My 2023 Books
My 2023 Book List
At the outset: It is good for the ole humility to see my list up against my husband's and my sons' and daughter's lists. I guess I immerse myself in books and swim around for a while, so it takes me so much longer to let them go. But here they are!
Alas, (a true confession) I am still trudging through a work by Paul Claudel. Once in a while a golden nugget appears, and then 'Pfitt' - it vanishes into the memory fog....did I mention humility.....but I soldier on.....
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Appetite For Life: The Biography of Julia Child. - Noel Riley Fitch
(The life of a truly amazing woman of talent and exuberance. A friend)
Arthur Rackham, A Biography. - Derek Hudson
(lovely story of my favorite illustrator. I loved this one)
Jaber Crow - Wendell Berry
(Changed my heart in a good way)
Brideshead Revisited (Again!) - Evelyn Waugh
(Masterful understanding of the conversion experience - both the large and the more quiet surrenders)
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
(weird and wonderful. such delicious prose)
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out - Richard Feynman
(Surprisingly and hopelessly in love with this man. A physicist. Who woulda thunk it?)
Essays on the Art of Cheese Making - Sister Noella Marcellino
(A friend and comrade in living a metaphorical life)
A Forest of Symbols: The Traditional Mass and It's Meaning - Abbe Claude Barthe
(Wondrous Stuff! Why I am now attending the Latin Mass)
Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word (ongoing) - Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis
(My off sight Spiritual Director, in a sense)
Old Thunder: Biography of Hillaire Belloc - Joseph Pearce
(I didn't think I was going to like him at all. But he grew on me)
Beauty: A Very Short Introduction (every year!) - Roger Scrutton
(My light when all other lights go out)
Selected Writings: John Ruskin
(A bit of a genius, this one. I am always delighted after I read him)
The Hymnody of the Christian Church - Louis Benson
(A history of the Christian hymn - REALLY interesting and lovely)
The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
(Dense but wondrous look at the lyrical possibilities and poetic expression of the rooms in our homes and how they carry the 'stuff' of poetry within them as we walk about the house. It is slow going but worth it. )
May Alcott: A Biography - TIcknor
(Louisa's little sister. Amazing story of the real Alcotts)
A World on the Wing - Scott Weidensaul
(A lyrical naturalist describes his adventures in tracking the migration of birds - a favorite kind of book for me)
The End of Woman - Carrie Gress
(Looking at the origins of feminism)