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Fantine on Twitter

Books and Reading / Twitter

#LesMisReadalong on Twitter: Week 5 Highlights

I’ve been out of town for most of this week, so pardon me if I haven’t been as active on Twitter, but I’ve definitely kept up with the conversation on Twitter at #LesMisReadalong. Here are some of the highlights from this past week: Slow Reading #LesMisReadalong https://t.co/WIriLooPxJ — ?Roaring Stories? (@RoaringStories) January 29, 2018 #LesMisReadalong V1B3C2 Tholomyès does not sound like a great catch for 'little Fantine' though. "A 30 year old pleasure seeker and badly preserved". Although the 4,000 Francs per year would add to his charms...

The Bishop and the Candlesticks

Books and Reading / Chapter-a-Day Read-Along

Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along Discussion: The Fall

I’m a little short on time this week, so for week four’s post in the Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along, I’m going to simply pose a question in the hopes of starting a discussion. This is an honest question I have, a question to which I do not have a definitive answer. As we try to answer it, I ask that we stick only to the events of Book One and Book Two out of courtesy to those who are reading Les Misérables for the first time. So here’s my question:...

#LesMisReadalong on Twitter

Books and Reading / Chapter-a-Day Read-Along / Twitter

#LesMisReadalong on Twitter: Week 4 Highlights

This past week in the Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along featured one of the most famous scenes in the novel, and perhaps in all of literature: The Bishop’s Candlesticks. The twitter chat at #LesMisReadalong was abuzz with reactions to it, along with a host of other thoughts and favorite quotes. Here are a few highlights: For him the external world had scarcely an existence. It would almost be true to say that for Jean Valjean there was no sun, no beautiful summer days, no radiant sky, no fresh April dawn. Some dim window light was...

The Drifter by William W. Johnstone

Book Review / Books and Reading

The Drifter (The Last Gunfighter Book 1) by William W. Johnstone

The Drifter by William W. Johnstone is exactly what I look for in a western, which made it a perfect book to begin the 2018 Wild Wild West Reading Challenge. There was plenty of gun-fighting action, a fair share of humor, and even a bit of romance. I had picked up the Kindle edition of The Drifter at a bargain price without knowing much about the story or the author, so I had moderate expectations about how good it was going to be. After finishing it, though, I’d have...

The Hardboiled Dicks edited by Ron Goulart

Books and Reading

Deal Me In Story #4: Winter Kill by Frederick Nebel

Card Drawn: 8♥ Anthology: The Hardboiled Dicks edited by Ron Goulart Story: “Winter Kill” by Frederick Nebel, 1935 If you pour water over a guy and take him outside when it’s zero, ten to one the guy will freeze in a hurry. Kennedy of the Free Press and Captain Steve MacBride of the Richmond City Police Department were featured in almost forty stories by Frederick Nebel from 1928 to 1936. In “Winter Kill” the newspaperman and the cop try to figure out who killed Russel Parcell by drenching him in...

Bible and iPhone

Books and Reading

Prayer in the Digital Age by Matt Swaim

I’m a tech guy and a Catholic school administrator, so I was very interested when a kind-hearted school parent gave me a copy of Matt Swaim’s Prayer in the Digital Age. I was hoping it would give me insights into how to help students cultivate the habit of prayer in today’s digital world. The blurb on the back promised “practical suggestions for learning how to ‘unplug’ in order to cultivate a fruitful relationship with God.” Unfortunately, the book’s suggestions were lost in a sea of negativity, generalizations, and judgments....

Tripwire (Jack Reacher 3) by Lee Child

Book Review / Books and Reading

Tripwire (Jack Reacher #3) by Lee Child

A Jack Reacher book is a lot like a popcorn movie: if you just go with it and don’t think about it too much, then it can be pretty entertaining. Tripwire is the third book in the series and the fourth Reacher book I’ve read, and while it was entertaining, it’s my least favorite. Not that it’s bad, it’s just not the Jack Reacher story I was anticipating. The book is more of an investigative mystery than an adrenaline-pumping action thriller. Tripwire features a more introspective Jack Reacher, a man...

Gericault's Raft of the Medusa

Books and Reading / Chapter-a-Day Read-Along

Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along: The Monstrous Waters

With day twenty-two of the Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along upon us, we reach “The Deep and the Dark,” one of the most fascinating chapters of the book so far — at least to me. Hugo’s considerable poetry skills are on full display, and from this chapter it is easy to see why Hugo is more famous in France for his poetry than for his novels or plays. “The Deep and the Dark” is a chapter-long metaphor that uses the sea to represent the fate of convicts. The chapter attempts...

Les Miserables Read-along Logo

Chapter-a-Day Read-Along / Homily

One Chapter a Day: Homily for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Many of you know that Les Misérables is one of my favorite books, but it’s a long one, almost 1500 pages, so reading it takes a while. Last year I found out that it has exactly 365 chapters, so I decided that in 2018 I would read one chapter a day, starting on January 1st and going to December 31st. They’re short chapters, about 5 pages or so, and I I thought it would be kind of a meditation and exercise in patience and delayed gratification to read...

Jean Valjean on Twitter

Books and Reading / Chapter-a-Day Read-Along / Twitter

#LesMisReadalong on Twitter: Week 3 Highlights

As readers are finishing week three of the Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along, the Twitter chat has been informative and fun. You can be a part of the Les Mis action by using the hashtag #LesMisReadalong. Here’s a sampling of the tweets from this past week: https://twitter.com/bronasbooks/status/952783356302774272 https://twitter.com/bronasbooks/status/952819730447925248 https://twitter.com/burns_nancy/status/952887291390898177 https://twitter.com/MissCarrieLA/status/952930490943713285 The good woman touched the man's arm and pointed out to him on the other side of the square a little low house beside the bishop's palace."You have knocked at every door?" she asked."Yes.""Have you knocked at that one?""No.""Knock...

The Montanans edited by Bill Pronzini

Books and Reading

Deal Me In Story #3: Buffalo Horns by Arthur Winfield Knight

Card Drawn: Q♠ Anthology: The Montanans, edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg Story: “Buffalo Horns,” by Arthur Winfield Knight, 1991 For the first western short story of the Deal Me In Challenge, “Buffalo Horns” was a bit unusual. The story takes place in 1929 in Hardin, Montana. Not exactly the heart of the West. But that’s the point of this story, I guess. It’s a wistful look back at a time gone by, more of a vignette than a story. It’s beautiful in its own way, but...

Book Review / Books and Reading

Pope Francis and the Joy of the Gospel by Edward Sri

This past December our pastor gave each member of the parish staff a copy of Pope Francis and the Joy of the Gospel: Rediscovering the Heart of a Disciple by Edward Sri. He asked us to read it because his focus for the parish in 2018 is on our baptismal call to share the Good News. Sri’s book fits this focus because it’s is a distillation and explanation of The Joy of the Gospel, an apostolic exhortation published by Pope Francis in 2013. A pope writes an apostolic exhortation in order to...