Classics Spin #24 - Winning # is 18!

Number 18 on my list this time around turned out to be Minor Works by Jane Austen.  

Classics Club Spin #24 List of Potential Wins!

 Here's my list of 20 potential reads for the next spin.  I am deliberately picking shorter or easier works because I am feeling rather overwhelmed with the non-reading portion of my life!  This is also limited by the fact I am just pulling books off my shelves I've been meaning to read for ages.  The Power and the Glory is a favorite of mine but I haven't read it in decades so time for a reread.

Here's the link to the blog post for the spin:  https://theclassicsclubblog.wordpress.com/2020/08/01/cc-spin-24/

1. Utopia by Thomas More

2.  Paradisio by Dante

3.  King Lear by Shakespeare

4.  The Complete Tales of Alexander Pushkin (might just read a selection)

5.  Short Stories by Flannery O'Conner (read a selection)

6.  The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne (This was originally published in 2 volumes.  I've already read volume 1).

7.  The Light Princess and other Tales by George MacDonald

8.  Common Sense by Thomas Paine

9. Civil Disobedience and Other Essays by Henry David Thoreau

10.  Self-Reliance and Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

11.  The Story of the Golden Fleece by Padriac Colum

12.  Classic American Short Stories from Dover (read a selection)

13.  Best-Loved Short Stories also from Dover (read a selection)

14.  Seneca On The Shortness of Life

15.  Renascence and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

16.  T. S. Eliot Collected Poem (1909-1935)

17.  The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

18.  Minor Works by Jane Austen (read a selection)

19.  The Gift of Good Land by Wendell Berry (read a selection of his essays)

20.  Little Lord Fauntleroy by Francis Hodgson Burnett

40 Day Novena

I found about this 40 Day Novena (7/7-8/15) via the Catholic Unschoolers group, I think.  I am adapting it to suit my life, my personal challenges and failings.  If I did it as recommended, I know I'd never been consistent.  It is extremely hard, nigh impossible, for me to maintain consistency for 40 days straight.  I really think I am ADD and that is how it manifests itself in me!  So I am using this as a excuse to up my game a little bit, but also consolidate things that I have been trying, halfheartedly in many instances, to do already.  We'll see how it goes.  I am thinking even making the effort is part of the spiritual battle! 

My game plan: 

Reflection:

• listen to a homily every day - could be Bishop Barron, Bishop Burbidge, from my own parish, or some other reflection from another priest
• Reading - I am slowly rereading Augustine's Confessions and also reading Compassion & Conviction; The (&) Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement.  I'm also reading a collection of short meditations from Bishop Barron, entitled Centering.  

Prayer:

• Lauds every morning
• Divine Mercy every afternoon (need to set alarm for 3 p.m.)
• Night prayers with my family

Reparation/Penance:

• Confession - I need to quarantine as much as possible until after vacation (to keep my father in law safe) so I will go in early August.  
• Each day I will perform a work of spiritual or corporal mercy.  I am already on prayer requests team from my parish which is a good thing.  Two other things I can do are:  pick up trash around my neighbor when I take walks and remember to buy extra groceries and take them to the drop off at my parish for the food bank.  Next month I'm scheduled to make chicken for the homeless the first Thursday.  I also consider taking my glass recycling to the drop off site a corporal work of mercy since it helps Creation (and I absolutely hate the sound of breaking glass.  Gives me nightmares.  I have to grit my teeth the whole time!).  Conscientious recycling is a work of mercy!  Deliberately choosing to buy ethically and locally even if it is less convenient and more expensive is a corporal work of mercy, I think!  Wearing a mask, even though I hate it, should count too!  I don't hate it for political reasons, I just find it intensely uncomfortable!  I will brainstorm more to come up with ideas I can implement.  It is hard to do something every day in normal times, during CV19 it's even harder but I'll still work towards that goal.
• Consumption of media will be restricted to the following:  facebook for a quick check in with possible posts/messages from family, also I am in a discussion group about Christian civic engagement.  But I'm just going to dash in and out, no hanging out!  I will watch homilies, but that's different, I will still keep up my booktube channel.  That has been nothing but a good thing to me.  But, I will watch only one other booktube channel a day and one gardening/homesteading channel a day.  I often binge watch. I might keep up Instagram because I mostly just post photos of nature or books.  Only takes a minute. No twitter which I recently returned to. No political youtube, no politics anywhere!  I need a breather.  Although, I also am going to attend a maybe three zoom meetings.  Does that count?   Otherwise it would be in person and wouldn't be social media, so I don't think I'll include them.  And they also could double as spiritual or corporal works of mercy because they deal with racism, police brutality and the environment.  I want to restrict the totality of media consumption to one hour a day, whenever possible.  Some days will go over but most days could easily be restricted to 30 to 45 minutes.   Oh dear though.  This is all so complicated!
• Fast from sugar - this is something I regularly try to do but lately have been very bad at.  So I'm going to get stricter about this.
• Abstain from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays.  I try to do this also but often fail utterly!
• Exercise 1 hour a day - this includes walks, gardening, playing outside with D.  However, I also need to stretch regularly and I need to include in this doing at least 15 minutes of housework each day.  I am so lazy.  Outside of cleaning the kitchen and doing laundry, I hardly touch anything.  I wait until someone is coming over or there is some sort of pressure from something to get me going.  It's awful.  If I take a 15 minutes walk with D in the a.m.  Weed for ten minutes, kick a ball around with D or horseplay with him, plus some sweeping, vacuuming, scrubbing, I could get in an hour easily and will probably go over it.  But in truth I probably need at minimum two hours of this low key movement to be healthy.

Bookish Update - 7/5/20

We had a lovely low-keyed 4th of July.  R really outdid himself  He went out on Friday to buy fireworks.  The usual places weren't around and he had to really hunt to find them.  He also is trying to get the hang of his Big Green Egg that he got for Father's Day.  So for the third time he tried smoking ribs.  Ribs are really work intensive, starting the day before.  Anyway this was the most successful attempt so far.  He also got the meat from this local organic butcher shop that we'd never bought from before.  Wow, the meat was really delicious.  The hot dogs made by the butcher shop were the best I have ever eaten.  Man, I'm not kidding.  I am not even particularly a hot dog fan!

But also the 4th of July was sweet because of D.  He played in the big blow up pool with his Mama.  He misses her so much during the week that it was really nice for him to have an extended time with her.  And then she bought him a star spangled pin wheel, an Uncle Sam hat, and some red, white and blue pom pom type things that he loved.  And he ran around playing with them for hours.  He loved Rick's BBQ and then staying up for the fireworks.  He kept pronouncing it as the BEST, DAY. EVER!  LOL.  He is so darling and such an incredible blessing to us.

We ended the day by watching Hamilton, though it is quite long so we only managed to watch the first half.  I had heard some of the music but had never seen it.  It's a weird, anachronistic take on Hamilton's life.  I found it at times quite clever and catchy and other times rather clunky and I kept laughing at the wrong moments which I think annoyed B who is a deeply devoted fan.  I was underwhelmed by Lin-Manuel which surprised me!  But the guy who played King George, and the guy who plays Burr were outstanding.  And Hamilton's wife, Eliza, has the loveliest voice!  I could listen to her all day.  Hopefully we'll finish watching this evening.

Anyway, to catch up on my reading.   I am more focused on my youtube channel than blogging about books here. I love being part of the booktube world.  It gives a whole rich dimension to reading for me.  So I have posted about all these books over there.

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome:  I find the life of Ransome himself very interesting and would like to read a biography about him.  I got a slow start on this book which is well written and charming but paced slowly and so gentle it wasn't holding my attention until about half way and then I really got into it and wound up finding it quite delightful.  I am looking forwarding to reading Swallowdale, the next installment of the series, some time this month.

A Long, Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott:  This book was rejected by publishers when she wrote it back in 1866.  It finally got published in 1995!  It is a Gothic romance of an innocent young woman who gets trapped into a bad marriage and her attempt to flee from her evil husband.  It's quite dark in that quaint, Victorian way.  I found it quite enjoyable though it did go on a bit too long.  

John Adams by David McCullough:  Oh how I loved this book.  It was hard to read at times because so much of Adams life actually touches on issues we are living today in the wake of George Floyd protests.  Fascinating and highly readable account of the great man's life which includes his fascinating and great partner in life, Abigail Adams.  I learned a lot.  

*Blogger has updated and now I can't figure out how to link books to Amazon or other sites.  Sorry!

Pretty Garden Photos

Garden Walk

Garden Disarray

Ripening Aronia Berries

My bed of Ox-Eye Daisies

July 2020 TBR

Finish John Adams by David McCullough by July 4th.

At some point continue to read Augustine's Confessions with Ioana.  Depends on her schedule.

The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Work:  A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Selection of Minor Works by Jane Austen

The Life of Olaudah Equiano

Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome

Compassion & Conviction; the (&) Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement by Justin Giboney, Michael Wear and Chris Murphy

Garden Update

Weeds are still my major issue.  Here's what I've done:

• Weeded most of the bindweed and some other stuff too.
• Bought and received my my stirrup hoe and did some weeding.  Works pretty well!
• Also received my Fiskars Weeder which looks dangerous so I haven't attempted that one yet.
• I did a lot of weeding (well, a lot for me!) and had to take it easy for a day because my stupid wrists and fingers get all arthritic.
• Today I push mowed the back yard (which is small).  It was a good workout and so I've taken it easy for the rest of the day.
• Sadly the birds are enjoying our small blueberry harvest.  Sob.
• I also talked to the lawn and landscape co. and they will start mowing the lawn again (J had been doing it all spring while furloughed, but now he's back to work and since they have a reduced crew he's working longer hours so I didn't want to ask him anymore.  And S just doesn't do lawns.  He's not that kind of guy.  I guess I'm being sexist here because I or B could possibly do it too but I just don't do noisy, dirty machines with sharp blades and she takes after me).
• The landscape guys will also take out that bush in backyard
• mow behind our back fence
• cut back along the path in the backyard and put in new mulch there.
• We received the new chicken coop.  As soon as the bush is out, we'll put together the coop and put the chickens there.
• I got a pet sitter for vacation!