A Year In Books: Duane W.H. Arnold
A YEAR IN BOOKS
I tend to measure the year by the books that I have read. Often the selections speak to my concerns in a more comprehensive way than keeping a journal. This last year, I found myself being fearful of the rise of extremism in the United States. The language of the extremists seems to echo words that we’ve heard before.
Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism
By: Rachel Maddow
By: Richard J. Evans
By: Richard J. Evans
By: Richard J. Evans
Thankfully, there is more to life than politics! It’s good to turn our attention to the history of the Church and of Scripture. There are lessons to be learned and new information to be considered. Often, my presuppositions are challenged and that is a good thing.
The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066
By: Marc Morris
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts
By: Neil Asher Silberman, Israel Finkelstein
Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts
By: Christopher de Hamel
The Secret Lives of Medieval Manuscripts
By: Mary Wellesley
Lost Christianities: The Battles of Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
By: Bart D. Ehrman
The Forge of Christendom: The End of Days and the Epic Rise of the West
By: Tom Holland
Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings
By: Neil Price
Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City
By: Andrew Lawler
The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance
By: Ross King
It is the marvelous thing about books that they transmit the knowledge of those who know much more, or who have learned much more, than ourselves. This is especially true when it comes to spiritual matters.
By: Rowan Williams
Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches
By: George Weigel
The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God
By: Robert Louis Wilken
Prayer. Volume 1: Living With God
By: Simon Tugwell
Prayer. Volume 2: Prayer in Practice
By: Simon Tugwell
Of course, life is not limited to politics and the church, or at least one would hope so!
Maximum Volume: The Life of Beatles Producer George Martin: The Early Years, 1926-1966
By: Kenneth Womack
Sound Pictures: The Life of Beatles Producer George Martin, The Later Years, 1966-2016
By: Kenneth Womack
Revolver: How the Beatles Re-Imagined Rock ‘n’ Roll
By: Robert Rodriguez
George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle
By: Philip Norman
Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story
By: Bono
And appropriate for the new year, a volume that tells the story of a great champagne house run entirely by a woman. By the way, she did it better than a man in a time that did not allow for such exceptions…
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It
By: Tilar Mazzeo
While I have read a few additional volumes this year, those listed above I can recommend without hesitation. As the new year approaches, I am excited about what new books I will find and read. If you have any suggestions, please share with the rest of us.
I’ve linked to each of these books with our Amazon link…mainly to the Kindle versions.
I love looking at other folks lists…it tells me something about them and always leads to new respect and curiosity.
I’ll try to get mine up this weekend.
My partial reading list is in this post, though I don’t tend to do year end book lists as a rule. Still, I dove so far into the music theory pool I figured I’d make a list.
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2023/12/some-thoughts-on-readings-in-music.html
Then there’s this … with the read/finished books in blue or purple
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2021/01/updated-version-of-reading-list-from.html
The unanticipated overlap has been in my readings about demonology and spiritual warfare there’s an overlap with the concerns I’ve seen in music theory and music history discussions about white supremacist legacies and Germanophile art-religion. There’s something to be said for being conversant enough in Swiss, Dutch and Scottish Reformed thought to have alternatives to Scrutonian art mysticism. Not that I don’t respect Scruton overall but since he died it sure seems like he would’ve benefited from interacting with David Brown and Jeremy Begbie, two Anglican theologians who have done some substantive work thinking through the theological issues of music.
I finished a book by Philip Stoltzfus in the last few weeks and he claimed that Augustine switched from a neo-Platonic/Pythagorean perspective about music a more Orpheus-based approach and I’ve been wondering since finishing Theology as Performance whether Carol Harrison would agree with that appraisal.
Oh, my! I need to read them all!
Most of my reading this year was articles for a class on second language acquisition. It was to help me be more effective for my actual job and the ESL class at church. There was about 100 pages of reading a week. Was it helpful? In some ways (motivation and excellent teaching are key), but how people manage to become bi/multilingual is still up in the air.
Thanks for this list, Duane. Some of these look really interesting to me.
I don’t think I read as much this year as have in past, and hoping to read more in 24. I did a fair amount for the Fall semester for the classes I’m taking. Some of it was writings in theology proper, that aside from the Trinitarian emphasis, contained declaration about God that I was not convinced of. Luckly my prof felt that I defending my position well enough to pull an A.
One book I am fascinated with is The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality by Belden C. Lane. I’m still working through the beginning pages reading and rereading. I’m looking forward to the chapters on Purgation, Illumination, and Union over-laying a desert geographical context.
pstrmike
The desert has much to teach us if we’re willing to learn…