Tag Archives: books

7 Things [2]

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7 Things from the week, or not. Maybe just 7 things in a randomly connected order that makes sense only to me and my methods of lateral thinking.
  1. I am excited about this weekend because we’re having a church workshop and I’m facilitating a table discussion. It is on how the church can/should be growing and changing to meet the needs of our world today, something I’m fairly passionate about. As a relative newcomer to the church, I’m glad I’m facilitating not taking a more formal part in the discussion because I don’t have much to say on the whole history side of thing. I can still interject ideas, so I will get my two cents in where I need to.
  2. I’m feeling a lot better about life and my own future this week. I’ve got some plans that I’m praying about and we shall see where they take me. I want to wait another week or so before I act on anything because I don’t want to make any rash decisions, but I’m feeling much happier about the path ahead now than I was a few weeks ago.
  3. I find myself randomly commenting on strange things I see while I’m walking to and from school. I am usually walking alone so I must look strange talking outloud to myself but something makes me think I’ll remember things better that way. I don’t know why because I never remember any of the strange happenings and they never get written about.
  4. Although one of the things I have seen involves signs that we have all over campus at the moment. You may or may not know that UVic is infested with bunnies. I have never seen so many rabbits in one place, it is like Watership Down or something. These signs on campus have deer on them and they are asking you not to chase after the bunnies because you wouldn’t chase after a deer. I’m not sure of the logic that went into that advertising campaign. If a drunk res student is going to chase a bunny, they would probably chase a deer as well. Goodness knows we have those on campus too.
  5. Speaking of Watership Down, I never did really get that book. It was supposed to be amazing and it was on required reading lists for most of Jr High and maybe even High School. I’m not sure if I ever finished it. I just didn’t like it at the time and now I can’t bring myself to ever try it again.
  6. Another book I feel the same way about is Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Never got into that one either. Which is strange, because I usually read just about anything as long as it is well written. I can probably count on one hand the number of books I have started and not finished.
  7. Since my train of thought has brought be to books, we may as well conclude there. My bookshelf is full. I need a new one, or else I need to downsize the number of books I have out. My list of books to read is increasing as is the amount of time it is taking me to get through a book. I’m reading a great one about Myanmar (Burma) now but through the lens of George Orwell. It is from the same era as other books I’ve been reading except it is South East Asia as opposed to South-Central Asia. It has been interesting to connect the dots and recognize names common to both. It is also to see where perhaps some of Orwell’s ideas for Animal Farm and 1984 came from.

(In response to Conversion Diary)

Getting my Exercise

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Yesterday ended up being quite the day. I was walking to my chiro appointment in the morning when work called me to see if I could come in that evening for a four hour shift. Since I haven’t worked in a month, who am I to turn that down?! As it was, however, the day was getting packed.

By the time I got home, I needed to leave about 45 min later to head up to the university to return some textbooks. (I’ve been able to borrow my anatomy text from a very wonderful person who has saved me $170.) Then it was down to the public library to return a couple of books (Anne Rice’s Called out of Darkness and Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game that took me forever to read but was quite interesting) and pick up a hold that just came in. The latest addition to my must-read pile (made more urgent by being library books) is a new-ish one by Colleen McCullough, an author I’ve enjoyed in the past. The book is called The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet and is about Mary from Pride and Prejudice. Reviews have been mixed, so we’ll see how I like it.

From the library, I biked, on the new bike I purchased the day before the heavens opened with snow, out to the Saanich Police Station to get my criminal record check done so I can volunteer on the boat this summer. (Trip 3 y’all, be there.) The officer on duty just happened to be the same [very attractive] one who was on duty when I got my check done for work three months ago. He recognized me. My questioning whether or not it is okay to flirt with attractive cops who do your criminal record check has generated one of the most commented Facebook discussions I’ve ever had… The consensus is yes, it is just fine. In my defense, he initiated the conversation. I just kept it going… I guess I’ll look forward to going back next week to pick up the completed check.

I digress.  From the Police Station it is a fairly nice (but also partially uphill) bike ride to Royal Oak where I was visiting the wonderful Bonice (of the SALTS log fame). We enjoyed genuine Chinese jasmine tea and chocolate, just like old times in the stern of the Grace, until she had to meet the boys at the bus stop and I had to head back into Gordon Head for work. Whew. I had just enough time to grab a coffee at the new Starbucks in Gordon Head before getting to the home in time for my 4 hour shift. I decided coffee was necessary to make it through the evening. I did cause more than one motorist to double take in my general direction as I was biking down the road with my coffee in one hand.  Don’t worry, Dad, I was being safe. They were all backstreets and motorists do it all the time.

By the time I got home, it was nearly 8:30 pm and I did little else but check emails and collapse into bed with a wonderful book I’ve been lent: Organic Edge: Targeted Review to Ace Organic Chemistry. Apparently satisfaction is guaranteed.  I hope that means I’ll pass the course. I’ve never used one of those fancy books before, but I’m willing to do a lot to understand this stuff. Dredging up chemistry factoids from the deep, dark recesses of my brain where they’ve been decaying for the last 9 years is proving to be a challenge.

Despite all that exercise, I didn’t sleep as well as hoped last night. Probably because I currently have the sorest bum on the planet from all that cycling.

Books

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I have a problem. It would seem that I am addicted to reading books, good books. Add that in to the love of learning and I’m hooped. The problem is that whenever I hear something about a particular theory that sounds interesting or a model of doing something is proposed, I have to learn more. As a result I’m constantly looking for books; at least I have been in the last few days. Perhaps it has something to do with being back at school, although none of the subjects I’m looking up have any relation to what I’m learning in classes at the moment.  I am getting quite adept at looking for books on the various library catalogues I have access to, online shopping sites, and online bookstores.

However, all of this skill at finding books does not help my ever-growing list of books I want to read which currently stands at 8.  Add that in to the mix with classes and textbooks to read (for the first time ever I’m up on all my readings for class! Yay me.) and I think I know how I’ll be spending all of my spare time.

Speaking of spare time, I’m going to start working 2 days a week soon.  Finally.  It will be nice to have an income again…!

Book List 2009

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  1. A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
  2. The Enchantress of Florence – Salman Rushdie
  3. Called out of Darkness – Anne Rice
  4. The Great Game – Peter Hopkirk
  5. The Independence of Mary Bennet – Colleen McCullough
  6. A New Kind of Christian – Brian McLaren
  7. Finding George Orwell in Burma – Emma Larkin
  8. The Secret Message of Jesus – Brian McLaren
  9. Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
  10. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Neffingger
  11. Moon Cakes and Maple Sugar – Marnie Copeland
  12. Becoming Human – Jean Vanier
  13. Bread in the Wilderness – Thomas Merton
  14. And it was Good – Madeleine L’Engle
  15. Everything Must Change – Brian McLaren
  16. The Great Emergence – Phyllis Tickle
  17. The Giver – Lois Lowry
  18. How (Not) to Speak of God – Peter Rollins
  19. Bad Lands -Tony Wheeler
  20. A Stone for a Pillow – Madeleine L’Engle
  21. The Green Hills of Africa – Ernest Hemingway
  22. The Magician’s Nephew – CS Lewis
  23. Tick Bite Fever – David Bennun
  24. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
  25. Prince Caspian – CS Lewis
  26. The Horse and His Boy – CS Lewis
  27. The Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling
  28. The Seven Story Mountain – Thomas Merton
  29. Sex, Sushi, and Salvation – Christian George
  30. Secret Lives and Other Stories – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
  31. A Man of the People – Chinua Achebe
  32. The Black Hermit – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
  33. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – CS Lewis
  34. The Silver Chair – CS Lewis
  35. Jesus au pays des solviets – Serge Caron
  36. The Silver Chair – CS Lewis
  37. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
  38. Take This Bread – Sara Miles
  39. The Last Battle – CS Lewis
  40. Sold Into Egypt – Madeleine L’Engle
  41. The Rock That is Higher – Madeleine L’Engle
  42. Two-Part Invention – Madeleine L’Engle
  43. A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali – Gil Courtemanche
  44. All Families are Psychotic – Douglas Coupland
  45. The Man Who Loved China – Simon Winchester
  46. Man’s Search for Meaning – Vicktor E. Frankl
  47. Mere Christianity – CS Lewis
  48. A Good Death – Gil Courtemanche
  49. The Post-Christian Mind – Harry Blamires
  50. The Lizard Cage – Karen Connolly
  51. Exit Music – Ian Rankin
  52. Payback – Margaret Atwood
  53. The Language of Bees – Laurie R. King
  54. The Orthodox Heretic – Peter Rollins
  55. Burmese Lessons – Karen Connolly
  56. A Fair Country – John Ralston Saul

On My Bookshelf

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I paid a visit to the local library last week and took out a large number of books.  It seems that when I get fixated on a subject, I tend to read as much as I can about that topic.  Recently, it has been Central Asia, an area of the world I have had a fascination with for the last two years or so.  I think it may have something to do with my time on China’s Tibetan Plateau in 2006 (here, here, here, and here), an area very much linked with Central Asia; almost more so than theties with the dominant Han culture.  Plain and simple, I want to go back and explore more of the region.
The book I’m currently reading is called Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia.  It is weighty tome of over 600 pages.  I didn’t know it was that big when I ordered it from the library.  But it covers in quite an interesting way, the history of the European conquest, if one may call it that, of South and Central Asia and the race which emerged between the English and the Russians to control the area.  One could say that this era, beginning in the 1700’s, foreshadowed the Cold War of last century.  There is intrigue and espionage, adventure and bravery, foolhardiness, cultural and religious explanations (Think Kipling’s book Kim).  All in all, it is most interesting.
One thing I have found interesting is the names of places in countries like Afghanistan that prior to a few years ago would have been fairly obscure.  Now place names like Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, and Ahmadabad are widely recognized.  It is enlightening to read about how these towns were two – three centuries ago and how the roots of what happened then is playing out now.  

Thought for the day

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When you try to climb a mountain to prove how big you are, you almost never make it.  And even if you do it’s a hollow victory.  In order to sustain the victory, you have to prove yourself again and again in some other way, and again and again and again, driving forever to fill a false image, haunted by the fear that the image is not true and someone will find out.  That is not the way.

From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

Book List 2008

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  1. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe – Douglas Adams
  2. Life, the Universe, and Everything – Douglas Adams
  3. Velvet Elvis – Rob Bell
  4. Shake Hands With the Devil – LGen. Romeo Dallaire
  5. The Gift of Being Yourself – David G. Benner
  6. Where God Was Born – Bruce Feiler
  7. The Cloud of Unknowing
  8. Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian
  9. Walking on Water – Madeleine L’Engle
  10. Brick Lane – Monica Ali
  11. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
  12. Atonement – Ian McEwan
  13. Charlie Wilson’s War – George Crile
  14. Bel Canto – Ann Patchett
  15. East of Eden – John Steinbeck
  16. The Picts and the Martyrs – Arthur Ransome
  17. Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
  18. Prince Caspian – C.S. Lewis
  19. No Man is an Island – Thomas Merton
  20. Daughter of Fortune – Isabelle Allende
  21. Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi
  22. Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt – Anne Rice
  23. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
  24. The Book of Mercy – Leonard Cohen
  25. Letters from a Traveller – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  26. Our Anglican Heritage – John W. Howe
  27. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemmingway
  28. Great Northern? – Arthur Ransome
  29. Where God Happens – Archbishop Rowan Williams
  30. Kim – Rudyard Kipling
  31. Healing Henan – Sonya Grypma
  32. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Pirsig
  33. Forging the Future – Diana J. Mansell
  34. Temperament – Stuart Isacoff
  35. The Making of a Nurse – Tilda Shalof
  36. The Birth House – Ami McKay
  37. The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears – Dinaw Mengetsu
  38. An American Childhood – Annie Dillard
  39. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
  40. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
  41. Hymn of the Universe – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  42. The Book of God – Walter Wangerin Jr.
  43. The Omnivore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan
  44. Finding Our Way Again – Brian McLaren
  45. The Great Railway Bazaar – Paul Theroux
  46. Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana – Anne Rice
  47. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
  48. The Red Tent – Anita Diamant
  49. The Edible Woman – Margaret Atwood
  50. Building the Earth – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  51. Sailing Alone Around the World – Joshua Slocum
  52. Revolution in World Missions – K.P. Yohannan
  53. Pacific Odyssey – Gwenda Cornell
  54. Among the Russians – Colin Thubron
  55. Restoring the Woven Cord – Michael Mitton
  56. The History of Love – Nicole Krauss

An end and a beginning

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And just like that, the spring season of sailing is done. I’m sitting here, in Dad’s computer room, on a beautiful sunny Monday (why is it always gorgeous when I’m not on the boat??) visiting for the last time before we leave in something like 3 and a bit weeks. Fabulous ferry crossing today… I sat on the outer deck the whole way in my T-shirt, enjoying the sun. There wasn’t much wind, so I was hoping I’d catch a glimpse of the boats if they were sailing, but I think they’d long passed that area. So now the fears and apprehensions I had starting off the spring season have returned full-force as the magnitude of preparing for Offshore begins to hit me. It actually began to hit a few weeks ago, which partially explains my silence lately.
As the weather gets nicer, I’ve enjoyed wandering around Victoria on the weekends. I love living close to downtown so that I can just wander in when I feel like it, and I make a point of walking a lot on the weekend to make up for my week of no to little movement on the boat. The cherry blossoms have just finished, but there was a period of a few weeks when they were spectacular; especially in Chinatown where the cherry trees alternate with well-maintained evergreen trees making the street a feast of colour.
Reading and re-reading some Madeleine L’Engle has also been a highlight of the last few weeks. I love her ability, in her non-fiction work, to say what I want to say but can’t or say what I wish I’d thought of. It is always quite inspiring and thought-provoking. Attending Choral Evensong at the huge Gothic-inspired Cathedral has also been a joy. Last week, the service was celebrated by someone who had been an intern minister at our church in Belleville about 15 years ago. He pretty much looks just the same!
And then there is the A&E/BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice that I got from the library and watched again this weekend. It is always so depressing and uplifting at the same time, a thought which brings to mind something I read from Madeleine L’Engle (A Stone for a Pillow) on the ferry ride over here: the idea that things are both/and. Like one crew member’s comment to another “You are a genius, except when you are stupid”. Like the idea that I can love and admire someone who does something which seems to be so contrary or unworthy. Maybe one day, we will have a trinary system instead of a binary system: “yes/no” becomes “yes/no/neutral.” Jesus used this when he answered the question of paying tribute to Caesar by asking them to bring him a coin. I suppose this way prods us to move out of a comfortable rut of easy answers and blanket statements; blanket statements allow us to ignore the people and think only about the problem, something that the world does too much of as it is.
With more sleep, hopefully I’ll be in good shape after this week off. I’m finding I need to divide my time between reading the “good” things – the fun and inspiring books (like Madeleine L’Engle) and the ones which are beneficial for me to read for work (Care and Feeding of the Offshore Crew, for example), although I only brought the good stuff with me this week…