Monday, May 18, 2009

books on the brain::location & content

i am a reader. my husband is a reader. my children are readers (or at least 1 out of 4 read now!) so i think i need to include in this little chronicle of mine, the books i read or want to read this year. its good to see progress.

books we read shape who we are as people. this idea is a heavy one because it means we have a responsibility: to God, to our hearts and to our neighbor, for what we bring in to our minds. i want to have books that are character builders. not only goes for myself but also for our children. simple mom has a great post (read towards the end) about books in the home. as i was thinking about where we wanted to put our books in our new digs, it got me thinking about what we are reading, what our kids are reading and how location and content can ultimately mold the moral and creative imagination of our littles. now we just have to find a good set of like bookshelves to create this space (the ones we currently have are not tall enough, thus they take up way too much space - Lord, can i have built-ins? sigh.)

book list 2009:

reading:

john adams by david maculah
tipping point and outliers by malcom gladwell
the great omission by dallas willard
book of john in the bible
the blessing by john trent, ph.d. & gary smalley
9 o'clock in the morning by dennis bennett

want to read:

(re-read) animal, vegetable, miracle by barbara kingsolver
90 minutes in heaven by don piper with cecil murphey
a grief observed by c.s. lewis
orthodoxy by g.k. chesterton
the idea of a university by cardinal newman
the omnivores dilemma by michael pollan

completed:

a tree grows in brooklyn by betty smith

simple mom's top 10 twaddle free children's books:

1. madeline by ludwig bemelmans
2. best friends for frances by russell hoban
3. ferdinand by munro leaf
4. frog and toad are friends by arnold lobel
5. george and martha by james marshall
6. make way for ducklings by roberty mccloskey
7. winnie-the-pooh by a.a. milne
8. if you give a mouse a cookie by laura numberoff
9. alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day by judith viorst
10. lyle, lyle crocodile by bernard waber

3 comments:

  1. C. S. Lewis on the value of reading old books:

    "Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. … To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them."

    http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/01/19/c-s-lewis-on-reading-old-books/

    ReplyDelete
  2. here's the whole intro:

    http://silouanthompson.net/library/early-church/on-the-incarnation/introduction/

    ReplyDelete
  3. here's the quote I was looking for:

    "The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books." CS Lewis

    from the same link as above
    http://silouanthompson.net/library/early-church/on-the-incarnation/introduction/

    ReplyDelete

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