2018 Reading Challenge Update

I have not been doing too well with reading so far this year.  I feel I get slower as I get older.  Also, I tend to give up on books more.  I am giving up on Apologia Pro Vita Sua by Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman.  I've been trying to read it slowly, as a meditation each morning.  But I can't get into it.  It is too dry and not spiritual enough for me.  It is better if I was reading it for historical purposes, but I'm not.  Maybe I'll tackle it at a later point.

It took me months to get through The Brothers Karamazov but I did! Such a powerful book.

Life changing!

I also re-read a couple books:  another Georgette Heyer, Frederica, which is a delightful one, and Bab:  A Sub-Deb by Mary Roberts Rinehart which is a very funny book but I had remembered some of it inaccurately.  This bothered me because I didn't read it that long ago.

A light, clever, amusing escape!

I have now started to listen to The Red and the Black by Stendhal on librivox.  Librivox is my new best friend.  It is free and it keeps me company as I drive all over kingdom come for my teens.  I had selected this book for my classics Challenge.  However, it is one of those existential French novels where the main character is rather unlikable.  This was the new and edgy thing back post enlightenment/French Revolution - think Madame Bovary and Balzac novels.  It continues to be a popular approach to novel writing.  But I find it is rare that an author can make me care enough about an unsympathetic protagonist.  A couple of exceptions to my mind are Lolita (because the author was brilliant in showing what a monster Humbert was but at the same time keeping him human) and The Bonfire of the Vanities (Wolfe just made us laugh at the absurdity of the protagonist's plight).

I am also currently reading Ancient Israel; Its Life and Institutions by Roland de Vaux.  I have no idea how this book found itself into my house.  It is a scholarly book but rather easy to read, in spite of that.  I am enjoying it, but it isn't the sort of book you read cover to cover, so I don't know if I'll finish it exactly.  If I do it might take a while and I feel in no rush with it.

A good reference book, scholarly but very readable.

I have been reading C.S. Lewis' Reflections on the Psalms as my new morning meditation book.  I read it a long time ago, maybe 20 years?  I have been really getting into praying the Psalms fairly regularly.  I've been going to the Universalis site and praying Lauds, the Office of Readings and often also Compline at night.  This has put new energy into my prayer life and I am really rejoicing in it!  So Lewis' insights are a wonderful complement for me.

Brilliant as usual!

Finally, I just finished reading The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie.  I am familiar with her hero detectives Poiriot and Marple, but I was not so familiar with Tommy and Tuppence!  This is the first book that they are featured in .  I got it for 99 cents on my Kindle.  It's set after WWI and has got Bolsheviks in it which fits right in with what we are studying in history at the co-op.  I enjoyed this book immensely.  Christie's style here is very light and simple.   This book will fit the bill for a classic mystery in my 2018 Reading Challenge.

Update - I wrote this post a few days ago.  Since then I've started re-reading Radical Homemakers, a book I've been wanting to revisit for a while now.

For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.