Done
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Murder at Markham by Patricia Houck Sprinkle
This was nothing earth shaking, but it was a fun read. I will happily pick up another book by her when time allows.
The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
A great book; it feels like a P.G. Wodehouse mystery if such a thing existed. Funny and well-written.
When All the World Was Young by Barbara Holland
"Nothing at all was left of my previous life. My whole previous self. I cut off my trademark, lifelong braids and chopped myself a normal looking bob.
Years later I found the braids, still fastened at the ends with rotting rubber bands, in Grandmother's bureau drawer, and I was greatly taken aback. I was embarrassed. Least sentimental of women, she had saved my old hair, the hair I'd been wearing since I was five years old.....
The braids weren't tied with a ribbon or tucked into a quilted box, but they were there in the drawer where she'd put them. Could it be that I'd meant something more to her than she'd ever hinted at? Our relationship had always been practical. She asked after my bowels, made clothes for me, and cooked my dinner...I raked leaves in her yard and took out the trash and cleaned the roof gutters...I thought that was our contract. Was there something I'd missed? Have I blundered through life without ever noticing that anyone noticed, or believing I ever made anyone cry?
Anyway, shorn of my past, pockets empty, I set out to invent myself from scratch."
Much to make me chuckle, much to make me sniffle. The clarity with which Barbara Holland recollects her childhood and young adulthood is astonishing. She even describes the forgetting beautifully. This one will stay with me for a long time.
Romeo and Juliet
We listened to this on our trip home from Oregon. It was not, in anyway, a favorite for my Shakespeare students. "Mom, they were such idiots" was the initial response, and I am not sure we succeeded at bringing out any memorable imagery and dialog.
My seven-year-old's take on the main characters, having seen the play last Friday night: "Good grief, Mom. They kissed before they even knew each other's names!" He held out final judgement for the sword fight between Paris and Romeo. It lasted all of five seconds, so his judgement was complete. Not a favorite.
In Progress
Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine by Dorothy Sayers.
Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education by David Hicks
On the Art of Writing by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.
The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition by E. Christian Kopff
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Still to come:
Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis
The Iliad by Homer
Cancelled from the list:
Who Killed Homer: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom by Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath
Added to the list:
A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason
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