What I've Been Reading

Well, I've been busy working on my sort-of resolution.  I have found that my list of genres has forced me to diversify my reading habits.  Here is the list with the addition of the four books I've read and a short synopsis on each book.

1. Theology - The Mystic Way of Evangelism: A Contemplative Vision for Christian Outreach by  Elaine Heath; A few weeks ago, BJ was accepted into the Doctorate of Ministry program at Lipscomb University (YAY!).  This particular doctorate is focused in spiritual formation. The books for some of BJ's courses are starting to trickle in, and I picked this one up on a whim.  I'm so very glad that I did.  For one thing, it made me really excited about what BJ is going into.  But also, it gave me new ways to hope for the future of American churches.  On a purely entertaining level, I loved reading the brief bios of mystics throughout history.  I would definitely recommend this to anyone in the mood for a little theology.
2. Pulitzer Prize Winner
3. Mystery
4. Thriller
5. Trashy Romance - Years by Lavyrle Spencer; Best Trashy Romance Ever!  Seriously though, this book was really well done.  It wasn't in fact trashy.  It was just a beautiful story about romantic love.  It was predictable, but sometimes predictability is reassuring and lends a book an atmosphere of warmth and welcome to the reader.  There were multiple layers of stories within the overall book, and all of them prooved to be important and valuable to the broader narrative's development.  In other words, this book may never be read in an English college course, but I think it was extremely well done, and I suspect that I will be reading it again in the future just for the heck of it.
6. A Vampire Book
7. Children's Lit
8. A book that has or is being made into a movie
9. A Collection of Poetry
10. A Shakespeare Play
11. A book of historical non-fiction written by Doris Kearns Goodwin
12. Biography
13. Memoir
14. Comedy
15. British classic and/or a Booker Prize winner
16. An Agatha Christi - Peril at End House; This was a classic English mystery set in an eery English mansion.  It was a Poirot mystery, one set later in Poirot's life.  I enjoyed it immensely, and it is very possible that I will be picking up many more Agatha Christi's to come.
17. Young Adult Lit
18. The Bible - Read through Chapter 18 of Numbers so far...
19. SciFi or Fantasy - The Once and Future King by T. H. White; F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C.  Did I make that clear enough.  Of course, this is a novel about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  It was whimsical and tragic in the same breath.  Instead of droning on about it, I'm just going to give a quick excert that I think brilliantly demonstrates the quality of the writing and the poignancy of this particular rendition of King Arthur, Lancelot, Guenever, and Merlin's story.  This passage is about Arthur's reaction to Lancelot and Guenever's affair, and how that reaction was shaped by his childhood education under Merlyn:

"Arthur's feeling completed the misery of the court.  He, unfortunately for himself, had been beautifully brought up.  His teacher had educated him as the child is educated in the womb, where it lives the history of man from fish to mammal--and, like the child in the womb, he had been protected with love meanwhile.  The effect of such an education was that he had grown up without any of the useful accomplishments for living--without malice, vanity, suspicion, cruelty, and the commoner forms of selfishness.  Jealousy seemed to him the most ignoble of vices.  He was sadly unfitted for hating his best friend or for torturing his wife.  He had been given too much love and trust to be good at these things. Aurthur was not one of those interesting characters whose subtle motives can be dissected.  He was onle a simple and affectionate man, because Merlyn had believed that love and simplicity were worth having."

20. Graphic Novel