by Travis
I had a summer reading list planned, but I have the tendency to dabble a little bit here and a little bit there, and I think this summer I’m going to remedy that by burying myself in George MacDonald. So my reading list is going to be entirely comprised of books and audiobooks by and about MacDonald. I’ll certainly have my nose in George MacDonald: Literary Heritage and Heirs. I’m working through Phantastes right now. On the trip to Portus and back, I’ll be listening to a collection of his sermons, as well as Lilith.
Two questions for discussion:
- What’s on your summer reading list?
- What are your favorite George MacDonald works, and why?
Joivre on 
Red Rocker on 
Tom on 
Arabella Figg on 
Travis Prinzi on 
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
So, how is Phantases so far? I bought a copy a couple of weeks back & haven’t started on it yet. As much Lewis as I’ve read & I’ve never read anything by MacDonald. Shame on me.
I guess I forgot about your questions. Well, I answered the one about MacDonald’s works already; haven’t read a one.
As for my summer reading list, I’m still trying to get through Planet Narnia. I’ve been working my way through The Kingdoms of Thorn & Bone series by Gregory Keyes. Just getting ready to start book four. Got a couple of books on George Mallory lined up & one on a mountaineering disaster on Mt. McKinley. Have skimmed the rule book for the Savage Words rpg. Getting ready to start reading HPPS again. And since I can’t just stop there, I’ll be going through the rest of the series this summer. Should probably read or listen to The Hobbit sometime this summer. And also read some theology & also find some stuff to use for Confirmation in the fall.
Whether I get any of this done or not is another matter…
I’m working my way through two series this summer:
The Masks of God by Joseph Campbell. He examines the mythology from an anthropological and historical perspective. I have read the first two so far, Primitive Mythology and Oriental Mythology, I’m currently reading Occidental Mythology, and I hope to finish Creative Mythology before the summer.
Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin. The Earthsea Trilogy is one of the classic works of modern fantasy. I thoroughly enjoyed A Wizard of Earthsea and am about start the second book, The Tombs of Atuan.
I haven’t finished any George MacDonald, but I’ve started on a few- I’m in the middle of Lilith right now.
As for summer reading, I’ve just finished Jekyll & Hyde and The Picture of Dorian Gray, I’m in the middle Lilith (as previously stated), The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy, and DH, and I’m hoping to read Orthodoxy, Phantastes, Peter Pan, and Canterbury Tales. Oh, and I was considering re-reading Dune. I’m a bit behind schedule…
Mmmm, summer reading. I read all the time, so I don’t usually divide things up into seasonal categories. I just started reading Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” yesterday. I love his style. last year sometime, I read “The Ball and the Cross” and “The Man Who Was Thursday” and enjoyed them both.
I haven’t read any MacDonald except the fairy tales in “The Light Princess and Other Fairy Tales”. I quite enjoyed them, and almost wonder if my mother read some of them to me when I was little–a few seemed familiar. It’s hard to pick a favorite among those so I won’t try.
I started re-reading HP last Christmas or January, but have made myself read them more slowly, with some breaks in there with a few other books. So I’m now on Deathly Hallows — they are heading off for Gringotts with Griphook. Even though I very well know what is going to happen, I’m finding the books just as captivating as they were the first time or two through — just in a different way. Now it’s so easy to see just how carefully she planned things out, despite what some said after they finished DH. All the information was there, all the clues, from the very first chapter of the first book.
Oh, the other book that I just finished was “The Shack” by William Young. Our women’s group at church does a thing in the summer called “Summer Soak” and usually it involves reading a particular book and then getting together to discuss it. But this summer they opted for three different ones and “The Shack” is the one for August. It was interesting, the idea of having a conversation with God, in person, and some of his imagery was wonderful. Some of the book seemed too overdone for me, and a few theological things were glaring — it almost seemed that he threw in one part to appease those who aren’t Christians but want to pick and choose bits of it, claiming it for other religions, or none at all. They want to make it into a movie, but I think it’s better as a book. I really think it would be hard to do it well on the screen without it seeming too . . . . something, can’t think of the right word. But at any rate, it will be an interesting discussion in August with a whole group of women for whom I have great respect and affection.
And I have the first few CDs of Return of the Fellowship on my mp3 player. I just haven’t started listening because I’ve been so engrossed in Harry Potter.
Pat
Pat, excellent commentary on HP. You’ve just described one of the reasons for its greatness the same way C.S. Lewis described similar literature. This is from his essay, “On Stories:”
“The re-reader is looking not for actual surprises…but for a certain surprisingness…. It is the quality of unexpectedness, not the fact that delights us. It is even better the second time. Knowing that the ’surprise’ is coming we can now fully relish the fact that this path through the shrubbery doesn’t look as if it were suddenly going to bring us out on the edge of a cliff. So in literature. We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading.”
Dave’s Dorky Summer Reading:
1) Don DeLillo’s post-9/11 fiction — The Body Artist, Cosomopolis, and Falling Man…tinkering around with a paper idea, hopefully for publication.
2) Alice in Wonderland. I love this story, and I’m teaching it to my Intro to Lit students in the Fall.
3) Watchmen. See #2.
4) Lots of John Donne poetry. I love John Donne. He and Pablo Neruda are the unsurpassed kings of love poetry. Not even Shakespeare comes close.
5) One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He also wrote my favorite short story, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”.
50 points if you can tell us which Simpson’s episode Pablo Neruda is referenced.
Dave, I know very little about Donne. Just Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee
I also know that Peter Wimsey aka Dorothy Sayers was a fan and quoted him in her mystery/love story, Busman’s Honeymoon
Fire ever doth aspire,
And makes all like itself, turns all to fire.
But ends in ashes; which these cannot do,
For none of these is fuel, but fire too.
This is joy’s bonfire, then, where love’s strong arts
Make of so noble individual parts
One fire of four inflaming eyes, and of two loving hearts.
What other of his works would you suggest for the attentionally challenged 21st century dilettante?
I’m almost done with Planet Narnia. Beautiful read, gets better as you go!
I’m reading Prince Caspian with my daughter (we did LWW last winter). Thinking of re-reading the entire Narniad this summer, now that I’ve read Ward’s book.
Theology/church history: a book called Heresies and How to Avoid Them edited by Michael Ward and Ben Quash. Also a book on Anglo-Saxon Christianity that pulls a lot on Bede.
And I’m reading a good bit of children’s lit. I sort of have “sequelitis” right now. The best two I’ve read so far this summer are Jeanne Birdsall’s second book in the Penderwicks series and Blue Balliet’s latest juvenile mystery, The Calder Game.
Not sure what else I might read next…so I’m scrolling through other comments here looking for recommendations!
I read the Light Princess and enjoyed it. I read some of the Princess and the Goblin earlier this year and should get back to it. Beth, I agree with you on Planet Narnia. I’ve been meaning to read it again because there is so much in there. Right now I’m reading The New Testament and the People of God by N.T. Wright.