Tagged: classics

First Sentence of Pride and Prejudice

Books and Reading

200 Years of Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice was first published in January of 1813, and it remains one of the greatest novels ever written, appearing on seven of the thirteen “great books” lists I used to compile my personal summary of great books. In The Joy of Reading, Charles Van Doren describes the novel in this way: Pride and Prejudice was her first novel; she wrote a version of it before she was twenty. She put it aside to write Sense and Sensibility, her first work to be published; she then rewrote...

Charles Dickens

Books and Reading

Time to Go to That There Burying-Ground: Dickens’ 200th Birthday

Ralph Fiennes reads a moving excerpt from Bleak House as Prince Charles lays a wreath of flowers on Dickens’ grave. Today the world remembers Charles Dickens, born on this day two hundred years ago. I have a great fondness for Dickens’s works, especially David Copperfield and Hard Times. One of Dickens’ particular qualities was the ability to make one laugh and shudder at the same time. As Chesterton says, “These two primary dispositions of Dickens, to make the flesh creep and to make the sides ache, were a...

With Fire and Sword

Book Review / Books and Reading

Review: With Fire and Sword An Historical Novel of Poland and Russia.

With Fire and Sword An Historical Novel of Poland and Russia. by Henryk Sienkiewicz My rating: 4 of 5 stars With Fire and Sword must be one of the greatest historical epics you’ve never heard of. Set in the 17th century, and told from the Polish point of view, it recounts a Cossack uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The historical backdrop serves as a grand canvas for the portraits of courage, love, and spiritual devotion that form the heart of the story. In print, With Fire and Sword...

The Accolade

Books and Reading / Spirituality

A Glimpse of Heaven Through Mythopoeic Literature

Having just finished Peter Kreeft’s book Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing, I find myself aching for the numinous: Have you ever felt it–the haunting of the world?…The haunting has been called the sense of the “numinous.”  It is the sense that the world we see is haunted by something we do not see, an unseen presence.” Kreeft goes on to discuss this haunting in the human face, romantic love, pictures, stories and music.  I think I have lost touch with the numinous in my daily life as practical...

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Books and Reading

Top 10 Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I was looking at my commonplace book and was again struck by the eloquence of Henry David Thoreau. Here are some of my favorite Thoreau quotes, most of them from Walden: I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. …to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. In short, I am convinced, both by faith...

Bibliomaniac

Books and Reading

Possessed by Books

I’ve known some bibliomaniacs in my time, but Archdeacon Meadow has got to be one of the worst afflicted: Archdeacon Meadow accumulated so many books that he was forced to sell a considerable portion of his collection. But as their auction proceeded he experienced such passionate anguish that he left the room and returned again in disguise to begin bidding for his own books. –Otto L. Bettman, The Delights of Reading: Quotes, Notes and Anecdotes

Thornton Wilder

Books and Reading / Spirituality / Theology

Is Purgatory Like a Novel?

What makes fiction so powerful and so poignant? Thornton Wilder sums it up in one of the most moving quotes I have ever read: If Queen Elizabeth or Frederick the Great or Ernest Hemingway were to read their biographies, they would exclaim, “Ah, my secret is still safe.” But if Natasha Rostov were to read War and Peace she would cry out as she covered her face with her hands: “How did he know, how did he know?” Is this what the pain of Purgatory might be like:...

Field of Dreams

Books and Reading / Movies

The 15 Greatest Movies with Novels as Source Material

Not only are these great movies, but the novels on which they are based are classics, too. If you’re in a reading group, why not read the book, then watch the movie? I only chose novels, no non-fiction (i.e., A Beautiful Mind) or drama (i.e., Much Ado About Nothing). Movies are listed alphabetically. Ben-Hur – Novel by Lew Wallace The Bridge on the River Kwai – Novel by Pierre Boulle Field of Dreams – Based on Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella The Godfather – Novel by Mario Puzo...

Henry Fielding

Books and Reading

What Is Reading For?

I saw this comment on a post in someone else’s blog the other day: My theory is, at least they’re reading. Who cares what they read? Just read, damn it. If the discussion were about kids who were just learning to read, I’d be inclined to agree–there is a point in everyone’s life when the best way to improve as a reader is to read as much as you can, regardless of the content (mostly–I hate Captain Underpants!). But the blog post was about reading in general, and...

Young Cicero

Books and Reading

Are ROMANs Elite?

John at SF Signal reviewed my free ebook ROMAN Reading in post called When in Rome…Do as Elitists Do? I really appreciate the time he took to read the book and write about it. His comments actually illustrate a couple of the elements of ROMAN Reading: Asking questions about what you read, and Naming your experiences. One of the questions he asks is if the neighborhood analogy is elitist. Here are his thoughts: Encouraging reading is a good thing, but I detect a smack of reading elitism here,...

The Three Musketeers

Books and Reading / Family

Literary Testosterone – 30 Must-Read Classics for Teenage Boys

This is a follow-up to Maureen’s question about recommendations for 12 and 13 year-old boys. Without getting into a big discussion about gender stereotyping, let me just say that in general boys at this age tend to read books that are more action and adventure oriented, while girls enjoy reading more about relationships. Case in point: I teach The Hobbit and Les Miserables to my eighth graders each year. Both boys and girls love these books. But when I look at the few students who didn’t like them,...

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza

Books and Reading / Family

Don Quixote for Young Readers?

Maureen asks: I have 12 and 13 yo boys and would love some book recommendations. Is Don Quixote appropriate for their age group? They are voracious readers, and I find we’re on the brink of children’s and adult books. Thanks for any advice. What a great question! One of my favorite things to do is recommend books. First, concerning Don Quixote: In sixteen years of teaching junior high students, I only recall three students who read Don Quixote all the way through, but each of them really enjoyed...