Wednesday, January 14, 2009

books I would like to (re)read carefully this year

  1. Hold on to your Kids by Gordon Neufeld
  2. An Introduction to Philosophy by Jacques Maritain (I'm reading this through now but want to go back over it more carefully)
  3. Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason
  4. Counsels of Perfection for Christian Mothers by Msr Paul Lejeune
  5. Nichomachean Ethics
  6. The Discarded Image (I'm going to read this through with a study group after we finish reading some of Plato's dialogues)
  7. The Intellectual Life by AG Sertillanges
  8. From Dawn to Decadence (I got about 100 pages through once and let it drop because the print was too small and I wasn't yet in the habit of carrying reading glasses everywhere).
  9. Another Sort of Learning by Fr James Schall
  10. Pastoral and Occasional Sermons by Msr Ronald Knox
  11. Idea of a University by John Cardinal Newman
  12. How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler
  13. The Mind of the Universe by Mariano Artigas
  14. Brain, Mind and Computers by Fr Stanley Jaki
  15. Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
  16. Fine Arts as Therapy by Constantin Cavarnos
  17. Confessions St Augustine
  18. Vulgate New Testament (about a chapter a day, so it will take some time)
  19. Praying with Icons by Jim Forrest
  20. Herodotus: The Histories
  21. The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris
  22. We Die Standing Up by Dom Hubert Van Zeller
  23. In Defense of Philosophy by Josef Pieper
  24. World's Great Catholic Literature ed by George Schuster

I imagine the details will probably change as the year progresses, but I thought I would actually plan a bit for this year.

3 comments:

Laura A said...

That's a very good list you have there, and I'd be interested in your reflections on any of those books.

I am trying again this week to pick up Augustine's Confessions, which I dropped last year or the year before, and it's not easy to resume. Do I dare say that I think some of his old Manichean mind/body dichotomy lingered in his writings? I'm not qualified to say, but I'm going to keep plugging away at the book.

I'd be interested in your opinions on the Schall. It has looked interesting to me for a couple of years now.

I read *Hold on to Your Kids* last year, and I definitely agree with the point, though the writing tends to be repetitive. A muscular reader will find it fairly light.

And Bob is about to start the new Landmark Herodotus, so he'd probably welcome any posts on that, too.

Happy reading!

Advena said...

I haven't got all the way through Confessions, either.

I loved Hold On To Your Kids; I read it a couple of years ago. Some parts did drag more than others, probably because of the repetitiveness you mentioned. I wanted to go through it again because there are a lot of concepts in there that relate to attachment and education.

The Schall book is great. It has booklists after every essay. It was one of the first books we got; dh and I keep stealing it back from each other. When I can't find it I look in his office, and vice versa.

I think I've read almost all the books before, at least in part. I do plan to keep reading new books -- I have a stack beside my bed -- it's just that these are ones I want to devote some focused energy to.

Max Weismann said...
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