Recently, I participated in a Facebook "challenge" wherein you post the covers of seven books you love without comment or explanation, and then nominate others to do the same.
The no explanation part is kind of hard for an English major and a writer, so, here's a little bit of general reflection on the whole idea and the books I chose, and since it's on my blog and not on the actual posts, it doesn't break the rules, right?
As I've thought about what to post, it's made me ponder what I, at least, mean by books I "love." As I scoured my shelves trying to decide on seven covers, the ones that popped out aren't ones that I "love" in a sort of effusive sense of the word. They are books that have made an impact on the way I think, have special memories attached to them, have made me ponder, or have served as comforts.
Comfort Food
I don't reread a lot of books, so when I do, you know it's meaningful to me. So several books that I've read more than once made the cut. Some of them are like eating comfort food. Jane Austen books, for instance, have been a late pregnancy staple in several of my pregnancies. Some people nest -- I read the complete works of Jane Austen. Romantic, moral, insightful, witty, clever, and yes, even sarcastic and instructive, Austen's works offer satisfaction and rich language all at once. (P.S. Yes I KNOW not everyone feels this way about Austen.)
Another "comfort food" book is Ann Howard Creel's
The Magic of Ordinary Days, (also fairly well adapted to a Hallmark film starring a personal favorite actress of mine, Keri Russell). This book is soft and poignant and quiet, yet deals with big topics, such as an arranged marriage for an unwed mother and the Japanese Internment camps during WWII. It takes on these big topics in a beautifully quiet way without being about making political statements, but rather just telling the stories of these specific characters and learning to love in a simple, sacrificial way.
Ponderous
Other books were ones I studied in school. Their depth, the discussions around them, and the papers I wrote still leave deep impressions and memories, and sometimes shaped the way I think about things, or at least are brought to mind when something in day to day life reminds me of them. Books like this include Dostoevsky's
Crime and Punishment and Shakespeare's
Hamlet.
I mean, it's been 17...ahem...YEARS since we discussed
Crime and Punishment in my high school's AP English class, but I still remember vividly the instruction to look for how Dostoevsky makes use of the color yellow, and I can still picture in my mind what Raskolnikov's little hole of a room looked like to me as I read that description. It's one of the few books where I almost have a moving picture of that opening that runs in my head, even though I've never seen a film version.
Hamlet and John Milton's
Paradise Lost were extremely important to me in my college career. The class I took on Milton and the Honors Proseminar wherein we studied Hamlet and texts which inform or come out of it in depth, were both taught by an amazing professor, Prof. Huston Diehl. Prof. Diehl was an amazing teacher with an incredible personal story, who passed away from a recurrence of cancer several years after I graduated. The intensive study of both of these works came at a time when I had decided to pursue a post-graduate degree in theology, and was becoming more and more immersed in my Lutheran heritage. As I read them, and because Prof. Diehl was such an amazing and open teacher, I was able to study them with an eye toward theological concerns in conjunction with literary ones. She encouraged me to write about what I saw there through the eyes of my faith. My paper on Milton's
Paradise Lost explored Milton's conception of the Son's sonship, the Arian heresy, and the earlier concept of the Doctrine of the Logos. For Hamlet, I explored overtones of Lutheran theology or ways of thinking, as well as reformed ones and how they intersected, and how Lutheran doctrine allows Hamlet, finally, to act. These works and the writing I did on them married two things I love and still am fascinated with: theology and literature. I'm still really proud of that Hamlet paper most of all. It was supposed to turn into an Honors thesis my senior year, but I dropped it to study Attic Greek in anticipation of studying theology and the Biblical languages at the seminary. I wish I had pushed myself and also expanded that paper to be my Honors thesis. (Hindsight and all that).
Memories
One particular pick is a testament to the book itself as I really do love its wit, humor, childlike wonder, and fantastic characters, but also a testament to our family life. Far before I discovered
Read-Aloud Revival, and started thinking very intentionally about what to read to my children,
Winnie-the-Pooh and
The House at Pooh Corner were a favorite tradition. When my oldest (now 10) was two, we began reading A.A. Milne's fantastic stories. It's become rather a tradition to read them at least once a year. With each reading, my oldest understands more of the humor and word-play, and laughs at different aspects. When he was younger, he laughed at the obvious humor; the slapstick, and the silliness. Now that he is older, he laughs at the puns and the more subtle humor. So I love the book for the book itself, but I also love it because of the tradition it has gifted to us, which has expanded to include Milne's earlier poetry books, in which Pooh first appears with Christopher Robin:
When We Were Very Young and
Now We are Six.
Some others that have really been bonding for my children and I, but didn't make this particular quick list, are
Escargot, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Harold and His Purple Crayon, The Tale of Despereaux, The Reluctant Dragon,
Farmer Giles of Ham, and, with my oldest, the
Harry Potter series.
The Killer Angels accompanies an intense period of pre-teen and teenage obsession with all things to do with the Civil War. I went on to read all of Michael & Jeff Shaara's books, and they are some of the books that have survived several library reductions due to international moves, even though it's been years since I've read them again.
On an amazing seventh grade trip which they probably don't even do anymore, we visited American Revolutionary War and Civil War sites, including Gettysburg. To have read the book and also walked in those places was bone-chilling and deeply impressive to a pre-teen weirdo girl who was most definitely UNCOOL and way too into literature, history, old fashioned music, movie musicals and the like. (Can you picture me? Oh man).
Impacting the Way I Think
Of course, any one of my other picks fits into this category in some way, but one of them does so most explicitly. One of my picks is a non-fiction and theological title:
Family Vocation: God's Calling in Marriage, Family and Parenting. This book is one that it's time to reread! It has been so helpful to me as I have struggled in the different times and circumstances of our lives as they have shifted with how to fulfill my vocation as a mother and how to think through also having other vocations (such as a job outside of the home when necessary). What does it mean to live sacrificially? How do children live out their vocations as children? The book isn't a how-to, but a thoughtful look at what vocation looks like for different members of the family, what it requires of us, etc. As I get older or more thoughtful, vocation comes out more and more as an incredibly helpful and important doctrine and way of thinking about life, and who we are, who our neighbor is, etc.
Not only has this book resonated in my personal life, but I've also used it in my newest book,
Demystifying the Proverbs 31 Woman.
So these are books I love. Just a few of the many that have shaped me, challenged me, taught me, entertained me, and even seen me through difficult transitions and new beginnings. Grab a cup of tea, and tell me, what are the books that you love, and why?
