What I've Been Reading

I've been reading a lot recently so I thought I had better make a quick list -- I resolved to keep track this year, but as usual it always slipped to last place.

First, here are some book reviews Clare wrote for The Robe and for Out of the Silent Planet.
(note 5/30 -- and one more The Great Escape.)

That is what I'd LIKE to do with these, but in the meantime, the quick list.

Here is what I've read during May 2008:

• IQ: A Smart History of a Failed Idea by Stephen Murdoch. Very interesting reading indeed -- much about the history of the testing, how it linked to early eugenic theory.
• Childhood Speech, Language and Listening Problems -- What Every Parent Should Know -- good read, doesn't assume specialized knowledge but is not condescending "parent-speak" either. Since I'm taking over Aidan's speech therapy I thought I had better get in touch with the general big picture.
• Quotidian Mysteries -- Laundry, Liturgy and Womens' Work -- by Kathleen Norris. I loved this book -- it's very short, very perceptive, written by a poet.
• Education at the Crossroads-- by the Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain.
• Savior of Science -- by Stanley Jaki, Catholic scientist and philosopher -- about how only Christianity could set the conditions for the development of science.

In the Middle of at Present:

• Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel Siegel. A book about attachment theory and how recognition and dealing with your personal "trigger issues" can lead to better parenting.
• Summer for the Gods -- by Edward Larson -- about the Scopes trial and "American's Continuing Debate over Science and REligion"
• Joining the Literacy Club by Frank Smith.
  

Note 5/30 -- I finished the first two. I have also started rereading Charlotte Mason's Philosophy of Education.

Books I read bits of but haven't finished:

• The Mindful Brain by Daniel Siegel -- I found it hard going.
• History of Philosophy vol 6 Wolff to Kant by Frederick Copleston SJ. I only read the section on Kant.
• Descartes to Derrida -- An Introduction to European Philosophy. By Peter Sedgwick. I only read the first chapter on Knowledge and Reason because that was the section that concerned Kant.
• Straight Talk about Reading: How Parents Can Make a Difference in the Early Years--I skimmed this to see if I could find anything that would be useful for my struggles with Aidan, but didn't read every word.
  

Not much fiction on there. The last fiction I remember reading is East of Eden by John Steinbeck, but that was in April. Oh, yes, and I forgot:

• Jenny by Sigrid Undset. Definitely an immature "minor" work of one who went on to become a great woman writer. Plenty of promise, but still wrestling with her creative angel.

Kind of the opposite of East of Eden which struck me as an elderly type of book, with the excesses of garrulity of a great one who is past his prime. Excesses of verbiage, both in the philosophical vein and in the "fondly remembered past exploits" vein. Some of it fit into what the story was about but some of it went on too long. I should add that Clare had a much better opinion of it than I did.

Oh, and how could I forget! Two more I read:

• Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence
• Jane Austen by Carol Shields

Clare read these too. We had watched the movie Becoming Jane and both of us were curious how much of the movie was "fact" and how much "poetic license".