Book Challenge 6/12
First, random note, Natsume Yuujinchou is getting another season! OMG I'm so happy!!
But anyway, book challenge.
I'm late logging this one, but my latest fill was the "book you've already read at least once":
"A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" by Mary Wollstonecraft
When I read this one before, it was in my Librivox days, so the "read" was actually a listen. This time I did both, listened to the Librivox recording while reading along in the Project Gutenberg e-book. The 18th-century diction isn't the easiest to follow, so doing it on both channels like that really seemed to help me not lose the thread.
I basically read it again in honor of Women's History Month. In fact, I re-read it so I could give a short talk on it to my lovely Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (if you wonder where the heck I've been lately, that's a lot of the answer). It's actually kind of funny, I remembered from the previous read being really struck by how she harmonized her God-talk and her appeals to reason, like this: "Rational religion [...] is a submission to the will of a being so perfectly wise, that all he wills must be directed by the proper motive - must be reasonable."
So, like, you can make reasoned ethical arguments and be assured that God is there with you. That was like WOW the first time.
This time it was like "Huh, old-school Unitarianism. ::looks it up:: Yup, sure 'nuff." (Wollstonecraft wasn't a Unitarian herself but attended a Unitarian chapel for awhile and was influenced by it. That congregation is still going, btw, and they are very proud of the connection.)
It was a nice thing to fold into my little talk.
Said talk got most further comment out of my system, but the re-read was an interesting experience. Sometimes I ran into all kinds of historical culture-shock, and at other times it felt like the 200-odd years since publication just collapsed and she was talking directly to me. Like, magic.
Challenge progress:
-A book published this year (2016)
-A book you can finish in a day
-A book you've been meaning to read
-A book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller
-A book you should have read in school
-A book chosen for you by [a loved one]
-A book published before you were born
-A book that was banned at some point
-A book you previously abandoned
-A book you own but have never read
-A book that intimidates you
-A book you've already read at least once
Next fill, my plan is the "book you previously abandoned."
‡ original post at Dreamwidth ‡
But anyway, book challenge.
I'm late logging this one, but my latest fill was the "book you've already read at least once":
"A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" by Mary Wollstonecraft
When I read this one before, it was in my Librivox days, so the "read" was actually a listen. This time I did both, listened to the Librivox recording while reading along in the Project Gutenberg e-book. The 18th-century diction isn't the easiest to follow, so doing it on both channels like that really seemed to help me not lose the thread.
I basically read it again in honor of Women's History Month. In fact, I re-read it so I could give a short talk on it to my lovely Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (if you wonder where the heck I've been lately, that's a lot of the answer). It's actually kind of funny, I remembered from the previous read being really struck by how she harmonized her God-talk and her appeals to reason, like this: "Rational religion [...] is a submission to the will of a being so perfectly wise, that all he wills must be directed by the proper motive - must be reasonable."
So, like, you can make reasoned ethical arguments and be assured that God is there with you. That was like WOW the first time.
This time it was like "Huh, old-school Unitarianism. ::looks it up:: Yup, sure 'nuff." (Wollstonecraft wasn't a Unitarian herself but attended a Unitarian chapel for awhile and was influenced by it. That congregation is still going, btw, and they are very proud of the connection.)
It was a nice thing to fold into my little talk.
Said talk got most further comment out of my system, but the re-read was an interesting experience. Sometimes I ran into all kinds of historical culture-shock, and at other times it felt like the 200-odd years since publication just collapsed and she was talking directly to me. Like, magic.
Challenge progress:
-A book published this year (2016)
-A book you can finish in a day
-A book you've been meaning to read
-A book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller
-A book you should have read in school
-A book chosen for you by [a loved one]
-A book published before you were born
-A book that was banned at some point
-A book you previously abandoned
-A book you own but have never read
-A book that intimidates you
-A book you've already read at least once
Next fill, my plan is the "book you previously abandoned."
‡ original post at Dreamwidth ‡