Books 16-20
In my 50-book quest, here are the next five I've completed. New reads are marked with a dash and rated out of five stars.
- 16. Call Me if You Need Anything and other things NOT to say, by Cathy Peterson. A very concise and helpful book about grief and processing and what not to do, written by a person who has been there. *****
- 17. Traveling Mercies: Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott. Spiritual memoirs from a not-so-typical christian-like person (she rejects the use of the word 'christian,' as it has been coopted by the religious right). Finally, a christ-like person who uses 'fuck' more than I do. I loved this book. *****
- 18. People of a Compassionate God: creating welcoming congregations, by Janet Fishburn, ed. A case study of five United Methodist congregations who went through the discernment process about whether or not to become reconciling (open and affirming to persons regardless of sexual orientation) congregations, including a flagship congregation in my annual conference. This is a tough one to read. The style is rough; the chapters about the congregations are good, but it is not well edited and the summarizing chapters at the beginning and end of the book are pretty poorly written. But harder is the subject matter. For the one church that decided to end the discussion rather than face confrontation, and for the other church that decided it could not remain part of the UMC, the pain is palpable through the pages. For me personally, trying unsuccessfully to nudge my church in this direction and trying even more unsuccessfully to create a faith community that is beyond this (and almost exactly like the last congregation profiled--the one that broke ties with the denomination), it was an excruciating but important read. ****
- 19. Children of Hurin, by J.R.R. Tolkien (and Christopher Tolkien, ed.). Deep breath here, folks. And here's my admission: I think Tolkien had one good story in him. LOTR is one of the most brilliant pieces of literary work of all time. But I think it was all Tolkien had in him. I'm a huge fantasy fan, and I didn't really like this book at all. Alternately, it's possible that Tolkien's writing style is what's to blame. It seems likely to me that he sketched his plot first and then went back and filled in the dialogue and interesting descriptions. Not having completed said details/dialogue, his posthumous work is severely lacking. COH would be a beautiful and heart-wrenching tale, but is lacking the necessary dialogue and detail to pull the reader in (and don't get me started on the dryness that is The Simarillion). Stars awarded mostly for the novelty of reading a new book by Tolkien, although I think Chris needs to get over the idea that he can publish his father's work and think it's just as good as if JRR finished it himself. ***
20. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K Rowling. July 21 is a'comin'! As with COS, I liked this book better this time around, especially with the added insight into Voldie's speech about the quest for immortality in the graveyard. Although I must say that having started OOTP, that book has the best opening ever, between Harry's 15-year-old snark (-you're listening to the news again? -well, it changes every day, you see), Arabella Figg's rant on Mundungus, Aunt Petunia's offhanded comment revealing that she knows what dementors are, and Harry's realization that his aunt fears and hates Voldemort almost as much as he does, those first two chapters pack quite a punch.
I'm hopeful that I might make 50 books, since a lot of these have been new reads and I haven't treated myself to Flewelling yet--good for six books right there, and I can read them all in the space of a week or so, that's how much fun they are.
As a side note, I will not be cross-posting this to 43things. I've decided that the listing there is unhelpful to me and the only thing I really ever update over there is the books anyway. Over the course of the next few days, I will transfer and backdate any relevant entries from 43things and close my user account on that site. I'll post my list of current goals as an LJ entry here, and use the tags to track goal-related entries. As it is, some goals are just depressing. "Visit my grandmother before she dies" ranks only slightly lower on the possible-to-accomplish scale at this point than does "build a mission-focused GLBT church in Albany."
- 16. Call Me if You Need Anything and other things NOT to say, by Cathy Peterson. A very concise and helpful book about grief and processing and what not to do, written by a person who has been there. *****
- 17. Traveling Mercies: Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott. Spiritual memoirs from a not-so-typical christian-like person (she rejects the use of the word 'christian,' as it has been coopted by the religious right). Finally, a christ-like person who uses 'fuck' more than I do. I loved this book. *****
- 18. People of a Compassionate God: creating welcoming congregations, by Janet Fishburn, ed. A case study of five United Methodist congregations who went through the discernment process about whether or not to become reconciling (open and affirming to persons regardless of sexual orientation) congregations, including a flagship congregation in my annual conference. This is a tough one to read. The style is rough; the chapters about the congregations are good, but it is not well edited and the summarizing chapters at the beginning and end of the book are pretty poorly written. But harder is the subject matter. For the one church that decided to end the discussion rather than face confrontation, and for the other church that decided it could not remain part of the UMC, the pain is palpable through the pages. For me personally, trying unsuccessfully to nudge my church in this direction and trying even more unsuccessfully to create a faith community that is beyond this (and almost exactly like the last congregation profiled--the one that broke ties with the denomination), it was an excruciating but important read. ****
- 19. Children of Hurin, by J.R.R. Tolkien (and Christopher Tolkien, ed.). Deep breath here, folks. And here's my admission: I think Tolkien had one good story in him. LOTR is one of the most brilliant pieces of literary work of all time. But I think it was all Tolkien had in him. I'm a huge fantasy fan, and I didn't really like this book at all. Alternately, it's possible that Tolkien's writing style is what's to blame. It seems likely to me that he sketched his plot first and then went back and filled in the dialogue and interesting descriptions. Not having completed said details/dialogue, his posthumous work is severely lacking. COH would be a beautiful and heart-wrenching tale, but is lacking the necessary dialogue and detail to pull the reader in (and don't get me started on the dryness that is The Simarillion). Stars awarded mostly for the novelty of reading a new book by Tolkien, although I think Chris needs to get over the idea that he can publish his father's work and think it's just as good as if JRR finished it himself. ***
20. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K Rowling. July 21 is a'comin'! As with COS, I liked this book better this time around, especially with the added insight into Voldie's speech about the quest for immortality in the graveyard. Although I must say that having started OOTP, that book has the best opening ever, between Harry's 15-year-old snark (-you're listening to the news again? -well, it changes every day, you see), Arabella Figg's rant on Mundungus, Aunt Petunia's offhanded comment revealing that she knows what dementors are, and Harry's realization that his aunt fears and hates Voldemort almost as much as he does, those first two chapters pack quite a punch.
I'm hopeful that I might make 50 books, since a lot of these have been new reads and I haven't treated myself to Flewelling yet--good for six books right there, and I can read them all in the space of a week or so, that's how much fun they are.
As a side note, I will not be cross-posting this to 43things. I've decided that the listing there is unhelpful to me and the only thing I really ever update over there is the books anyway. Over the course of the next few days, I will transfer and backdate any relevant entries from 43things and close my user account on that site. I'll post my list of current goals as an LJ entry here, and use the tags to track goal-related entries. As it is, some goals are just depressing. "Visit my grandmother before she dies" ranks only slightly lower on the possible-to-accomplish scale at this point than does "build a mission-focused GLBT church in Albany."