale behind the Bible. Taking your argument to its logical conclusion, shouldn't you and I be reading the Talmud, the Koran, and whatever the Wiccan and Hindu scriptures are? OK, maybe not Wicca, but let's just take Islam as an example: 1 billion people think we're heretics for worshiping Jesus as the Son of God. (Well, actually more than 1 billion, because the Jews think so too, and the Hindus just think we're dead wrong, but anyway. Sticking with the point...) Clearly we disagree with them. So shouldn't we read their scriptures to see why we disagree? (And I mean read them in their totality, not just the really gratuitous suras that people cite when they want to argue that Muslims are murderous fanatics.)
Just wondering. I mean, I for one have more reading to do than I could accomplish in my lifetime, even if I quit both work and sleep. Should I really be adding the Koran to my reading list?
I'm with you about Madame Bovary though. And you made me read that, you big meanie!! ;-)
Three works of non-fiction everyone should read:
1. Fiefs and Vassals, Susan Reynolds (Blows your mind and your misconceptions about the Middle Ages)
2. Cities of God, Augustine Thompson (He’s a friend, so I’m plugging his book, but it’s also a great read and a great “snapshot” of the Church and society working harmoniously together in late medieval Italy)
3. The Splendor of the Church, Henri deLubac (and if you can, track down and read ALL the works he cites in his footnotes – there’s a lifetime for you!)
Three works of fiction everyone should read:
1. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera (If you want to understand the modern, or post-modern world we live in, this in invaluable)
2. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco (“It is cold now in the scriptorium…”)
3. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien (I wrestled with this or the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, which is a more accessible work, but settled on LOTR, since I’m gonna use Lewis in the next section.
Three authors everyone should read:
1. C.S. Lewis
2. Joseph Ratzinger (pre- and post-Popification)
3. St. Thomas Aquinas (takes effort, I know, but it’s well worth it)
Three books no one should read:
1. Of Human Bondage, Somerset Maugham (I LOVE Somerset Maugham, especially The Razor’s Edge, which is brilliant. OHB, however, is just painful and headache inducing. Ugh.
2. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (after destroying architecture, Ms. Rand went on to destroy modern society in Atlas Shrugged. Thanks Ayn!)
3. The Code of Canon Law (If everyone else reads it, and understands it, then I would be out of a job…)
I knew Tim's answers would make me feel like I'm slow-witted! Ah well, it gives me something to reach for, stretch to...
With that in mind, and since I have been meaning to read Name of the Rose for a long time, I just checked it out of the liberry...
Do you also recommend his other books?
TBS
Clam,
I said nothing about US reading THEIR scriptures. Why would I want that? I said that everyone ought to read OUR scriptures.
Weren't you paying attention?
;-)
Personally, I LOVE Foucault's Pendulum by Eco. However, I have only met two other people who enjoyed it (actually, only met one, the other is an online friend). The Most Intelligent Man in the Universe (TM), a priest I know in St. Paul hated it. He said it was like intellectual regurgitation.
Eco also did a series of newspaper editorials with Cardinal Martini that were published as a book, Belief or Unbelief - a very interesting book. Eco's work on the Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas is very cool too - like a thick, rich sample of Lewis' Discarded Image...
Mmm, I think I need to take a vacation and reread some books.
Twas good to see the sisters in one locale this aft!
A book you'd like (it's not totally up my political alley, because it leaves out the most important Messrs. Mikhail Gorbachev, Lou Reed and Vaclav Havel):
The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World by John O'Sullivan
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