I shared in an earlier post that I've been listening to Stephen King's Bag of Bones while I train for the marathon. Well, I was. Got to the point that I was doing twice as much 'cooldown' as I needed because I hated to stop listening to the thing. Finally I took Thursday night and finished it while I was home alone (Kris is visiting her sister this weekend). I just couldn't help myself this time.
This isn't the first time I've done this with a book; there seem to be some times and authors that just demand that I keep reading. Others I can enjoy just as much at a more savory pace. I wonder why that happens?
Anyway, here are a few books I've 'gobbled' in the past few years:
Stephen King - Cell; Bag of Bones; Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla; Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah; Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
Phillip Pullman - His Dark Materials I: The Golden Compass; His Dark Materials II: The Subtle Knife; His Dark Materials III: The Amber Spyglass
Bo Giertz - The Hammer of God
And here are some others I've enjoyed at a much slower pace:
Patrick O'Brien - Master and Commander and Post Captain ('Lucky' Jack Aubrey I & II)
Anne Proulx - The Shipping News (Proulx also wrote a little book that's receiving some attention lately - Brokeback Mountain)
Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
Haven Kimmel - The Solace of Leaving Early
Comments as to what you've read lately that's worth reading would be much appreciated, as would any comments on the list I've presented here.
Pax,
Scott
I tend to read in waves. I plowed through some of the Clancy novels in a seemingly short period of time, though for the past year I was in a serious drought. Not due to cable or other distractions, I just wasn't feeling it.
ReplyDeleteUnlike you and Bell, I am a very slow reader, so when I do read voraciously, it still takes me a bit of time. That and I tend to read several things at once: a spiritual classic, a fiction/"fun" book, perhaps a theological or more thought-provoking work.
Lately, I've been re-reading the Narnia books at the rate of one a week - very easy reads. I only read "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" and "The Last Battle" as a kid, so I thought it'd be fun to read 'em again.
After that, I'm definitely reading Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild." If you've never read "Into Thin Air," you MUST, because it's simply amazing.
I just finished Reinhold Niebuhr's "Leaves from the Notebooks of a Tamed Cynic," and it was really great. I had no idea he was so committed to Socialism, nor that he and Bonhoeffer were contemporaries.
I'm just now starting Gerhard Forde's "On Being a Theologian of the Cross" and looking forward to plowing through it.
If you've never read Walt Wangerin's "Paul: A Novel," you're really missing out.
One of my former youth gave me two of the Harry Potter novels for Christmas - I hate to sound unappreciative, but I'm not terribly excited about 'em. He's hoping to "convert" me to love it somehow, so it's a bit of a tainted gift. Just the same, I suppose I'll have to read them eventually. It just seems like there is so much more I'd rather read. Narnia novels aren't exactly deep, but I'm just not thrilled about Harry Potter.
Dang, this is a long reply...Whose blog IS this, anyway?! But you DID ask the question...
Fuerst
Hey man, long replies are our specialty, right?
ReplyDeleteI enjoy the Potter books tremendously, but I think it's only because they are so imaginative & descriptive, not because of any great, deeply hidden moral or spiritual quality. For me, they are just really good stories, and if they were written for kids, so be it. But it's not like everyone has to agree on them. Incidentally, you might want to check out "The Dark Is Rising" novels by Susan Cooper - if you like the Narnia Chronicles you'll love them. Modern Welsh & British continuation of the Arthur saga - just excellent storytelling.
I have "Moral Man & Immoral Society" on the radar, but right now I'm reading "Gilead" by Maryanne Robinson - read about it in the Minneapolis Star Tribune & thought it sounded good. So far it is.
Thanks!
Scott