A Year of Reading

I'm adding this rather late but here is a list and short description of some of the books I read in 2024 that I published on Substack at the end of last year. 

Classics, speculative fiction, domestic fiction, dystopian, memoirs, re-reads...

A Year of Reading - Carol Hudson’s Substack

A Reading Challenge List for 2020

Well, I wasn't going to join in any challenges this year but I changed my mind. I have a range of books I'd really like to read which includes classics, non-fiction (I've been a bit slack with these in recent years), and unusual for me, I'd like to tackle some modern titles, my 'uncomfortable' reads.

I also have some 'slow cooker' reads that will probably take me all year to get finished. They're either whoppers, need to be read methodically and lingered over, or are books that are designed to be read at certain times of the year or over the course of a year. The books below are what I'm planning to read slowly:

War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy 

Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year, edited by Allie Esiri

At The Still Point, compiled by Sarah Arthur

God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis; compiled in 1970

I decided to go with this new Classic Book Challenge at The Broken Spine:

These are the Challenge Prompts I'd like to use with some ideas of what I might read:

* Read a classic over 500 pages - War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy

* Read a classic that takes place in a country other than where you live - ?

* Read a classic in translation -  The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy  

* Read a classic by a new to you author - ? Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

* Read a book of poetry - Robert Burns

* Read a classic written between 1800-1860 - ? something by Elizabeth Gaskell

* Read a classic written by a woman - The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett   

* Read a classic novella - The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 

* Read a classic nonfiction - ? something by C.S. Lewis or A.W. Tozer

                                                                 

                                                                               

                     

                                                                     

See Book'd Out for details of this Non-Fiction Challenge. Here are some books I'd like to read:
           

H is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald (2014)

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (1974)

Atomic Habits by James Clear (2018)

The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson (2019)

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang (2019)

The Story of My Boyhood & Youth by John Muir (1913)

A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason (1925)

The Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari (c. 1568)


Modern fiction I'd like to read this year:

Lila by Marilynne Robinson (2014) 


5th February - Updated to add this challenge which I've done for the past five years. I haven't decided on the books yet but I'd like to include some of these:

* The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

* Gentian Hill by Elizabeth Goudge

* Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen

* The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

Thought by Mikhail Nesterov (1900)

Reading, Thinking & Domesticity #1

My plan is to have a regular post that will include a variety of domestically related ideas and practical matters plus things that I've read that don't make it into a more formal 'book review,' such as articles, current affairs and anything else that I think is interesting.

'Domesticity' - Latin,  domesticus, from domus, a house (home)
The word 'domesticate' means to accustom to live near the habitation of man; to tame. 'Domestication' is the act of taming or reclaiming wild animals. Sometimes it feels like that in family life. We're taming and reclaiming lives, including our own.

Liturgy has been a word that has resonated with many of us over the past few years. The dictionary definition is:

  A form or formulary according to which public religious worship, especially Christian worship,

 is conducted.

I emphasised the word public above as it is an important point, especially in light of the article below. Are we seeking authentic community & commitment, or self-expression and aesthetic experience? 

‘The desire for liturgical forms of worship that are structured, ancient and formal, steeped in Scripture and Church Fathers, is commendable if the desire is for that liturgy to shape community life together, rather than being a new form of aesthetic and preference for a consumer-driven culture.But if all this is is a reflection of the "hipster magpie" making serendipitous finds in the vintage store alongside the 78 records then it's highly suspect. Taking a piece from this era, an object from that era, and blending it all together to form one's own "authentic experience", completely divorced from the values and frame of the cultures and eras from which these things are taken, simply means that yet again style has indeed trumped substance.In other words, as Jamie Smith points out, the point of all liturgy is to embed  itself as practice in our communal lives.  But if the practice of our individual lives is to be a private consumer then, ironically, a return to liturgy can mask such a practice with the appearance of worship.’


A couple of new authors I read in 2017 were:

Dorothy B. Hughes who wrote The Expendable Man in 1963. Published by Persephone Books, this is a suspenseful story that starts with a solitary man, a young doctor, driving through the desert towns of the American Southwest, as he returns to his hometown for a wedding. From the beginning there is an undercurrent of unease that builds up as the story progresses. It is a time of racial unrest, where an innocent decision taken by the wrong person in an atmosphere of prejudice, may have disastrous consequences.
A great story with a romantic thread that despite its lack of character development kept me spellbound till the end.

There was a picture in a gold frame hung on the mottled gray of the wallpaper. It was of a country cottage, smothered with roses, banked in green, shaded by leafy trees with a brook at their feet. In spite of what this man was, in spite of what he had done, the pathos of that picture smote Hugh. That it was there, a home, an old home far from this desert wasteland. That misshapen old relic was once a country child, was once a boy with dreams, once a student with aspirations, once a Doctor of Medicine. The poignant cry rose silently in him: What can happen to a man? Why? 


I’ve read books in the spy/espionage genre by John Buchan and Helen MacInnes and thoroughly enjoyed them but this was my first foray into the darker world of subterfuge where things don’t end well. I was prepared for a dismal ending with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carré (also published in 1963) but I was interested in reading something a bit different, and le Carré's book is set during the Cold War, an era that has always intrigued me. However, this was such a good story that I tended to reflect not on the ending, which was inevitably tragic, but upon the clever plot, the twists and all the little hints I missed while I was reading.

John le Carré’s was a British security agent who left his life of espionage to write full-time after the success of his third novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. The book thrust the author into the spotlight when it was published in 1963. Written over the course of six weeks, le Carré had flown from Bonn to Berlin as soon as the work on the Berlin Wall began and looked on in disgust and terror. His observations of the ‘perfect symbol of the monstrosity of ideology gone mad,’ coupled with his deeply unhappy professional and private life, resulted in this chilly, disturbing tale of Alec Leamas, the spy who wanted to end his life of espionage, to ‘come in from the cold.’
Burnt out and cynical, Leamas agrees to one last assignment before he leaves his life of spying. Unwittingly he is used by British Security to secure the position of a British double agent (a man Leamus hates and believes to be the enemy) and to his dismay, ends up in East Germany. There he finds that the young woman, the one who had begun to awaken his humanity, has been caught up in the machinations of both sides because of her association with him.
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is a bleak look into the ruthless game of espionage with its accompanying lies, fears and treachery but it also has a few swift moments of beauty:

He knew then what it was that Liz had given him; the thing that he would have to go back and find if he ever got home to England: it was the caring about little things - the faith in ordinary life; the simplicity that made you break up a bit of bread into a paper bag, walk down to the beach and throw it to the gulls. It was this respect for triviality which he had never been allowed to possess...

Inspiring Reads from 2017 


One of the best books I read last year was Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. In fact it's one of the most inspiring books I've ever read and I wholeheartedly recommend it!!

Exceptional books for those aged about 12 or 13 years and older were The Forgotten Daughter and The Small Woman.

Domestics

I've been cooking regular family meals for close on thirty years and in the last twenty years, I've had to cook in bulk for my growing family. Cooking en masse doesn't lend itself  to gourmet creations - at least not in my case. I have a few dishes that are standard, mostly because they are popular and don't require too much work to produce. Every now & again - actually, very rarely, I come across a new recipe that makes it into my hit list. This was one I found late last year, although I've changed the herbs around a bit to accomodate the eaters here: Herby Green Roast Chicken
The author of the website is a diabetic so the meals are low carb but she has a whole range of options which work well for families plus a free ebook. I'm trying out a few of the dishes in the ebook and this is one that I liked but everyone else was turned off by the green colour: broccoli sandwich bread.

Something I've done this year is to use cauliflower in place of white sauce when making lasagne. I just use a packet of frozen cauliflower, steam it, and them put it in the blender with a few dollops of ricotta cheese & a little seasoning. It thickens up very well and makes a good, healthy substitute.

I've always been good at beefing up mince, pardon the pun - I grate a huge amount of zucchini and mix it up in the mince as I cook it. Sometimes I add a grated carrot or two as well, but the zucchini alone is great. I add some burrito seasoning with some hot water and let it all simmer for a while. If I need to extend it even more I'll add a tin of kidney beans and some tomato puree or passata sauce. Great with salad, burritos & grated cheese.

We're in the middle of summer here and we're reasonably close to a number of beaches and my sons often head off to one of them on the weekend or after work if it's been really hot. A couple of the beaches are known for their strong rips. I read this article today about rip tides that occurred on a Sydney beach eighty years ago. This was a more unusual event, but rips kill many more people every year in Australia than shark attacks but they don't get anywhere near the same attention & warnings.

Many people think it’s just tourists and poor swimmers who get caught in rips currents. In fact, it’s young men aged 15-39 years who are most likely to die in rips. Rips are the number one hazard on Australian beaches.

Patchwork

I really like the look of triangles in patchwork and recently found an easier method of sewing them.
So now I'm experimenting with all my blue fabric scraps...

These are only two ways but there are oodles of options, as we keep finding out...

Praise to the Lord, who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires e’er have been
Granted in what He ordaineth? 

2018 Reading Challenges

This is the fourth year in a row that I'm participating in the Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Karen @ Books & Chocolate because I love reading old books and there are so many I keep discovering. I've listed some titles I'm thinking of reading, but as is usual I'll end up reading some and changing my mind about others, which is one of the appealing features of this challenge:

1) A 19th century classic - any book published between 1800 and 1899.

 The Refugees by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1893)

2)  A 20th century classic - any book published between 1900 and 1968.

Sick Heart River by John Buchan (1941)

3)  A classic by a woman author. 

Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss (1869) 
The Homemaker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1924)
...or a Josephine Tey title

4)  A classic in translation. 

Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar by Jules Verne (1876)
The Gulag Archipelago by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (1958-1968)
...or The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanisaki (1936)

5) A children's classic.

 
Seacrow Island by Astrid Lindgren (1964)

6)  A classic crime story, fiction or non-fiction. 

Unnatural Death by Dorothy Sayers (1927)
...or And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (1939)

7)  A classic travel or journey narrative, fiction or non-fiction. 

Mission to Tashkent by Frederick Marshman Bailey (1946)

8) A classic with a single-word title.

 
Hiroshima by John Hersey (1946)
...or Pastoral by Nevil Shute (1944)

9) A classic with a color in the title.

The Black Tulip by Alexandr Dumas (1850)

10) A classic by an author that's new to you. 

The Rosemary Tree by Elizabeth Goudge (1956)
...or something by Leo Tolstoy

11) A classic that scares you.

Anna Karenina (1877)
War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1867)
or...The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954)

11)  Re-read a favorite classic.
 

Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811)
...or Bleak House by Charles Dickens  (1853) - so I can read the lovely HB copy I was given for Christmas.

Deal Me In Challenge

I've been umming & aahing over this one and finally decided to do a modified version (which is allowable). Deal Me In is a short story reading challenge I've thought of doing in previous years but this is the first year I've actually sat down & thought through what I wanted to include. There are speeches, poetry and essays I've wanted to include in my reading but never seem to get around to even though they don't require a lot of time. So my plan is to randomly choose a card from the deck once a fortnight, mostly using books I already have: Great Speeches, the Albatross Book of Verse, and a few others.
Some of my choices are from selections on the AmblesideOnline website for Years 10 & 11.
There are a few options on how to participate in this challenge but the basic idea is to choose 52 short stories (or in my case, 26) and assign each of them to playing cards. Each week (or fortnight, or month) you pick a card out from your deck and that will determine which short story, poem, essay etc you will read that week. Get all the details from Jay at Bibliophilopolus.

Hearts - Speeches/Essays

A  Parents & Children - Charlotte Mason, 1904
2   The Man With the Mud Rake - Theodore Roosevelt, 1906
3   The Only Thing We Have to Fear, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933
4   Our Finest Hour - Winston Churchill, 1940
5   Against Aktion T4 - Cardinal Clemens von Galen, 1941
6   Iron Curtain - Winston Churchill, 1946
7   I Have a Dream - Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963
8   Dismissal Speech - Gough Whitlam, 1975
9   Tear Down This Wall - Ronald Reagan, 1987
10 Perils of Indifference, 1999
J   Good Bad Books - George Orwell, 1945
Q  What Good is Information? - Dougald Hine, 2014
K  Eulogy for Gough Whitlam - Noel Pearson, 2014


Diamonds - Devotionals/Poetry/Short Stories

A  Introduction to Athanasius’ On The Incarnation - C.S. Lewis
2   Wislawa Szymborska
3   The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol (1842)
4   The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
5   Christina Georgina Rossetti
6   Satan's Devices - George Whitefield
7   Czeslaw Milosz
8   Master of Many Trades - Robert Twigger, 2013
9   The Mark of the Christian by Francis Schaeffer
10  Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor (1965)
J    The Memorable Hymn – Charles H. Spurgeon
Q   Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God – Jonathan Edwards
K   Edna Vincent Millay


Other Reading

A monthly book club - I participated in this a few years ago and hope to attend again this year. The list of books has yet to be chosen.

I've done my final update for the TBR challenge hosted by Adam:

December Doings, Domestics, Catch Up, Wrap-Up & Random

* Christmas in a box? He thinks he's a Christmas decoration.

* It's heating up here where we are. It's a very different scene in the Northern Hemisphere and I enjoyed seeing Heather's lovely photography & thoughts on her Canadian scenery at this time of year.

* For the past couple of months we've been listening to 'Walking on Air,' the music written by Howard Blake in 1982 to accompany the animated movie of The Snowman by Raymond Briggs, a wordless storybook. It's an exquisite piece of music that the orchestra Moozle is involved with had  been working on for their end of year concert. The animated movie is on YouTube & Karen Andreola writes about the book here.




* Breaking news this week: Zana (our third child and second daughter) & her young man announced their engagement. The wedding will be in September next year. I hate shopping for clothes & I already have two dresses I bought for her older sister & brother's weddings so I asked if I could wear a dress I already had. Can you tell I'm a Scot?

* Benj has finished his first year of a Liberal Arts degree and had his exam results this week. He did well in everything but his highest score was for Philosophy, where he earned a High Distinction. He says it's logical and similar to mathematics, and that's his bent.
He's taking next year off to work full-time because he's tired of being poor & would like to buy a car. A position opened up for him working with a fantastic not-for-profit organisation that provides programs to adults living with disabilities: Visual Arts, Performing Arts, and Creative Life Skills. His other job is as a swimming instructor and he commented the other day that the two areas are beginning to overlap. When the manager of the pool where he works heard that he was working with adults with disabilites/special needs, she put one of the swimming students, a young boy with Down's Syndrome, into Benj's class.

* Hoggy has finished his Diploma of  Electrical Engineering Technology and is working fulltime in the Fire & Security industry. It's interesting & diverse work, the only negative being the work commute. However, he has jobs all over Sydney and sometimes interstate, so he doesn't alway have to drive the hour and a half to the main office each day. He bought himself a motor bike, a 500cc and is working towards getting his licence. Sydney isn't the greatest place to ride a bike, but he's been sensible & avoids heavy traffic & I pray lots.

* Nougat is in his final year of his plumbing apprenticeship and he and Hoggy have been working on Herbie, the beast below. We're having a family camping trip early next year and they've been setting up solar panels, water tanks, fridge & other bits and pieces. Just hope the old boy can hold himself together - we're relying on all the stuff they're bringing along:

* The Mum Heart Conference audios from June 2017 have been released. The theme for the conference was John 15 - 'Abiding in the Vine.' I spoke on 'fruit that will last,' - being faithful, putting down roots & trusting God in the journey. I so enjoyed the Conference & the other speakers & the unplanned dove-tailing that occurred between us in the content of our individual talks. It was a great weekend!

* A couple of months ago I started leading a small Bible study for young women who are fairly new Christians. Most of them are Chinese whose first language is Mandarin and they have only been in Australia a couple of years so although they speak and understand English to get by, I have a friend most weeks to interpret & explain idioms, figures of speech etc. I've been so touched by these women. Mostly atheists by background, they are so keen to learn how to live in a way that honours the Lord and to teach their children this also. We started with the book of Philippians and are now going through James.
They have some unique difficulties. Their children are picking up the language so much faster and are reluctant to speak Mandarin at home and the parents are frustrated because they don't have the same grasp of English that their children have. The parents also struggle to know what their children are being taught at school and the recent conlict in Australia over so-called Safe Schools has added to their concerns. I gave them some easy children's Bibles in English (The Beginner's Bible was one) for them to read to their children but there doesn't seem to be much else available. There's a business/ministry opportunity here for someone who would print some easy books with Mandarin on one page and English on the opposite page.

* My husband's Grandma is 97 years of age and up until recently she was an avid knitter. I've been going through all the clothes she knitted for our children when they were babies and washing them for my new Granddaughter. They were knitted with pure wool and I was so disappointed to find some had rust-like marks on them so I got out my 1948 Home Science manuals I found at an op shop ages ago to see what I could do:

I first used Napisan (not mentioned in the above book but I've used it for delicates in the past) in fairly hot water, soaking them with the timer on & making sure the water didn't get cold. After rinsing, I used a solution of Hydrogen peroxide & did basically the same thing. I don't have any before & after photos but the marks are all but gone.

This is one of the articles, part of a set knitted about 25 years ago which includes a dress and a matching coat. I had the knitted garment in a pillow case with some mothballs in an outer bag and then I put them in another bag but I think some moisture got in and that, I think, was the cause of the rust stains. I gave the other articles to my daughter before I thought of taking a photo:

* Reading: I'm on to my last book in the Back to the Classics Challenge 2017 & I'll be posting about that and other challenges and books read later, but this week I picked up a book I forgot I had, The True Woman by Susan Hunt and it's been a refreshing read. I've read another book by the author, Spiritual Mothering, and can highly recommend both. Life Under Compulsion by Antony Esolen and Norms & Nobility are my slow reads - there's so much to chew on and digest and I'll be continuing with them well into 2018.

* Current Events - I usually post these on my FB page but here's one I thought would be good to share again:

Is it Really the Christian Way? Yes, Actually, it is.

What is striking about the current debate is how the nature of who the most vulnerable in our society are. Up until recently the most vulnerable were constantly viewed as the poor, those who were trodden down by the rough economic forces of our rapacious culture.

That’s no longer the case.

 * Look what I found on one of our local streets when I was out for a walk - a Street Library.
Have you seen one in your neighbourhood?

Mother Culure & Self-education

Step by Step...

It's been nearly four years since we first started using Ambleside Online, which was also when I began to read the Original Charlotte Mason Home Education series. Up until then if I started a book, I'd generally finish it before I'd start another. 

I began to notice how well my children were retaining with what they'd read over a period of months so I decided to try it for myself, although the idea didn't appeal to me at all.

So four years later I think I can say I've gone to the other extreme - I'm almost embarrassed to say that I'm still reading a book I started two years ago. 

I've been enjoying the Back to the Classics Challenge that I started at the beginning of the year. The challenge is divided into categories which has helped me choose books I might not otherwise have read. I'm also continuing with the Classics Club Challenge which is over five years.

These are the books I'm in the process of reading (and keeping):

Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks - nearly finished! I wrote a little about this book here and I'll write some more when I've finished.

Madame Curie by Eve Curie (the two year saga) - it was interesting to read in the book above that Oliver Sacks read this book and loved it when he was ten years old. He had the pleasure of meeting the author, Madame Curie's daughter, in her old age.

 My messy Commonplace...

Knowledge of the Holy by A.W.Tozer - Tozer is direct and no nonsense. This is another of my slow reads.

The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. It begins in the mind and may be present where no overt act if worship has taken place...

Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow; they themselves are idolatrous. The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true.

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voscamp - I didn't think I'd like this book but by the end of the first few chapters I was sucked in. Suffering, pain, joy, gratitude...I keep getting hit with beautiful thoughts. The writing is a grammar jungle but I love the heart of what she is sharing - and I needed to hear it.  Some quotes that I loved:

Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all of those who don't numb themselves to really living.

On observing a hummingbird:

Her long bill swills back July sun transfigured into nectar.

I watch her, become her, drink the sweet right out of now.

Beauty? Beauty requires no justification, no explanation; it simply is and transcends.

The weight of God's Glory, not illusory or ephemeral, but daily and everywhere, punctuates earth's lid and heaven falls through the holes.

Do I believe in a God who rouses Himself just now and then to spill a bit of benevolence on haemorrhaging humanity?

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis - I usually find Lewis very readable but this has been hard going for me. I'm taking it paragraph by paragraph and I'm still having to re-read sections. 

The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie - pure pleasure. I sat up later than normal last night to finish it.

The Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason - I've been reading this for about 9 months and have written about it here & here and probably in other places as well. It's good.

Read Alouds

Ourselves by Charlotte Mason

I Can Jump Puddles by Alan Marshall - an Australian classic which we finished today.

Listening to:

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - a re-read but it's not my favourite Austen. I just discovered Jane Austen's phrase which Charlotte Mason appropriated, 'warming the imagination.' I'd been wondering where in Jane Austen's writing it came from and I obviously didn't catch it when I read the book awhile back.

On the present occasion she addressed herself chiefly to Miss Crawford and Fanny, but there was no comparison in the willingness of their attention; for Miss Crawford, who had seen scores of great houses, and cared for none of them, had only the appearance of civilly listening, while Fanny, to whom everything was almost as interesting as it was new, attended with unaffected earnestness to all that Mrs. Rushworth could relate of the family in former times, its rise and grandeur, regal visits and loyal efforts, delighted to connect anything with history already known, or warm her imagination with scenes of the past.