Recently Read Books: The Four Loves

The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis

I finally finished this classic! I can judge how much I got out of it by the markings I left on the pages; but I must say that the first few chapters only have a few highlights while the last two chapters are majorly marked up! I would heartily recommend this book just for the last two chapters. In those chapters, Lewis discusses the subjects of “Eros love” and “Charity” with such insight, humanity, and wit that I found nearly every page refreshing and truly enlightening.

Recently Read Books: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

After hearing good things about this story, I read all 370 pages in half a day because it was that delightful. The author employs  words so well, and creates a quite believable eleven year old girl who is a sharp observer, a remarkable chemist, an a complete pest as far as her older sisters are concerned. Flavia de Luce loves chemistry and is especially fascinated by poisons. All of her introverted hours spent in the huge chemistry lab (which a deceased uncle left to the family mansion) gives her an edge over others when she embarks on the adventure of trying to solve the mystery behind the body she discovers one morning in the kitchen garden. Bradley weaves this story in such an enjoyable way that I think he truly deserved the Dagger award he received for this first mystery involving Flavia de Luce of Buckshaw mansion.

Recently Read Books: A Thousand Acres

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

This book won a Pulitzer, but I completely hated it! In my opinion, the only redeemable qualities of this book are Smiley’s skill with words, and how deftly she unwraps this terrible story. I love books that expertly delve into the roughness of what it means to be a family with warmth, perception, and realism, but this story was a train wreck. At the end of the story, every individual is rotten, crazy, shallow, dead, or irrelevant. While I understand that some families truly have no redeemable qualities, Smiley stepped over the line with this tale of the unraveling of a farming family. Seriously, if a relatively sane adult  wanted to kill her sister, would she really chose the route of canning jars of poisoned food and leaving the jars on the basement shelves for years? I kept reading this book until the bitter end, hoping that there would be something of genius to salvage—at least some way to reconcile the mess—but nothing came. If you think all farm families live the idyllic life, you should read this book, but if you are already undeceived, I would suggest spending your time reading something else. Eli Weisel’s  book “Night”, heartbreaking though it be, is a better use of time in my humble opinion. 

Recently Read Books: Celibate Sex: Musings on Being Loved, Single, Twisted, and Holy

Celibate Sex: Musings on Being Loved, Single, Twisted, and Holy by Abbie Smith

While I expected this book to pack a more profound punch than it actually did, it was a valuable read, full of honesty and encouragement. Abbie Smith wrote these musings while she was single, and she shares her own questions and difficulties as well as her meditations on what it means to be completely loved by Christ, even in our most vulnerable places. She writes, “Between twisted aspects of where we are and divine aspirations of where we want to be, we find space to become more human and sought by a Savior.”