To Read or Not to Read (Shelf Life ed.Gary Paulsen and Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler)

I don't have to read every book I start. This was an important decision I made last week. See the stack of books below.

These are just a few of the books I intend to read! At the time I took this picture, I forgot there was one in my purse.

(Yes, the purse looks like it could be replaced, but that's a blog piece for another day: not filling our waste or dump sites.) My actual decision not to read a book came while reading these two books:

I finished Shelf Life; I returned Vinegar Girl to the library. Both of these books have something in common. In Shelf Life, editor Gary Paulsen asked prominent authors to write short stories  which included the mention of a book. This was done to promote and benefit ProLiteracy Worldwide. Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler is the third book of Random House's "Hogarth Shakespeare" project where a novelist updates a story from Shakespeare.

I picked up Shelf Life from work and I almost did not finish it as the stories at the beginning did not interest me. Sure, they mention a famous book (or two) in each story, but the stories came across like the results of a writing assignment rather than what would naturally come from the author. However, some of the students at the school where I work had this book as required reading so I pushed on and I liked the stories at the end. Also, the last section "About the Contributors" fascinated me.

Vinegar Girl written by well-known author Anne Tyler was supposed to be my "light-hearted" read after reading through a series of depressing books. It was okay, but I kept thinking the original Shakespearean play The Taming of the Shrew was a lot better. This isn't just me insisting on the original Shakespeare. I like his stories retold in modern language. I just kept thinking: "Wait, she's changing up the actual story." In the middle, I decided that I could stop reading. Just because I had started reading the book did not mean I had to finish it. Not only did I have all those other books I wanted to read (see first picture), but these books came in two days later (and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley looks like it might be the light-hearted read I have been looking for.)

💕💕💕💕 About 70% of the people who look at my blog do so on a mobile device and I now realize the website post does not always come out well on a mobile so I'm working to fix that. I still have not figured out how to add the translation widget to the mobile format, but I'm playing with how to divide up the sections such as this one that connects the reading to family life and the one below connecting to spiritual transformation.

I don't actually have the answer to the question I'm raising in this section. How do we get our children and students to enjoy some of the best literature of the ages when testing on anything kills most of the joy?

-------------As for spiritual transformation and reading, I have not, I believe, mentioned reading scriptures which surely would be included in any spiritual transformation plan. Again, testing destroys a whole lot of joy. While reading Old Testament scriptures and New Testament scriptures will help any reader because of the vast number of biblical references and allusions made in books, reading of the bible can make a transformative difference. And, while some readers may gasp at the word "can", reading the bible knowing that God loves you, the reader, and delights in you, makes a difference between reading it  and being transformed and thinking that God is out to get you and not being transformed. Also, skillful readers know to picture in their minds what they are reading. See the second book review You Gotta Be the Book in this blog post "Five Books..." to read a discussion of how important it is to picture what we are reading, yet so often that information is not offered to those reading the bible.  

Five Books I Wish I Had Read When They Were First Published...

...six, if you count My Ideal Bookshelf, published in 2012. I just picked it up from the library last week; however, I had this idea for a New Year's post of "books I wish I had read sooner" prior to reading this anthology. It turns out that the illustrator of this book has an ongoing blog and website https://www.idealbookshelf.com which you can find in the link. With hundreds of books, I find it a bit daunting to come up with an ideal bookshelf. My version of an idea bookshelf is a library. Instead, here are the books I wish I had read when they were first published.

The first book, I've already discussed above, and I'll keep coming back to it throughout 2018. I'll include the front of the cover at the end of the post. The second book, You Gotta Be the Book, was originally published in 1995 while I was in grad school for my Masters in Education, Curriculum and Instruction. This book could have been assigned to me then, but none of my professors did so. I even took a class in reading instruction. My copy is the third edition with a forward by the author written twenty years after the original. He updated the research, and that is lovely; still, I think of all the struggling readers I could have helped if I had known the information in this book. Basically, struggling readers do not see what natural or skillful readers see in their minds. This book includes practices tried and the amazing results gained when a teacher stops thinking either the student needs to get off the phone or needs to try harder or needs more skills. Some of those may apply, but they may apply because the student doesn't see what he or she is reading.

The third book, I have not finished as yet so I don't want to make a bold "you must read this" statement for it. All I know, so far, is that Aldous Huxley gave some amazing lectures at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1959. I can be forgiven for not being there at the time as I was barely in kindergarten. I only stumbled upon this collection of his lectures because I am enrolled in a trio of adult education classes on the Beat Generation authors, and Huxley is one of them. I never had any desire to learn about this group of authors since I unconsciously associated them with beatniks, and beatniks from the sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Dobie Gillis was not a beatnik but Maynard was...however, I digress. I may have to change my mind about the Beat Generation after this series of classes. Here is the Huxley quote that drew me into his lectures:

"My own feeling is that an ideal integrated education calls for an approach to the subject in terms of fundamental problems. Who are we? What is the nature of human nature? How should we be related to the planet on which we live? How are we to live together satisfactorily? How are we to develop our individual potentialities? What is the relationship between nature and nurture? If we start with these problems and make them central, we can obviously bring together information from a great number of at present completely isolated disciplines" (2).

Surprised by Hope and An Altar in the World comprise my spiritual "wish I had read sooner" section. Although, N.T. Wright's book Surprised by Hope (2008) came at the right time in my life, and maybe I need to consider that for all of these books. Perhaps, if I had read them sooner, they would not have had the impact that they did have. Wright's incredibly logical, well-researched and well-written book on the need for Christ-followers to see the beauty and importance of Christ's ascension gave me not only hope but also joy. I have read this book in full and can recommend it. I particularly appreciated the chapter on "The Redemption of Our Bodies" and "Resurrection: Life After Life After Death".
I'm finding that much of my reading these days has focused on loving God with my mind AND body. The body is not to be hated and ignored. The body in daily life is what Barbara Brown Taylor captures in her beautifully covered (stains and all) book An Altar in the World. I have not finished reading it, but I'm halfway done, and the first half alone makes the book worth buying. I recently finished the chapter on "The Practice of Wearing Skin." Will some of the people she quotes drive certain readers away? Sure. My practice when I am reading is to hang on to the good, true, and beautiful, and if I disagree with other parts, I disagree, but I don't throw the entire book out. I could not read otherwise as I have not found an author that I agree with his or her every single word...including myself!

Finally, in the fiction category: The Poldark series. I came to these books via BBC's Masterpiece Theatre. The latest series set in Cornwall is a sight for the eyes. Warleggan shown above is the fourth in the series of books by Winston Graham, the first of which was written in 1945 so I can also be forgiven for not reading this book before I was born. However, by the time I was in college, the first books could have qualified as classic (over 50 years old), and I truly feel the early novels have the hallmarks of classics: good thought provoking stories with social issues, politics, and history thrown in.

Will any of these five make the categories shown on the front cover (below) of My Ideal Bookshelf? I have not decided that as yet. Perhaps by the end of 2018, I will revisit that question and come up with my own ideal bookshelf.