Books Read 2010

So this is the list of books I read this year. It's a nice list- I probably overachieved a bit, but didn't quite make the goal of 2 books a week like I was trying. I don't anticipate reading this much in the coming year as I plan on taking more classes (in addition to work, church, friends, etc.) I didn't finish reading my Bible in Spanish like I'd planned. I think that's something I really need to do in 2011. I also would like to read more theology books. This year was full of "classics" which was nice, because I think I've mostly avoided them in the past. Although reading some of the "classics" always makes you wonder how they achieved that status. I didn't read as much non-fiction as I usually do. If anybody wants specific feedback/recommendations/etc. on particular books I would love to share!

Last year's list

I keep track of books HERE

January
Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit
Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton
Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis -*
Light at Tern Rock by Julie Sauer
Stitches: a memoir... by David Small -G
Night by Elie Wiesel -O*
The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis -*
Flush by Carl Hiassen -*
Living Well on Practically Nothing by Edward H. Romney
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov -O
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier -*
Interworld by Neil Gaimen -*
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver -*
Chile: Death in the South by Jacobo Timerman -O
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson -O*

February
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury -*
Don't Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff
The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli -O*
When you Reach Me by Rebecca Stead -*
Babylon By Bus by Lemoine and Neumann
The World Is Flat [Updated]: A Brief History of the 21st Century by Thomas Friedman-* (I quit 3/4 of the way through though. I couldn't bear to finish it.)
Lord of the Flies by William Golding -*
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
The Two Reds by Will and Nicholas

A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean

March
Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes by Robert Brown -T
The Country of Marriage by Wendell Berry -T?
Iqbal by Francesco D'Adamo
Confessions of St. Augustine; translated by Outler by St. Augustine -*T
Antiquities of the Jews: Books I-V by Flavius Josephus -*T
The Lost Gospel of Mary by Frederica Mathewes-Green -T

April
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card -*
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (read and listened. great combo.)
The Violence of Love by Oscar Romero -T
You Must Kiss a Whale by David Skinner

May
Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing Up Global eds. Eidse and Sichel
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger -*
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri -*
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi -*

June
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri -*
Gifts of the Jews by Thomas Cahill -*T
¡Gracias! A Latin American Journal by Henri J.M. Nouwen -T
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane -*

July
Desire of the Everlasting Hills by Thomas Cahill -* T(and skimmed the book for footnotes)
Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card -*
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Shaffer and Barrows -*
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Drops like Stars by Rob Bell -OT
On the Road by Jack Kerouac -O* (listened mostly, it's worth being listened to simply for the rhythm of Dean Moriarty's words...but I read the last bit)

August
King Lear by Shakespeare
At the Corner of East and Now by Frederica Mathewes-Green -T
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen -*
Rex Libris Volume 1: I, Librarianby James Turner -G
Around the world with Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis
Organization of Information: Third Edition by Arlene Taylor (read parts, skimmed parts)
Home Economics by Wendell Berry -O T?
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson -*
Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather -*

September
Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe by Thomas Cahill -* T (listened and read, pretty pictures!)

October
How to Be a Gentleman: A Contemporary Guide to Common Courtesy by John Bridges
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. by Bart Ehrman -* T
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton -* T (definitely need to re-read)

November
The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris -O T
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card -*
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho -*
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld -*
Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro -*
A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary by Alain De Botton
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton -*
The Great Dayton Flood of 1913 by Trudy Bell
Simply Christian by N.T. Wright -T

December
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waughn -*
To Know Him: Beyond Religion Waits a Relationship that will Change Your Life by Gloria Copeland -O T

Moving Pictures by Kathryn and Stuart Immonen -G
A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld -G
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery -*
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway -* (set in Spain and Europe? holla.)
Forget Sorrow by Belle Yang -G
The Cincinnati Subway: History of Rapid Transit by Allen Singer
My Antonia by Willa Cather -*
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway -*
Pride and Prejudice by Nancy Butler and Hugo Petrus -G
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett -*
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James -*
The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy -*
Daisy Miller by Henry James -*
Garden of Eating: Food, Sex and the Hunger for Meaning by Jeremy Iggers -O
Advent and Christmas with Thomas Merton compiled by Bauer and Cleary -O T
The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald -*
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James -*

(91) Total
(48) Audiobooks-*
(11) Owned books-O
(6) Graphic Novels-G
(19) Theology Related- T (of course, every book has theology in it, some are just more focused on it than others)

Books I REALLY REALLY wanted to read but didn't get to in a timely manner...
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O'Connor
A Good Man is Hard to Find and other stories by Flannery O'Connor
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (10 pages in)
Nectar In A Sieve by Kamala Markandaya (80 pages in)
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago
All the Names by Jose Saramago
Death with Interruptions by Jose Saramago (really, all of the books by Saramago that I've never read. but these are the ones I had from the library)

One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth by M. Scott Peck
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (partway through)

For Christmas????

Who is buying this for me for Christmas?
Volunteers?

Rolling Library!!!

Many Thanks in Advance.

Sweet looking library in Colombia

http://www.archidose.org/May08/19/dose.html


Click on the pictures in the article. Totally worth it!

Simply Christian

a good quote from this N.T. Wright book....

pg148
You become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you being to take on something of the character of the object of your worship....
So what happens when you worship the creator God whose plan to rescue the world and put it to rights has veeb accomplished by the Lamb who was slain? The answer comes in the second golden rule: because you were made in God's image, worship makes you more truly human. When you gaze in love and gratitude at the God in whose image you were made, you do indeed grow. You discover more of what it means to be fully alive.
Conversely, when you give that same total woship to anything or anyone else, you shrink as a human being. It doesn't, of course, feel like that at the time. when you worship part of the creation as though it were the Creator himself- in other words, when you worship an idol- you may well feel a brief "high." But, like a hallucinatory drug, that worship achieves its effect at a cost: when the effect is over, you are less of a human being than you were to being with. That is the price of idolatry...

Perhaps one of the reaons why so much worship, in some churches at least, appears unattractive to so many people is that we have forgotten, or covered up, the truth about the one we are worshipping.

A Week at the Airport

by Alain de Botton

{some of my favorite quotes from the book}

(on ANGER and OPTIMISM) Pg 33- We are angry because we are overly optimistic, insufficiently prepared for the frustrations endemic to existence…a recklessly naïve belief in a world in which keys never go astray and our travel plans are invariably assured.


(on a passenger DREADING vacation) Pg 40- There was, of course, no official recourse available to him, whether for assistance or complaint. British Airways did, it was true, maintain a desk manned by some unusually personable employees and adorned with the message: ‘We are here to help’. But the staff shied away from existential issues, seeming to restrict their insights to matters relating to the transit time to adjacent satellites and the location of the nearest toilets.

Yet it was more than a little disingenuous for the airline to deny all knowledge of, and responsibility for, the metaphysical well-being of its customers. Like its many competitors, British Airways... existed in large part to encourage and enable people to go and sit in deckchairs and take up (and usually fail at) the momentous challenge of being content for a few days.

(on advances in TECHNOLOGY but not BEHAVIOUR) pg 41- At the beginning of human history, as we struggled to light fires and to chisel fallen trees into rudimentary canoes, who could have predicted that long after we had managed to send men to the moon and aeroplanes to Australasia, we would still have such trouble knowing how to tolerate ourselves, forgive our loved ones and apologise for our tantrums?

(on WRITING)pg 42- Objectively good places to work rarely end up being so; in their faultlessness, quiet and well-equipped studies have a habit of rendering the fear of failure overwhelming. Original thoughts are like shy animals. We sometimes have to look the other way- towards a busy street or terminal- before they run out of their burrows.

(on RETAIL and FLYING) pg 57- [the terminal has too many shops]...“it was hard to determine what might be so wrong with this balance, what precise aspect of the building’s essential aeronautical identity had been violated or even what specific pleasure passengers had been robbed of, given that we are inclined to visit malls even when they don’t provide us with the additional pleasure of a gate to Johannesburg.”

….”The issue seemed to centre on an incongruity between shopping and flying, connected in some sense to the desire to maintain dignity in the face of death…It therefore tends to raise questions about how we might best spend the last moments before our disintegration, in what frame of mind we might wish to fall back down to earth- and the extent to which we would like to meet eternity surrounded by an array of duty-free bags.”

(on the SUPERNATURAL and flying) pg 62- Despite its seeming mundanity, the ritual of flying remains indelibly linked, even in secular times, to the momentous themes of existence – and their refractions in the stories of the world’s religions. We have heard about too many ascensions, too many voices from heaven, too many airborne angles and saints to ever be able to regard the business of flight from an entirely pedestrian perspective, as we might, say, the act of travelling by train. Notions of the divine, the eternal and the significant accompany us covertly on to our craft, haunting the reading aloud of the safety instructions, the weather announcements made by our captains and, most particularly, our lofty views of the gentle curvature of the earth.

How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel

So about a year ago I read this ^ book (by Alain de Botton- whom I adore) but I never published the quotes that hit me the most. But the quote from page 22 totally happened to me on Sunday when I was at CedarPoint. I saw a person who looked exactly like another person I know- he was just a different skin color! But his face, body type and mannerisms were spot on. So here are some quotes from Marcel Proust's writings and life, about relationships and reading... Enjoy!


Pg 22 -- “aesthetically, the number of human types is so restricted that we must constantly, wherever we may be, have the pleasure of seeing people we know.”
Any such pleasure is not simply visual: the restricted number of human types also means that we are repeatedly able to read about people we know in places we might have never expected to do so.

Pg 215 -- “To make [reading] into a discipline is to give too large a role to what is only an incitement. Reading is on the threshold of the spiritual life; it can introduce us to it: it does not constitute it.”

Pg 25 -- “In reality, every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to the reader to enable him to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have experienced in himself. And the recognition by the reader in his own self of what the book says is the proof of its veracity.


Pg 131 -- It is often assumed, usually by people who don’t have many friends, that friendship is a hallowed sphere where what we wish to talk about effortlessly coincides with others’ interests. Proust, less optimistic than this, recognized the likelihood of discrepancy, and concluded that he should always be the one to ask questions, and address himself to what was on your mind rather than risk boring you with what was on his.

Pg 133 -- “I do my intellectual work within myself, and once with other people, it’s more or less irrelevant to me that they’re intelligent, as long as they are kind, sincere, etc."


Pg 137 -- The exaggerated scale of Prous’s social politeness should not blind us to the degree of insincerity every friendship demands, the ever-present requirement to deliver an affable but hollow word to a friend who proudly shows us a volume of their poetry or newborn baby. TO call such politeness hypocrisy is to neglect that we have lied in a local way not in order to conceal fundamentally malevolent intentions but rather to confirm our sense of affection, which might have been doubted if there had been no gasping and praising, because of the unusual intensity of people’s attachemnt to their verse and children. There seems to be a gap between what others need to hear from us in order to trust that we like them, and the extent of the negative thoughts we know we can feel towards them and still like them.We know it is possible to think of someone as both dismal at poetry and perceptive, both inclined to pomposity and charming, both suffering from halitosis and genial. But the susceptibility of others means that the negative part of the equation can rarely be expressed without jeopardizing the union.

Summarized pg 194 -- Letting ourselves be guided by books we admire does not rob our faculty of judgement or part of its independence… “There is no better way of coming to be aware of what one feels oneself than by trying to recreate in oneself what a master has felt. In this profound effort it is our thought itself that we bring out into the light, together with his….”We should read other people's books in order to learn what we feel, it is our own thoughts we should be develping even if it is another writer’s thoughts which help us do so. A fulfilled academic life would therefore require us to judge that the writers we were studying articulated in their books a sufficient range of our own concerns, and that in the act of understanding them through translation or commentary, we would simultaneously be understanding and developing the spiritually significant parts of ourselves.

Gracias by Henri Nouwen

I typed up some quotes from Henri Nouwen's Gracias! A Latin American Journal last week. I read the book months ago, so typing up the quotes was definitely a blessing of revisiting. Some of my favorite passages are far too long to place on here, even though I'd be tempted to do it. This book really impacted me b/c of the living abroad aspect, but in general anything Henri Nouwen writes is quality.

On being loved- and the FREEDOM it gives...
"It seems paradoxical, but the expressions of friendship at Yale of former students and colleagues, and the deep personal conversations, gave me a profound sense of mission. I realized that I was not going just because it seemed, like a good idea, but because those who love me most sent me on my way with affection, support, and prayers. The more I realized that I was truly loved, the more I felt the inner freedom to go in peace and to let all inner debate about motivation subside."

"A true spirituality cannot be constructed, built, or put together; it has to be recognized in the daily life of people who search together to do God’s will in the world."

“There are no silent nights in Bolivia [because of animal noises]. And during the day the voices of playing children join the birds in their chatter. All these sounds come together to form a single unceasing prayer to the Creator, a prayer not of thoughts and words but of sounds and life. How sad it is that thinking often makes prayers cease.”

"One of the most rewarding aspects of living in a strange land is the experience of being loved not for what we can do, but for who we are. When we become aware that our stuttering, failing , vulnerable selves are loved even when we hardly progress, we can let go of our compulsion to prove ourselves and be free to live with others in a fellowship of the weak. That is true healing."

BP Oil Spill

Check this out...

Cool Map Thing

the world IS flat...

...thanks to air travel.


I'm so excited to go that I want to write again! haha.

new favorite chocolate: Pocket Coffee by Ferrero. SOOOOO good. Somebody wanna buy me a case of them on Amazon.com? I hear TJs has a comparable product, so I'll try those.

This time tomorrow I'll be in San Diego. I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet, I DO have to go to the store for my Mexi-friends (that rhymes with Mexi-cans :) )

I think I'll go down to the tide pools, hopefully it will be low tide. I might go to an art museum, or I might just sit outside and read and look at the ocean in the 70 degree weather :) :) :)

Maybe the smile-ies are overkill. I'm so excited I can't think straight. I was going to take all the kids gifts, but I think I'll stick with carry-on luggage. I haven't packed yet, so that may change. I am going to print off some old photos for them.

I'm NOT taking my computer. whoa. This'll be the first vacation in a while that I haven't had it with me. But this means planning things now. Printing some maps, charging iPod, etc.

other people will have computers in Mex. so I might be tempted to check ye old email and things. I've done all my classwork that was due next week, so that's not a problem.



Jill pointed out to me that I forgot to mention that when we ate our black soup we called it gruel and made jokes about standing in the bread line and ration stamps and communism. Then we wondered when and why English lost engendered nouns, since English derives from languages that do have engendered nouns. Then we asked each other what do normal people joke/talk about? It was v. amusing.

ok. shower. print photos. buy sudoku calender. bank. laundry detergent. GO.


P.S. The World is Flat is a little outdated, and he says "value added" a lot. He also explained how people use the internet on their phones, really? I had no idea. :)

P.P.S. I just worked ten days in a row. Now I have ten days off in a row. that sounds like a good trade off to me!


P.P.P.S. well, ten days in a row with two snow days in the mix. I was supposed to work ten days in a row. Does that count?

stone soup.

Sunday I had to come into work. (This is the day after the nasty snow storm).
At the gate the guard said, “what are you doing here today?”
I said, “I have to come into work.”
He said, “On a day like this, no you don’t.”
I said, “yeah, my boss made me.”
He said, “I highly doubt that” smiled, gave my card back to me and said “Be safe, mam.” I think he genuinely thought I was a workaholic that wanted to come in on the weekend. how amusing :)

My roommate got her car stuck in the snow last night. Just as we were about to give up and call some people to see if they wanted to help (i.e. boys) She looked up and there were two guys! The one said, “you need help?” and we gladly accepted. As soon as her car moved, I shouted thanks. They walked away without a word, handshake or anything. It was so mysterious.

Jill and I spent the day Tuesday making soup. Not necessarily because we wanted to make soup, but because I had bought too many carrots, celery and zucchini. The vegetables needed to be cooked before they went bad. We put everything in it. Potatoes, Garbanzo Beans, Rice, Celery, Carrots, Onion, Zucchini. I really appreciate that I have a roommate that doesn't like to overcook things. We really only heated the vegetables up in a frying pan, keeping them mostly firm and crisp before putting them in the soup. I had cooked a tiny bit of black beans, and dumped the whole pot in without draining them. Opps. Our soup turned a dark shade of gray-ish purple. But it tastes really good!! Now we have no produce in our fridge, but we have a big pot of soup.

On Saturday I finally made Pescado al Crema Chipotle (Fish in Chipotle cream sauce) which I had been talking about and craving for two weeks. Unfortunately, when I went to Kroger they didn't have cans of chipotles, and the little Mexican store near my house didn't have them either. Since the weather was so bad I decided to use Chiles Anchos and barbacue sauce (Salsa Lizano from Costa Rica that I had never opened). It turned out fine!

I had the chance to watch some super cute bilingual children on Saturday night. I was thrilled to talk to them in Spanish. The little girl wasn’t so keen on it though. Several of the times that I said things to her in Spanish she said “You talk too much.” Hahaha. I let her paint my toenails though, so I think she forgave me.
I go to San Diego on Saturday, and then Mexico on Sunday :) I’m pretty excited!

weather.

so this is what happened on Thursday in Baja California, Mexico. (I wasn't there though.)

Here is a before-esque shot.





This video shows water in a almost always dry river bed. This river runs through the town I lived in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmjGkSUnqiI

Close up of the bridge in my town, crumbling. the first seconds are cool, middle is boring...and the last 2 seconds are sweet. The river is stinking WIDE. 4x4's and people on Zip lines are currently crossing it. It seems there is a lot less water now than there was during the storm on Thursday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTxrsS2tqOo&feature=related

This is one of the 6 bridges down between my town and the States...check it crumble.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frlQD9_ptpU&feature=related

This screen shot shows the long gray strip that is the river. This is def. a dry photo. I love the way it curves in the mountains. I'm supposed to go visit in 3 weeks. I hope the bridges get rebuilt by then...

Apparently there is tons of dead wood 10-15 feet high at the beach now, washed down from the mountains which is great b/c it takes a lot of work for trees to grow in the desert. Everybody loves free firewood!

Although all of this is "exciting" it's also sad for the people it affects negatively. People's shelters falling down because the mud they are built on is eroded away. Drinking water being polluted with out house water. Food/Propane/Gasoline shortages. Pray for them.

Click to make bigger.

Antartica

These 11 photos are worth a look at...

http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/heart-of-the-great-alone/1

oh, and I ate Haggis today. A co-worker brought it in. yummy? not so much.

and P.S. I'm going to visit Mexico middle of February. Let's just hope they've rebuilt the bridges by them. I hear 6 are out between Tijuana and my town. If I think of it I'll post a you tube video of the bridges collapsing.

Cold Sunday...

Normally I love dressing up and wouldn't enjoy wearing fatigues everyday. But for some reason at work I have become perpetually cold in my business-ey attire, AND dress shoes are not good for clopping through the mounds of snow in the parking lot. What I wouldn't give for a pair of those high laced military boots on especially slushy days. I don't think just wanting the clothes is a good enough reason to join the military though :)

Last night I visited a Spanish speaking church that I had been wanting to visit. There are maybe 3 or 4 of them within a few minutes of my house. For about half the service I was sorely disappointed b/c it was more of a bilingual church. We would sing in Spanish and then the same lyrics in English, and the songs weren't ones we sang in Mexico (as if every church sings the same songs. dur. what a silly expectation.) The preaching was done in Spanish and English with the pastor repeating himself in both languages. Then I realized... Maybe this helps bridge the gap between the Spanish speakers and the English speakers. Maybe they are learning each other's language this way. Maybe this ministers to those who live nearby but don't happen to speak Spanish. sigh. It was nice. I think I'll visit once a month or something.

EVERYONE.
LOOK OUTSIDE.
It is a VERY beautiful day with the trees all white and picturesque.

ok. Happy Sunday!

What are your priorities?

These four quotes I think are good food for thought:


On the 10 Commandments:

When Rabbi Menahem Mendl Morgenstern of Kotzk read in Exodus 24:7, "We will do and we will hear," he explained that some actions simply cannot be understood (or heard) until they are performed (or done). By doing, we understand...[we understand what great treasure is being offered.] Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Jewish Spirituality: A Brief Intro for Christians

On Wealth -quotes from Alain De Botton's Status Anxiety:

Being truly wealthy, does not require having many things; rather, it requires having what one longs for. Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess. pg 43


Humans have a tendency to cease being excited by anything after we have owned it for a short while. The quickest way to stop noticing something, my be to buy it- just as the quickest way to stop appreciating someone may be to marry him or her. We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction.



Ruskin wished to be wealthy in kindness, curiosity, sensitivity, humility, godliness and intelligence, a set of virtues to which he applied the collective name "life." The wealthiest people would be those who felt the keenest wonder gazing at the stars at night or who were best able to sense and alleviate the sufferings of others. "There is no wealth but life," he intoned: "life, including all its powers of love, of joy and of admiration. That country is richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others...Many of the persons commonly considered wealthy are, in reality, no more wealth than the locks of their own strong boxes, they being inherently and eternally incapable of wealth." pg 199

Practical Joke

On a Monday morning, this is the gate security officer's idea of a practical joke.

"Mam, You've been selected for a random car inspection."

(mouth open, confused look on face, wonders what she'll have to do to make up for being late to work)
"uh, ok."

"Just kidding. Have a nice day."

Hey Jen.

Sometimes nice things happen and you forget, well, I don't want to forget this.

Background: This last summer I attempted to practice Spanish in a playful manner with my friends little boy who is three. After a few failed attempts we gave up (he preferred his mom to me. understandably so.) I let his mom know of some resources that she might enjoy using with him, cds and books from the library- so that whether it was from me or not, he learned Spanish.


So fast forward 6 months.....I went over to my friends house the other night and the child came up to me and said, "Hey Jen. say uno in Spanish."
"Uno."
"Hey Jen. Say dos in Spanish."
"Dos."
"Hey Jen. Say tres in Spanish."
"Tres."
"Hey Jen. Say cuatro in Spanish."
"Cuatro."
Hey Jen. Say cinco in Spanish."
"Cinco."
Hey Jen Say ocho in Spanish."
"Ocho."

and then he got distracted by something his brother was playing with. Even though he skipped from 5 to 8, and then quit, it was incredibly ADORABLE. I think my favourite is that he added "in Spanish." to every command, like we didn't know which language we were practicing :)


P.S. Happy Epiphany. Yesterday was the 12th day of Christmas.

Books Read 2009! 67

Last year, Sue did a post recounting the books she read. So I kept track. In her honor.

I also started keeping track here

I can't believe I read this many books this past year. My goal was one a week. I surpassed it. Some of these were short, but some were long, so I figure it all evens out. Quite a few were *audiobooks, whose ease of listening to in the car or while wandering about the grocery store greatly augmented the number of books I read. I would love to give any feedback you might want about a particular book. Let me know! Hope everyone had a Happy New Year!



PENDING->Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body by Pope John Paul II (I've got 300/525 of the pages I wanted to read, read. I decided to not read the 130 page introduction. Maybe some other time. I got this for Christmas last year so I was trying so hard to finish it before Christmas, it was that book that I took everywhere with me, but never cracked. Mom was like, "really? you're going to read that on vacation?" and I didn't. :) )

Jewish Spirituality: A Brief Introduction for Christians by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

*Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

*The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way of Love by Fr. Homan and Pratt

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (this book made me soooo uncomfortable.)

Prayers for the Domestic Church, a Handbook for Worship in the Home by Edward Hays

*The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

*The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

How Proust Can Change YOUR LIFE: Not a Novel by Alain De Botton

*Dress Your Family in Courduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

*Ida B:...and her plans to maximize fun, avoid disaster, and (possibly) save the world by Katherine Hannigan

Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community by Wendell Berry

*Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain De Botton

So Far From God by Ana Castillo

*Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

The Spirit of Early Christian Thought by Robert Louis Wilken (sooooo good.)

Reclaiming Our Roots: An Inclusive Introduction to Church History by Ellingsen

*The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

*When you are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

*Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side of Everything by Levitt

*The Yellow Wallpaper by Gilman

*Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis

Thousand Cranes by Kawabata

Green Mansions by W.H. Hudson

*Carry On Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

Schaum's Quick guide to Writing Great Short Stories

Veronika Decides to Die by Coelho

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens

Mother Teresa: Come be my Light by Mother Teresa

Heavy Words Lightly Thrown by Roberts

*Interior Castle By St. Teresa of Avila

*Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife by Irene Spencer

101 Things I learned in Architecture School by Frederick

Pictures of Hollis Woods by Reilly

*25 Things to Say to the Interviewer by Hawk

The Maytrees: A Novel by Annie Dillard

Till We have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis (extra-large print while on the treadmill!)

The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton

The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton

On Love by Alain de Botton

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by L'Engle (sooooo good.)

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's semester at America's Holiest University by Roose

Operating Instructions by Lamott

Cold comfort Farm: A Play by Doust

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack by M.E. Kerr

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a language fanatic by Little

Reunion by Uhlman

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

*Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

*Lilith by George MacDonald

Persepolis 1 & 2 by Satrapi (twice)

Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our hidden life in God by Dallas Willard

American Gods by Neil Gaimen

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Steward

Posers, Fakers, and Wannabees by Brennen Manning

The Twenty-One Balloons by Pene Du Bois

The Curious case of Benjamin Button by Fitzgerald

The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancy

The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams

Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell

67 Books
19/67 Audiobooks



Books that were on my shelf that I never quite got to:

Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean

The World Is Flat by Friedman

Outline of an Anglican Life by Louis Tarsitano

Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus



A book that I can't count as part of this list because I read it today:

Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit