I'm joining up with Carolyn Astfalk who hosts an #OpenBook Linkup on CatholicMom.com. Here's what I've been reading this past month. The dates indicate when I finished the book.
1/5/22 Wholistic Feminism - Leah A. Jacobson MA, IBCLC - It isn't easy being a woman. (I imagine men have their own challenges, but women definitely have our own set of physical and emotional challenges related to our reproductive cycles.) "Feminism" is one of those loaded words due to the history of the movement, but Leah Jacobson wants to embrace a new meaning of the word. As she states, "We must understand and promote what is good about being women and make that the heart of our movement." Jacobson has a master's degree in health and wellness and is a board-certified lactation consultant. She is very big on having women understand and respect their fertility (rather than trying to treat it as an illness as so much of the medical establishment does). We have women's bodies and "we were created exactly as we were supposed to be." We shouldn't be measured or judged by a male standard. All of which I completely agree with.
I struggled with some of Jacobson's ideas (As someone who had two c-sections and couldn't breastfeed, I always cringe a bit at pro-home birth, breastfeeding-for-all messages. While she acknowledges that there is a place for medical interventions, it sends a message that those who have had to resort to them didn't live up to their full feminine potential. In addition, some of her ideas on what work should look like for women seemed a bit out there.) However, this book offered much food for thought. It adds to the conversation about what it means to be pro-life, pro-woman, and to live an integrated life. I would recommend this book to young adult women.
1/9/22 Once Upon a Wardrobe - Patti Callahan - I read Becoming Mrs. Lewis a couple years ago and loved it. That book focused on the woman who ultimately married C.S. Lewis. When I saw Once Upon a Wardrobe advertised, I knew I had to read it. This was such a lovely story! In 1850, George Devonshire is an 8-year-old boy who is dying of a bad heart. He is obsessed with the story of Narnia and begs his older sister Megs, a student at Oxford, to find C.S. Lewis and ask him where the story came from. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys learning about C.S. Lewis or the Narnia books.
1/10/22 An Amish Bride - Rosalind Lauer - The young Amish woman Sadie Beiler has been dating Mark Miller. While she hopes the relationship leads to marriage, she starts to become wary of his drinking and mood swings. Meanwhile, her best friend's older brother, Sam Lapp, is secretly in love with her and is determined to let her know how he feels before it is too late. This tender romance was an enjoyable read. (Read for a book review publication.)
1/12/22 The New Email Revolution: Save Time, Make Money, and Write Emails People Actually Want to Read - Robert W. Bly - I read this one for work, trying to learn how to write better email newsletters. It was written in 2018, but most of the material still seemed relevant. It has some chapters I skimmed through, such as how to write personal and business emails, and got a bit too technical in other sections, but I did garner some useful information from it. If you write an email newsletter (or you want to) and need some tips, I recommend it.
1/17/22 We Are Beloved: 30 Days with Thea Bowman - Edited by Karianna Frey - Servant of God Thea Bowman was a 20th century Black religious sister and in-demand speaker. Her talks frequently “included spontaneous song and highlighted the joy of diversity and the demands of unity in Christ.” In 1989, she became the first Black woman to address the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Her cause for canonization was opened in 2018. This book offers daily quotes from Sr. Thea, a short statement to ponder throughout the day, and then a prayer written by Frey to be used at the end of the day.
Each day’s reflections offered much to think about. Sr. Thea spoke and wrote on serving the Lord, the value of freedom, the importance of diversity, the power of spirituals, the innate value of each human being, and the significance of family. I truly loved this book!
1/21/22 - The Good Left Undone - Adriana Trigiani - In Catholic writing circles, you often hear how mainstream publishers don't publish Catholic fiction. This book is an exception to that maxim. This epic about several generations of an Italian family is deeply interwoven with elements of Catholic faith and tradition. Matelda Roffo is a dying woman in her eighties who wants to share the story of her mother and the father she never knew with her children and grandchildren before it is too late. There are quite a few story lines and characters in this long story, but if you have the time to devote to it, it is worth reading. (Read for a book review publication.)
1/23/22 A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order - Judith Flanders - Despite its title, this book is not only about alphabetical order (although that subject does come up often and the author gets points for arranging the chapters in alphabetical order). Instead, it is an interesting history of how information and things have been organized in the world. For example, she discusses how the Bible first came to be divided into chapters, how individuals came up with ways to find information in reference works. how clocks were created to order time, how double-entry bookkeeping was developed to organize business transactions, the development of encyclopedias, the creation of library book catalogs, how systems were put in place to organize paperwork in offices, and the creation of the phone book. In the final chapter, she discusses how societies who do not use an alphabet-based language organize their information. This book invited me to think about the development of systems of organization that I have often taken for granted.
1/24/22 A Catholic Guide to Narnia - Ascension Publishing Group - This book offered a fascinating exploration of the symbolism in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (with some insights from The Magician's Nephew). Much of it is in a question and answer format, but it also offers discussion questions, two levels of activities (for younger or older individuals), and suggestions for further exploration. This would be a great guide to use in a classroom or homeschool setting.
1/30/22 Mr. Nicholas: A Magical Christmas Tale - Christopher de Vinck - I finished up January with a Christmas story. This one had been recommended by Carolyn Astfalk and I'm glad I took her recommendation. It was a quick read (about an hour) and a sweet story about a family struggling to stay together, a child with Down Syndrome, and a mysterious hardware store owner who happens to keep reindeer in his backyard.
Since spring of 2019, I have been making my way through the Great Books Curriculum of Thomas Aquinas College (I'm currently working on the readings for sophomore year).
1/4/22 A New System of Chemical Philosophy - John Dalton -
John Dalton (1766-1844) was an English chemist, physicist, and meteorologist. He introduced atomic theory and researched color blindness. In this excerpt, he was exploring how all the sensible bodies are composed of atoms bound together by force of attraction and how they are most separated in elastic states (gas). He also came up with symbols to write chemical equations without words.
1/6/22 Memoir on the Combination of Gaseous Substances with Each Other - Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac - Gay-Lussac (1778-1850) was a French chemist and physicist who discovered that water is made of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. He is best known for two laws related to gases. In this excerpt, he was conducting experiments to determine if gases combine in simple ration and whether they always give rise to compounds whose elements by volume are multiples of each other.
1/13/22 Treatise on the Weight of the Mass of Air - Blaise Pascal - Pascal (1623-1662) was French and began studying geometry on his own at the age of 12. He invented the first calculating machine and also investigated the action of fluid under the pressure of air. This particular treatise focused on the weight of air and how it presses on all bodies it surrounds. He explains several experiments that he did to prove this as well as the particular weight of air at different altitudes.
With that I finished the natural science portion of Sophomore year. Next up is math.
1/24/22 Timaeus - Plato - I have no idea why this was in the math section of readings. It was about the creation of the world. However, one thing I learned that was new is that the Greeks had a concept of one all-powerful God who in turn created the Greek gods of mythology as well as the universe. This all-powerful God was also all good and could not be jealous of anything. He desired that all things should be good. I was really blown away by this because all I knew of Greek religion was based on Greek mythology.
My eleven-year-old daughter and I read the following books this month:
School of Fear: Class is Not Dismissed and School of Fear: The Final Exam by Gitty Daneshvari are the second and third books in a trilogy about a small group of young students who go to an exclusive summer camp to learn how to get over their phobias. I found it to be a very odd series, but my daughter enjoyed it.
1 comment:
Thanks for linking to An Open Book! I'd never have considered that someone wrote a book on the history of organization. It actually sounds interesting though. I'm glad you enjoyed Mr. Nicholas!
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