Summer Reading List

While the sun is shining bright and the evenings are for sweatshirts, I hope to dive from that large, overhanging branch called Spring and find myself submerged beneath the following pages. And I will do this amazing bit of acrobatics with a cherry popsicle in my hand and red smears on my cheeks.

I'm in the middle of Light From Old Times by the Bishop JC Ryle as well as Holiness by the same. I've also started, but have neglected to finish Law and Liberty by Mr. Rushdoony. The Everlasting Man of Chesterton is bent half way, but I've not yet seen the other side. Although I cannot place the entire blame on a sometimes reading group, Barth's Doctrine of the Word of God 1.1 is patiently waiting for the resuming of said reading group. I've also been picking my way through The Letters of Tolkien, an enjoyable exercise to say the least. There are of course other books that have not been finished, but my integrity as a reader requires discretion at some point.

I also hope to read some if not all of the following: From Dawn to Decadence by a fellow named Barzuk, a history of western civilization in a more consciously journalistic vein than most histories. Undaunted Courage, a story of the Lewis and Clark expedition and exploration of the northwest is also at the top of my list. And if I have my way, several titles on the War Between the States will find their way to my desk, one somewhat related, The Real Lincoln, I have already been encouraged to read.

In the fiction department, I hope to take in a bit more of the Wodehouse, although truth be told, my wife and I are still plucking our way through Right Ho, Jeeves. But no worries, the summer is fat for the picking. I will overcome, I will conquer, or I will survive at any rate. Walker Percy has long been awaiting my perusal, The Last Gentleman and The Moviegoer are mocking me from my shelf. I also continue work on the second book of the Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, although it is difficult to construe that as 'reading'. Summer time is also the perfect setting for several Flannery O'Connor short stories. It is my goal to read a good bit of Mr. Billy Collins, a poet who from all heartell deserves my time. I read several bits of him this morning, in fact, from one of his more recent collections.

The Atlas Humanities class works through a three year cycle, and this Fall, as you may have gathered, we will be studying modern history from the Reformation to the present. Probably the toughest part of this class will be condensing the possibilities of study into the actual amount of time that we have. Not only are there innumerable books to read, but battles and philosophies and discoveries seem like a firehose and I'm the teacher who's expected to fill a Dixie cup and share a little with my students. Alas!