Permanent current book reading thread

[Mrs Haruo]

I just read "Downton Tabby", a parody on the wildly popular PBS series "Downton Abbey", I was laughing so hard our cats were giving me the stink eye as I had woken them from their naps.

[William Thornton]

[William Thornton]

OK, cleaned this up a bit. let's discuss books...not each other. thanks.

[Mrs Haruo]

We inherited a 20 vol set of the writings of Theodore Roosevelt from Haruo's aunt. We suspect they may have belonged to his grandmother Ellie from Texas, who lost favor with her family for marrying a Norwegian from up here in Washington. He was down in Texas to go to Baylor. I haven't had a chance to start into them yet, but I intend to. At least they aren't racking up overdue fines at the county library by sitting on the shelf. I enjoy history, partly I think because I grew up hearing the "old timers" in my family swapping stories and pulling off the road for nearly every historical marker and museum we saw along the way on family road trips. I have met people who seem proud they haven't picked up a book since graduating high school. I couldn't live like that.

[William Thornton]

Stephen, pick one of the books you are reading and say something about it. If you are reading a book that says Al Mohler is an eight-eyed alien from Aldebaran, select a quote and we can chat about it. I'm certainly broad minded about these things.

It's very simple.

[David Flick]

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.Just finished rereading by James Hansen. Will give commentary about the book in another thread next week...

For Christmas, with by Charles Krauthammer. Have completed the first 147 pages. It's certainly as good as advertized...
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[William Thornton]

Krauthammer, top drawer.

In one of the many book promo interviews he was asked about the accident in which his spinal cord was severed. He said something to the effect that it was a blessing (and I think 'blessing' was the term he used) that his medical knowledge immediately informed him that he would never walk, that the damage could never be reversed or ameliorated and that he would have to accept his condition and live with it all for the rest of his life.

Just the title of the Hansen book identifies it as more of the sensationalist genre, designed to sell books, than anything that should be taken seriously.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

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I admit to considerable gaps in my knowledge of American history. Although I lived in SC for 15 years and perhaps recognized that it was even in the late 20th century somewhat more provincial (backwards?) than even Georgia, I didn't realize the depth of the slavery issue being centered first in the rice plantations of the Low Country (I have fished in those old rice fields with the wooden gates and ditches and can see why so many died doing that arduous work), exported to inland SC and west to new territories and states.

Fox may be up to speed on the Stono and Denmark Vesey slave rebellions. I wasn't. And he may be familiar with the Governor, Hammond, who was a pedophile who abused his neices (not to mention the ordinary for the times abuse of a slave woman as concubine followed by the woman's daughter as concubine) yet later elected to the senate from SC.

One interesting anecdote concerned the Roman Catholic Bishop of Charleston. When a mob marched against him as a result of fears over the educational program he started for free blacks, an informal Irish Catholic militia came to his and the church's defense. The next day several prominent clergy of other denominations enlisted in the Irish militia in a show of support.

[Stephen Fox]

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... adow/?_r=0

See also the chapter on the 1836 apocalypse in Walter Johnson's River of Dark Dreams which I have read cover to cover, many chapters twice. Inspired my commendation of the Librarian at nacc you can read in my top 25 end of the year blog at http://www.foxofbama.blogspot.com.

Had I lived in the time of slavery most likely I woulda been more like John Murrell than Richard Furman.

[David Flick]

[Tim Bonney]

[William Thornton]

Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden

I've read biographies of Churchill before but this book covers a very interesting period in his life, 1901-1915, when he was a rising star in the British Parliament up to his rapid and steep fall from political grace.

As a young man Churchill had fought in several British military campaigns including being captured in the Boer War and making an exciting escape. Elected to the British Parliament as a young man, he moved from being a noticeable backbencher to the front where he held several cabinet posts. It is interesting to note that long, long before he was called back as Prime Minister during World War II, he had gained wide experience as a soldier, a radical social reformer, a high official in the Colonial Office, secretary of the Home Office, and First Lord of the Admiralty.

The British parliamentary system is occasionally contrasted to ours. One need only contrast Churchill's knowledge, achievements, and experience prior to his being made PM with that of the inexperience and lack of accomplishment of our own popularly elected president.

I'm a bit of an anglophile in some ways. I love to watch Prime Minister's Questions on PBS, Sunday evenings at 9 here, where the PM, David Cameron, is grilled for about 30 minutes by opposition leaders and members. One can find sharp exchanges between Margaret Thatcher on YouTube in that forum. Fascinating.

[Dave Roberts]

I just finished John Grisham's novel "Sycamore Row." It is certainly an interesting story that provides grist for consideration of the themes of guilt and redemption as well as those of race relations. I enjoy reading fiction because it allows me to experience the world in someone's stories. Grisham often weaves Christian themes and social concerns into his writings, and they are usually free from both excessive profanity and gratuitous sex and violence.

[KeithE]

[Stephen Fox]

Kremer has a new novel out, his first publication though he wrote an earlier one set in Edgefield S.C. in the 80's where he previously was a pastor. Kremer was a Rhodes scholar nominee at UGA late 70s. His new novel reads like a Grisham thriller; unwanted baby left on church steps of high end neighborhood of Charlotte, NC. Kremer was previously of St. Johns church in Charlotte

[ET]

[Mrs Haruo]

I come from a long line of educators on Mom's side of the family. There were old college textbooks in the basement and stacks of old National Geographic and Readers Digest, and stacks of Scientific American Dad would bring home from work. I enjoyed comparing ideas discussed in social studies texts with my own current school texts 30 years later. I have been collecting a few old high school textbooks that you might have found in a book case in our house when it was new (1942). I ran across "Foods and Home Making" by Carlotta C. Greer at a 2nd hand book store near us. It was published in 1937 just after Mom started college. When reading it, I keep finding recipes for things Mom seemed to know by heart and used to cook all the time when I was little. The Hospitality chapter has pictures of the beautifully set tables Mom yearned to be able to pull off when times were tough and the price of the chickens she and Dad raised was low. And now I know how do design a kitchen so the ice man won't leave footprints across my nice clean kitchen floor. Modern electrical appliances are a boon to the housewife, but I know more about firing up a coal stove than I ever wanted to know.

[Sandy]

[James]

Just for fun I am reading Sherlock Holmes and the Needles Eye by Len Bailey. The great detective solves several riddles of Biblical interpretation. For example, why did David pick five stones from the stream? What did Jesus write in the dirt when the woman taken in adultery was brought to him? The answers are cannot be proved in the absolute, but they do make sense.

If you know an answer that makes sense, share it with us. I'll give you Bailey's answer later.

[ET]

[ET]

[Lou]

I'm now reading Philip Yancey's Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?. I've yet to find a book by Yancey that's not worth the time spent reading it, and although I'm only two chapters in I'm prepared to say that this one is no exception.

I'm also moving at a leisurely pace through Opened Ground, a fairly massive collection of poems by the Irish poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney. The man had some serious Word Skills.

[James]

ET, you hit the mark on the five stones. Goliath plus four brothers requires five stones. I'll give his answer on what was written tomorrow.

[James]

Bailey's take on this question is that whatever Jesus wrote had to speak directly to the incident at hand and convincing enough to stop the Pharisees in the act of trapping Jesus into error regarding the law and/or the intent to stone the women to death. To do this, Jesus had to show the Pharisees that had and were in the act of sinning regarding the law applying to adultery. The Pharisees had the woman in hand but not the man. The law requires that both the man and the woman be stoned. Therefore, Jesus wrote the question, "Where is the man?" and then issued his well known challenge to cast the first stone if sinless.