Books I finished reading this year: up to twenty

I have a GoodReads reading challenge this year of 47 books. (Don't ask me why, it just worked out that way.) I've read 20 books (almost halfway there), and some of the books I ended up reading were not the ones I planned; but that's okay. Re-reads aren't on the list, but I do go back; at least three books I spent time with this year "didn't count" because I had read them before.

Fiction

A Place in Time: Twenty Stories of the Port William Membership
Berry, Wendell

The Second Coming
Percy, Walker

The Housekeeper and the Professor
Ogawa, Yōko

Fathers and Children
Turgenev, Ivan

Poetry

Collected Poems 1909-1962
Eliot, T.S.

Four Quartets
Eliot, T.S.

Other Things

Atlas of the Roman World
Cornell, Tim J.

Telling the Truth: the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale
Buechner, Frederick

The Greek Way
Hamilton, Edith

Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter
Cahill, Thomas

MFA in a Box: A Why to Write Book
Rember, John

Eliot and His Age: T. S. Eliot's Moral Imagination in the Twentieth Century
Kirk, Russell

The Art of T.S. Eliot
Gardner, Helen Louise

Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year-Old Author
Wouk, Herman

Twenty Things You Should Read
Edwards, David B.

Scaling Down: Living Large in a Smaller Space
Culbertson, Judi *

Living, Well, Spending Less: 12 Secrets of the Good Life
Soukup, Ruth

A Christian View of Hospitality: Expecting Surprises
Hershberger, Michele

The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World
Laney, Marti Olsen

 Let's Play Math: How Families Can Learn Math Together and Enjoy It
Gaskins, Denise *

(I guess what I've read this year in Plutarch counts too?)

Laugh for the day: Bookish Friends

From the GoodReads blog: 15 Benefits of Being Friends with a Book Nerd. My favourite:

5. "They don't talk when you're reading. They just pick up their book." (Michelle Vollers)

Blame it on the book

Little kids read a monster book and then hide under the bed, right?

Well, sometimes the monsters follow you the rest of your life...or you acquire new ones as an adult. What irrational (or quite rational) worries have you acquired as a result of reading?  Have any of them ever kept you from making mistakes?

Tiny Little Medical Problems:  I've been paranoid of splinters ever since reading On Tide Mill Lane.  Wouldn't you be? 

Bad salmon:  Flight into Danger, required reading in grade five or six.

Bad whipped cream:  A Cap for Mary Ellis.

Leaving things too close to light bulbs:  The Saturdays.

Creepy old houses, not to mention reading under the covers:  The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring.  You wouldn't believe how badly that book scared me one night...it cured me of after-hours reading for some time.

Running with scissors:  The title, I can't remember; but it was a Parents' Magazine Press book from about 1970, about safety rules.  A bit like Struwwelpeter although not so extreme.  One little raccoon "liked to cut paper dolls, she snipped away happily singing" until she heard a friend's bicycle bell ringing--and ran with scissors, to what end exactly we're not sure. [Oh, look at that: I just found the title.  Watch Out! How to Be Safe and Not Sorry, by Harold Longman.]

Teasing Weasels:  if the opportunity ever came up.

You?

Where do you even START? ("Literature is the new Latin")

This kind of editorial just leaves me gasping for breath.

When English teachers with thirty years' experience propose that we make the last two years of high school English optional, I know that we really are in Ray Bradbury territory.

I think I need to sleep on this one and come up with some kind of semi-coherent response tomorrow.