Tag Archives: Tuesday Tome

Mar 1 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 9 – The Scarlet Letter

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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece is set in Puritan New England. If you, like me, have only seen the movie, you should really consider reading the book. I have said this before and I will say it again: there is no comparison between immersing yourself in a book and watching a movie adaptation thereof.

The Scarlet Letter

 

This is only 272 pages, so it’s not as intimidating as Don Quixote or Anna Karenina, so really there should be no problem from that standpoint. If you are familiar with King James Bible language, again, the dialogues in this book should not pose a problem. It is actually very neat to read something in that kind of English which is not the Bible – though Scriptural references are peppered throughout.  Continue reading »

Feb 23 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 8 – Three Deuces Down

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For this month’s book group selection, we had to read Three Deuces Down by Keith Donnelly. This is a thriller set in East Tennessee. Knoxville, TVA, the Smokies, Tri-City area, I-40 and I-81 get mentioned quite a bit. But our PI protagonist, Donald Youngblood takes us all over the world, from New York to Ireland and then to Colombia.

Keith Donnelly and Adriana Zoder

Keith Donnelly and I at the Anna Porter Public Library Book Group meeting

If you like thrillers, this is a good one. Of course, with this genre, you will have to expect that somebody disappears, somebody gets killed (at least one, right?), somebody hooks up, and somebody gets philosophical.

This is the first in a series of mysteries featuring Donald Youngblood, a Wall Street whiz kid turned private investigator in a small town in East Tennessee.  Continue reading »

Feb 9 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 6 – Jane Eyre

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Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is a masterpiece. No wonder then that of all the things the Bronte sisters wrote, Susan Wise Bauer included only Jane Eyre into her list of 32 novels produced by the Western world since the genre was created, around the 1600s. Jane is way ahead of her time. She makes herself the equal of a man (a wealthy gentleman, too) – great feat in 1847! – through conversation and wit and attitude.

Jane Eyre

But Jane Eyre is more than just an early feminist. She is a Christian who is grappling with injustice, hypocrisy, delusion, and missionarism in the people around her. Some have said this book is anti-Christian because of characters like Mr. Brocklehurst and St John Rivers. These men seem more like caricatures, but have you not met hypocritical characters in your local congregation? Have you not met exalted young missionaries who are deluded into thinking they are doing God and the world a favor through their daily sacrifices? I know I have met my fair share of such people. So this book spoke to me on a very personal level.  Continue reading »

Feb 2 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 5 – Oliver Twist

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After Pride and Prejudice, it was very difficult to motivate myself to read Oliver Twist – just too much sadness and unfairness and mind-blowing coincidences. I like believable stories and while I believe Victorian London really was as bad as described in this book, I just have a hard time with the coincidences.

But the idea of reading Charles Dickens, one of the greatest novelists in the English language, motivated me in the end. Anything in the name of literature!

Oliver Twist

On the other hand, I came up with this idea that, of the entire novel list from The Well-Educated Mind, I should allow myself to skip two if I felt like it. I know one of them will be Moby Dick. I refuse to read this book simply because Susan Wise Bauer herself says she has not finished it, even though she started it 17 times. And yet, she wrote a long paper about it in graduate school and passed her exam with flying colors. Which says a lot about graduate school in the US, but also about the dedication needed to finish this grueling novel.  Continue reading »

Jan 26 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 4 – Pride and Prejudice

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As I work my way through the books listed in The Well-Educated Mind, all sorts of things go through my mind. Pride and Prejudice is one of those literary works that we should read at least once a decade. A teenager will experience this novel differently than a 25-year-old and a 35-year-old will see yet so many other things – new things – in this book.

Pride and Prejudice

I do not recommend the movie with Keira Knightley, by the way. It it too hard to squeeze this literary gem into a two-hour film. Plus it’s just not done well. I saw this movie a long time ago and did not like it at all. After reading the novel last week, I watched bits of this movie on YouTube and disliked it even more.  Continue reading »

Jan 19 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 3 – Gulliver’s Travels

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Written by Jonathan Swift (an Irish clergyman) and published in 1726, this book has never been out of print. It contains four volumes, each detailing a voyage to a different fantasy land. First and foremost, I want to say that this is NOT a children’s book.

Tuesday Tome - Gulliver's Travels

Many of us grew up with a fragment or two of this book in our literature program. Maybe we have watched the cartoon or seen a picture of Gulliver as a giant surrounded by six-inch Liliputians. However, this book was written as a satire on human nature, English politics, and travelling books so prevalent during Swift’s time. Until you read the unabridged book, you don’t really get the whole meaning behind it.  Continue reading »

Jan 5 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 1 – How to Read a Book

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Mortimer Adler is many things to many people. Or a nobody to some. He has become an important figure in my life because of his work in putting together a collection of the best works in Western literature. Then, I got to read his own work and learned some more.

What better way to start my Book of the Week Club than with a book about how to read books? I know of no better book that Mortimer Adler’s classic “How to Read a Book.”

Tuesday Tome Week 1

I read Adler’s book in about 10 days but it can totally be read in a week if you get one of those easier weeks without deadlines outside your normal homeschool routine. Translation: no canning projects or publishing deadlines and then it can be done in a week. Continue reading »