Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Fall break and books

If I was an overtly emotional person, I'd be squealing like a teenage fangirl right now.

But I'm not, so I'll post a Gif instead, lol.


via GIPHY

Why the giddiness?

My Fall Break has officially started. I have the next two days off and also the weekend, of course. Four days of relaxation.

Even better, it appears Fall will finally arrive. The temps have been record-high, into the upper 80s and low 90s. Lots of humidity and heat. Ugh. With this terrible hurricane predicted to sweep through, on its backside is the longed-for Fall weather we usually get in mid-September. Highs of upper 70s and lows of mid 5os, and NO humidity. Yay!

I put all my winter lounging clothes in the wash so I'll have my pile of fleece-y pants and comfy oversized long sleeved tee shirts to wear for the cool weather. Which hopefully will start on Thursday or Friday!

I've got plans for my mini-vacay, I tell ya, plans. In addition to reading and napping, I plan to go to my favorite second-hand/vintage store and get another book case. Why? I have more books!

Several friends and online acquaintances had asked me how to balance Bible reading, pleasure reading, and life. There is just not a lot of time for pleasure reading when all is said and done, but our church is a reading community, and we like books. We also know that reading quality literature helps us with Bible reading and vice versa. So to answer that question I turned to books. I bought two books about reading books, lol. I'm incorrigible, I know.


How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, by Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren is a classic on the subject.
With half a million copies in print, How to Read a Book is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader, completely rewritten and updated with new material. Originally published in 1940, this book is a rare phenomenon, a living classic that introduces and elucidates the various levels of reading and how to achieve them—from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading. Readers will learn when and how to “judge a book by its cover,” and also how to X-ray it, read critically, and extract the author’s message from the text.
Yay, sounds promising.

For the unique challenges awaiting the Christan and books. The book by Tony Reinke promises to help here. Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books is
A practical guide built on the gospel, Lit! models the skills needed to build a balanced reading diet of Scripture, theology, and devotional books, but without overlooking important how-to books, great stories, and books meant to be enjoyed for pleasure. Literature scholar Leland Ryken calls it "a triumph of scholarship," but mostly it's a non-pretentious book about reading from an average reader who wants to share important convictions and skills you can use for the rest of your luminously literate life.
I plan to (hopefully) arrive home with the bookcase Friday, and then reorganize my books. My commentaries have gotten separated...I want to put all the biographies together, and so on. Should be fun. I like organizing.

When I arrive home from school at the outset of a Break, I am wired and can't settle. I have a million things to do and I want to do them all at once. It takes a while for me to stop the go-go-go, as I do run up and down the halls at school at a thousand miles per hour. I need to accomplish many things during the day, and getting home on vacation I am still going.

I need to clean, of course, specifically vacuum and Swiffer the floors. Do the book thing I mentioned above, and then actually read some books. Also I need to sort through my Health care options, because Open Enrollment is here. The gas guy is coming to clean the gas heater and turn on the gas. It's supposed to turn cold so that is good timing. I'll hopefully do some crafts, needing to make more bookmarks as gifts. Christmas is coming. Maybe a movie, though with my renewed book passion I am trying to stay away from media.

Fall is a beautiful time. I hope you're enjoying your Fall!