The Divine Lamp

I’ve been tagged by Argent By The Tiber for a three book meme. You can find her meme at her second blog Here There Are Lions.

THREE NON-FICTION BOOKS EVERYONE SHOULD READ

1) MEMOIRS By Uysses S. Grant. At the risk of ticking off Argent, who is from the south, I’d recommend The personal memoirs of General/President Ulysses S. Grant. The two-volume work is generally considered to be one of the greatest American autobiographies ever written. The work is available online.  

2) THE APOLOGY of Socrates as recorded by Plato. Awesome! The Apology formed the basis for Peter Kreeft’s book PHILOSOPHY 101. The Apology and other works by Plato are available online.

3) PSALMS by Konrad Schaefer. I didn’t include the bible under this heading as it is too obvious. The book I mention here is Part of the BERIT OLAM series of books which is billed as “Studies in Hebrew narrative and poetry.” People who I trust describe the series in less than flattering terms but do recommend this volume along with the two volumes that make up THE TWELVE PROPHETS.

THREE BOOKS OF FICTION EVERYONE SHOULD READ.

1) DIALOGUE OF COMFORT AGAINST TRIBULATION by St Thomas More. the Saint wrote this while in prison in the Tower of London awaiting his martyrdom. Technically the book is a work of theology and spirituality and so could be included under the non-fiction category. On the other hand, it is in the form of a fictitious conversation and so I’ve included it here. Cheating? Possibly, but I don’t care. I read the book once but began re-reading it after the death of my Dad. It is available for reading online.

2) CUE FOR TREASON: A Tale of Shakespearian England by Geoff Trease. A great read if you’re in Middle School (that would be Junior High School for you older folks). I’ve read it several times. It’s apparently quite popular with schools and homeschools. Written in the early days of WW II (i.e. 1940) it proved to be a great Morale booster for young people in England.

3) DON QUIXOTE by Miguel De Cervantes. You merely have to read it to understand why. You can read a slightly outdated English translation online.

THREE AUTHORS EVERYONE SHOULD READ

1) Charles Dickens. Because he’s Charles Dickens.

2) G.K. Chesterton. Because he was born 100 years ahead of his time. He saw the future that the dominant philosophies and nonsense of his day would bring, which is to say that he saw our day, and he loathed it. His poem LEPANTO is must reading. The poem with explanatory notes by Dale Ahlguist might be helpful for grasping the full significance of the work, which many consider to be the greatest poem ever written in English.

3) The late Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict XVI. VALUES IN A TIME OF UPHEAVAL; CHRISTIANITY AND THE CRISIS OF MODERN CULTURES; and WITHOUT ROOTS show that he is very much tuned into the modern world, no matter how tuned out that world might be to his insights. TRUTH AND TOLERANCE was a very difficult read for me. I’ll have to re-read it sometime in the future. I also enjoy the Catechetical Homilies he has been giving at his Wednesday Audiences. links to most of them can be found on the right hand side of my blog under Benedict XVI Catechesis, or you can go here.

THREE BOOKS NO ONE SHOULD READ.

1) Any book of political wisdom written by a Hollywood star or starlet.

2) Any one of the eight (yes, 8) autobiographies Friedrich Nietzsche wrote. What an ego!

3) THE COMPLETE BOOK OF SEXUAL ETHICS by William Jefferson Clinton. Part of The Worlds Thinnest Books Series.

For the meme I tag Rob Paxton and Puff the Magic Dragon (and/or bear-i-tone) and Father Stephanos.

I’m in the process of trying to learn more about philosophy. Fredrick Copleston’s multi-volume A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY is a good, but kind of a ponderous place to start. Some of the works are available for reading online. Notre Dame Professor Ralph McInerny’s HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY is also good and available online. The Radical Academy has a great deal of useful stuff online as well. I’m currently (and very slowly) making my way through the Summa Theologica of St Thomas Aquinas with the help of Peter kreeft’s A SUMMA OF THE SUMMA, and Walter Farrell’s A COMPANION TO THE SUMMA, which is available online.

I kicked off this meme with General Grant’s Memoirs, and I’ll end this post by recommending CO. AYTCH: A CONFEDERATE MEMOIR OF THE CIVIL WAR by Sam Watkins.  If you ever saw the PBS series on the Civil War you no doubt recognize  Watkins name.