A Mid-Summer Reading Chronicle

What I Read in May and June

Anne of Avonlea (II) Anne of the Island (III), Anne of Windy Poplars (IV),  Anne's House of Dreams (V),  & Anne of Ingleside (VI)  by L.M. Montgomery

With every book my husband and I read together, we fall more in love with Anne, Gilbert, and the charming nautical landscapes of Prince Edward Island. I appreciate how each book in the series represents a new stage in Anne’s life; Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea chronicle her girlhood and early teaching years; Anne of the Island advances her university and dating years; Anne of Windy Poplars represents the years of her principalship and engagement to Gilbert; Anne’s House of Dreams explores Anne’s first years of marriage and motherhood in a new land; and Anne of Ingleside follows Anne’s six children and the Blythe family’s adventures in Glen St. Mary. We have two books to get through before we can boast that we’ve finished this beloved series, but I have no doubt we’ll be able to do so before the summer is over. We’re already making plans to drive to Prince Edward Island together one day and reread the series on our way!

Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis

This is the closest we have to an autobiography of Lewis, and it offers fascinating insights into his creative mind and his spiritual and intellectual journeys. The main theme of the book is Lewis’ pursuit of joy, which he experienced as a young boy getting lost in his imagination and in fairy tales. It chronicles Lewis’ descent into atheism and his coming-of-age years, and pays close attention to his intellectual journey and the friends, arguments, and experiments that led him back to Christianity again, a grudging convert. If you’ve ever experienced the sublime sensation that Lewis chased for years, to no avail, before finding it again in Christ - an inexplicably pleasurable and hopeful phenomenon that Lewis labels joy - then read this book. It's a delight to find that others are in search of it too, and that joy is real.

The Final Pagan Generation by Edward Watts

I read this book as a research assignment for my professor, who is writing a book on secularisation and sacred-social order. It describes the shifting social and religious landscape of the Roman empire in the fourth century and recounts the fascinating story of the lives and fortunes of the last Romans born before the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. This is an academic work, and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you plan to write a paper or have a specific interest in the Christianization of the Roman empire.

Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic by Simon Winchester

I picked up this book in Montreal because it promised to explore book and print culture as it relates to the transmission of knowledge. The book did not disappoint. It is thick with intellectual history, ranging from the educational systems of the ancient civilizations to the advent of artificial intelligence. The author explores how humans have attained, stored, translated, transmitted, and disseminated knowledge over the course of human history. This book is no light read, but it serves its purpose well, and it's impossible to set it down without having picked up a plethora of new facts and anecdotes about human learning and understanding.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This is both the most charming and most haunting novel of our century. I fell in love with The Book Thief many years ago when I first watched the movie, and have since read the book several times through, as well as committed to watching the movie at least once a year. A girl in love with words, the thief of tomes… A yellow-haired boy in love with the book thief… A hidden Jew brought to life by words and stories… A twisted landscape of tragedy and fate and miracles… Narrated by Death. I will forever mourn young Rudy Steiner and cherish the soul of Leisel Meminger, and return to The Book Thief time and time again. If you haven’t read it, I recommend you do so in winter. It is a wintery sort of book.

Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners by Dane Ortlund

I read this book as part of my daily devotional ritual. Dane Ortlund has the uncanny ability to communicate the beauty and love of Christ in a way that leaves you longing to know Christ better. Ortlund makes the case that sanctification - becoming more like Christ - does not happen by doing better or being better, but by going deeper into the Gospel and letting its truths wash over you. The true Christian life not about how well you stick to your devotional schedule, how faithfully you go to church, and how convincingly you play the role of ‘Christian’ in the world: it's about how well you understand, believe, and live out the doctrines of Jesus Christ found in Scripture. This book served as a timely and welcome reminder for me to be in the Word more often and to trust Christ’s work, not my own, with greater fervour.

Faust: Part I by Goethe

I’ve been dying to read Faust ever since I listened to the Hardcore Literature podcast’s episode on Goethe’s great work. I realised then that this play could serve as a huge inspiration for my current novel, “Project Abner,” and indeed it did. I generally gravitate towards prose writing before I pick up poetry or plays, but I found Goethe’s poetic play to be accessible, profound, and even comical, though it is a tragedy. If you are eager to get into classic poetry but, like me, don’t know where to start and feel intimidated by the complexity and ethereality of the great poems, Faust: Part 1 is just the poem to begin that journey with. It sucked me in and I was able to follow the plotline and tap into the nuances and deeper meaning of the poetry quite easily. I look forward to tackling Part 2 this coming autumn.

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Yes, I have been keeping up with my ‘Year of Dostoevsky’ resolution, though admittedly at a slower pace than I first intended. To be perfectly honest, I lost much of my momentum towards reading all of Dostoevsky’s works once spring and summer came around. The frigid Russian nights and the bleak plights of the Russian workers and nobility have lost their appeal for the time being, but I hope to pick up my Dostoevsky reading this coming autumn. I did manage to listen to The Idiot as an audiobook this spring, which made it much more bearable (though it did take my three months since I kept running out of Spotify listening hours). The novel’s premise is fascinating and well-played-out: the ‘idiot’ (Prince Mishkin) arrives back in Russia after a holiday recovering from mental illness in southern Europe only to find himself tossed about in Russian society due to his naivety and inherent good-heartedness. The satire is palpable: poor Prince Mishkin is so honest and pure-intentioned that the Russians find him unbelievable, and either suspect him of being a conman or find him stupid enough to take advantage of. Prince Mishkin finds himself entangled in a love triangle, with two wild and undecided ladies seemingly mad for his innocent affections, which leads to the poor fellow’s downfall. There is much to unpack in The Idiot, which I highly recommend you discover for yourself.

The 9 Tailors by Dorothy Sayers

This is a mystery novel, which is an unusual choice for me. In fact, it was not so much a choice to read this book, as I am required to teach it to my students this coming fall. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how intricate the mystery and how compelling the plotline Dorothy Sayers transcribed in this rather long mystery novel. What I knew of Sayers before picking up The Nine Tailors was that she was a friend and colleague of C.S. Lewis and a proponent of classical education, having published “The Lost Tools of Learning” in 1947. As it turns out, Sayers is also a brilliant mystery novelist with a keen understanding of British culture and tradition, which she weaves brilliantly through her stories. I highly recommend this particular novel to all, and look forward to reading more of Sayers’ work in the future, particularly as I begin my journey as a classical educator.