New snow, new books, new year

When I fell asleep late this afternoon, the skies were gray. Now the big light on the barn is illuminating a fresh coat of snow, which to me always evokes a clean start, an opportunity to begin again, a hushed world put to rights if for just a few moments. It should snow every January 1! I spent the first hours of the new year playing Jenga with my niece Kayla, answering genealogy questions from my long-distance brother, cleaning up from a small dinner party last night, discussing the nature of prayer with my husband, replacing last year’s pages in my Daytimer, napping, and now reading.

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I owe you a bit of an update since I have been away from the computer so much lately. First, Christmas found me adding a number of great books to my shelves. The most impressive of these is the gorgeous Gospels and Acts volume of the Saint John’s Bible, which is appropriately being called the modern book of Kells. (If you have not seen the original manuscripts on exhibit or the photographed collector’s volumes, go here right now to learn all about the first complete handwritten and illuminated Bible since Gutenberg.) My husband gave me a lovely edition of Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls—one of the Russian masters I’ve not yet read—and the final work by C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, which I am especially looking forward to reading since it is one of few books he wrote directly about his scholarly field. I also received Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and the pocket edition of The Divine Hours (already serving as a healthy spiritual boost). But overall it was a Madeleine L’Engle Christmas, as I was presented with the 5-volume A Wrinkle in Time boxed set, Two-Part Invention, and A Circle of Quiet (which I read the day I opened it). So there is no shortage of reading materials in this house.

Now that the holidays are past, I will be getting back to my regular reviews. Over the next week I’ll be posting my comments on Miroslav Volf’s The End of Memory; L’Engle’s A Circle of Quiet; and one or two others. I am currently reading The Bell, my first foray into Iris Murdoch’s novels, and I am seeing why so many great readers and writers consider her a master! I’ll say more when I have finished it. And this week Brandon and I will be finishing our daily Advent readings from the book Watch for the Light, which, being a collection, naturally has a few mediocre selections but also a number of outstanding ones, especially those by Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, J.B. Phillips, Henri Nouwen, Karl Barth, and John Chrysostom.

And speaking of Advent, I was thrilled to see that Carolyn Custis James featured on her website an Advent poem by a friend of mine, in fact one of the two dear girls to whom I dedicated Hearts and Hands. You’ll find Micaela’s magnificent piece, “Humility,” here.

More book talk coming soon. Happy new year!

01. January 2008 by Mindy
Categories: Currently reading, News | 3 comments

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