Charlotte was Both

To Verona

September 10, 2014 by Amy Welborn

My daughter lives and works in Bavaria now, and she snagged a few days off. Her initial plan was to visit a friend who’s living in Paris, but that friend was, it turns out, going to be out of town during that time. So no free housing in an expensive city. So what to do?

I suggested northern Italy – it was more or less a straight shot from where she is down to Verona. And do a day trip or two. Mantua? Venice?

So she went. Verona first.

And that’s just a fraction of one day’s experiences….

(And the weirdest thing? I saw one of my friends here this evening and she said, “Guess where my brother was today? In Verona!”)

Posted in Amy Welborn, Family, Italy, Michael Dubruiel, Travel, Verona | Tagged Amy Welborn, Catholic, Italy, opera, Roman Empire, travel, Verona | Leave a Comment »

Devotions and other parish materials

September 8, 2014 by Amy Welborn

Continuing my series on books and other materials I’ve published that you might find useful in your home, parish or school.

Previously:

Adult Faith Formation/RCIA books:

Children’s books (with more to come tomorrow)

Today – some of the devotional and parish resources I’ve published. Some are more timely than others, but just so you can see, and in case anyone still wants pamphlets on Pope Benedict XVI!

First, A Catholic Woman’s Book of Days – published by Loyola. This was probably the hardest book I ever wrote. I mean – it "amy welborn" was endless. Just imagine, if you would, reaching the point where you’d written two hundred short devotions. You feel pride. You’ve achieved something. Then you realize, “That means I have 165 to go….”

Yeah, that was a challenging road.

But I finished! And I think it’s pretty good! Since it’s designed to be used in any year, the entries can only get so specific. So for the non-moveable feasts like Christmas and the Marian feasts, the entries are set. But since the liturgical seasons are moveable, what I did was to make the late February and March entries Lent-ish, the late April and May entries Easter-ish and the December entries Adventy.

I’ve written quite a bit for Creative Communications for the Parish – which is a great company providing affordable, quality materials.

Of course, I contribute 6 devotions to every quarterly issue of Living Faith. There are print and digital versions.

Also:

This Lenten devotional:

Do I Have to Go? – a little pamphlet on helping children get more out of Mass.

This year, I have a new family Advent devotional:

Currently out of print is a small booklet I wrote on St. Nicholas.

Also currently out of print, but I understand, coming back into print for Lent 2015 is the young people’s Stations of the Cross I wrote:

Okay…moving on to OSV:

Posted in Adventures in Assisi, Amy Welborn, Bambinelli Sunday, Books, Catholicism, Good Friday, Jesus, Lent, Life, Liturgy, Michael Dubruiel, Mission, Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, rosary, Saints, Writing | Leave a Comment »

Books for Catholic Children

September 6, 2014 by Amy Welborn

Continuing to feature my books, broken down into categories for you. Earlier this week, adult education resources. Today, books for children.

Suggested uses? In your home, for your grandchildren, purchased for your parish catechists and Catholic school teachers. And, if you know any, Catholic book store owners – freestanding, in parishes or in shrines.

The Loyola KIds Book of Saints:

This was one of the first books I wrote, back in 2000 – along with Prove It God about the same time. Neither were my idea – most of my books are not. Loyola wanted a book of saints for children and they were familiar with my column-writing, so they invited me to do this. I struggled a while with the organization. I really wanted to make it different from other saints books, which are either organized chronologically through history, chronologically through the liturgical year, or alphabetically. I wanted a more compelling, interesting organizational principle. So was born the “Saints are people who….” sections, as you can see below.

Good for read-alouds from about age 5 on, independent reading (depending on child) from about 8 on. The emphasis is on helping children see the connection between their own journey to holiness and the saints’. Sample sections and chapters, with a complete list here:

Saints Are People Who Create
St. Hildegard of Bingen,Blessed Fra Angelico,St. John of the Cross,Blessed Miguel Pro

Saints Are People Who Teach Us New Ways to Pray
St. Benedict,St. Do "amy welborn" minic de Guzman,St. Teresa of Avila,St. Louis de Monfort

Saints Are People Who See Beyond the Everyday
St. Juan Diego, St. Frances of Rome, St. Bernadette Soubirous, Blessed Padre Pio

Saints Are People Who Travel From Home
St. Boniface, St. Peter Claver, St. Francis Xavier, St. Francis Solano, St. Francis Xavier Cabrini

Saints Are People Who Are Strong Leaders
St. Helena, St. Leo the Great, St. Wenceslaus, St. John Neumann

Saints Are People Who Tell The Truth
St. Polycarp, St. Thomas Becket, St. Thomas More, Blessed Titus Brandsma

Published by Loyola Press.

And then..the exciting sequel!

This book evolved. Loyola originally wanted this – a book of “heroes” , but I adjusted the concept a bit. I really need a strong concept in order to write – once I come up with the concept it flows pretty well. So for this book I decided to organize it according to the virtues, and include in each section a originating narrative from Scripture, a historical event or movement and then a collection of saints who personify that virtue. For some reason, this book sold particularly well this past spring (Or “First Communion” season. ) I’m not sure why.

Also published by Loyola.

Introduction: Jesus Teaches
Pentecost: Heroes on Fire with Hope
Paul: A Hero Changes and Finds Hope
St. Patrick and St. Columba: Heroes Bring Hope into Darkness
St. Jane de Chantal: Heroes Hope through Loss
St. Mary Faustina Kowalska: A Hero Finds Hope in Mercy

Charity

Introduction: Jesus Works Miracles
Peter and John: Heroes are Known by their Love
St. Genevieve: A City is Saved by a Hero’s Charity
St. Meinrad and St. Edmund Campion: Heroes love their Enemies
Venerable Pierre Toussaint: A Hero Lives a Life of Charity
Rose Hawthorne Lathrop: A Hero Cares for Those Who Need it Most
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta: A Hero Lives Charity with the Dying

Temperance

Introduction: Jesus Strikes a Balance
Peter and Cornelius: Heroes Love Their Neighbors
Charlemagne and Alcuin: Heroes Use their Talents for Good
St. Francis: A Hero Appreciates Creation
Venerable Matt Talbot: Heroes Can Let Go
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati: A Hero Enjoys the Gift of Life

Now, a couple of books I had an editorial hand in – also good resources for your home or classroom.

I didn’t write the Psalms, of course, but I did write the introduction and organizing material for this Child’s Book of Psalms.

"amy welborn"

Then I did some editing work on this New Catholic Illustrated Bible, published by St. Benedict/Tan.

It was originally published in Europe and for a non-Catholic audience. So my job was to do general editing of the text and bring in a Catholic emphasis. It was an interesting job.

Well! I was going to include my four books with Ann Engelhart here, but I think that’s enough for one blog post….

Previously:

Posted in Adventures in Assisi, Amy Welborn, Bambinelli Sunday, Books, Catholicism, education, homeschooling, Jesus, Michael Dubruiel, Religion, Saints | Tagged Amy Welborn, Bible, Catholic, Catholic books, Michael Dubruiel, Psalms, saints | 1 Comment »

7 Quick Takes

September 5, 2014 by Amy Welborn

— 1 —

Well, neither vaguely desired Nashville trip happened, thanks to birthday parties and other gatherings. But that’s okay. I belatedly found some indifferent-to-critical reviews of the exhibits at the Frist I had wanted to take everyone to see so it seemed that it wouldn’t have been worth the time and expense anyway. And, although the production of As You LIke It certainly sounded like a good one, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival released their season schedule this week, and that’s on the boards for them, so we’ll catch that one instead.

This is docked up in Huntsville over the next few days, so we might attempt a trip up to see it. Probably won’t happen though, unfortunately, at least with both of them.

But at least we have ArtWalk today and tomorrow. We won’t miss that.

— 2 —

I’m super tired this morning because over the past two days, I’ve binge-watched the BBC series Happy Valley. It’s really excellent in every way. An absorbing, suspenseful storyline, fantastic performances, especially the deservedly lauded Sarah Lancashire in the lead, sharp but not forced social commentary about the impact of drugs on a community and individual lives and a deeply humane vision. It’s rough, though, so be warned. At the center is a consideration of loss and the value of an “unwanted” human life, which is quite compelling. As I said, it’s difficult to watch at times, but is as absorbing as almost any contemporary novel you’d pick up to read. iReally good. It’s on Netflix. Far more worth your time, if we’re talking Netflix, than, say, House of Cards, which I liked in spurts at the beginning,but grew to dislike by about episode two of the second season, which I never finished watching.

— 3 —

So excited to be following the homeschooling Bearing Blog family’s trip to Europe which kicks off today!!!

— 4 —

Our nighttime reading is Penrod by Booth Tarkington. It’s my father’s copy from the early 40’s. I had read it as a kid, as well as, a little later, Seventeen and The Magnificent Ambersons. We are all enjoying it, although I do a bit of ad-hoc, on-the-spot editing for two reasons:

1) Tarkington’s language is arch and complicated, partly to enhance the humor of the situations this ordinary boy gets himself into. I don’t strip it down much because the effect really is amusing, but sometimes it’s a bit much and I just get tired of reading it.

2) And yes, the racism. It’s infrequent, but when it does pop up, it’s worse than what one encounters in Twain. Twain is trying to paint an accurate picture of his time,and that includes being real about how people speak and act. There’s no doubt, however, that Twain views Jim as fully human and deserving of respect, and that the white characters are, in a way, judged by their view of Jim’s humanity, and so for that reason, I wouldn’t even call Twain’s work “racist,” even though I acknowledge that I might certainly feel differently if we were black. It reflects a racist society, but the authorial point of view is clearly the opposite. I may have said before that this last time I read Huck Finn it seemed to me to be a very long metaphor for the American struggle to understand and act on the full humanity of African Americans. In particular, I puzzled over the lengthy set-piece, running over a few chapters of Tom and Huck’s plan to free Jim after he’d been captured. If you recall, they argue about this constantly. Huck just wants to get ‘er done, while Tom insists on formulating elaborate, ridiculous schemes because that is just the way it’s done and it wouldn’t be fitting t do it any other way – wouldn’t be right. As this went on and on, I wondered if Twain intended this to be a commentary of sorts on the pre-Civil War conflicts over abolition.

Okay, but back to Penrod. Tarkington is not so subtle. The two black boys who feature in the story are not quite caricatures, but close. No, the problem is that Tarkington speaks of them as “darkys” and drops allusions to the purported negative qualities of “coloured” people as a group. Yeah, I skip over those and say “boys” instead even after forthrightly explaining the problem.

So why read it? Well if these issues cropped up on every page, I certainly wouldn’t. But it’s rare enough and editable enough to make the sometime riotous humor and knowing view of boyhood in the book worth a read. But it’s a good exercise in understanding why some works last as literature and others don’t.

— 5 —

Schooling resource note, even if you don’t homeschool and just want supplementary materials. Scholastic sometimes runs dollar sales on digital editions of many of their workbooks. I bought a bunch this summer, and we’re putting them to good use – some math supplementation and in particular, right now, the roots workbook. Repeat: it’s worth it when they’re selling them for a buck, which is not happening now, but maybe keep a lookout for that sale.

— 6 —

Listening report:

By far the most striking programs I listened to this week were two episodes of The Food Programme revisiting the 40-year old television program, A Taste of Britain. From the show page:

In 1974, Derek Cooper set off on a hunt – for BBC Television – around Britain to discover what was left of its regional foods and traditional ingredients. Forty years on, Dan Saladino revisits that series, called “A Taste of Britain” – to meet some of those involved, their descendants, and to find out what happened after these food traditions, many of which at the time were on the wane, were recorded for the cameras.

The first two programs were one Dorset and Wales, respectively, and the last will focus on Yorkshire. They are quite well done and fascinating, as the contemporary presenter shows video of the older program to descendants of the farmers, cooks and market-sellers interviewed by Cooper and they reflect on what has been lost and how things have changed, sometimes even for the better as the market for certain food products have revived and developed.

And I learned a lot. Dorset knob? Laverbread? Cockles? I don’t want to eat any of it, but I was quite interested in learning about them all…

— 7 —

I am still attempting to do a comprehensive series on all of my books, grouping them according to parish need and use – I’ve gotten one post up! Go me.

Here it is – on what you might consider for adult education resources.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Posted in 7 Quick Takes, Adventures in Assisi, Amy Welborn, Bambinelli Sunday, Catholicism, Michael Dubruiel, Morality, Travel | 6 Comments »

St. Gregory the Great

September 3, 2014 by Amy Welborn

Today is the feastday of Pope St. Gregory the Great. Some links:

Fr. Steve Grunow on the saint:

As a culture we labor under the assumption that a vocation is best illuminated as a kind of decision, a choice by which we decide for ourselves who we are and what we should do. On the surface, the pretense of this might console us and make us feel that in a world that is so evidently outside of our control, at the very least we can forge for ourselves a personal destiny. However, authentic vocation is not so much about our decision, but God’s. It is only when our lives are in conformity with God’s will that we truly learn who we are and what we must do.

Pope Benedict XVI had two General Audiences on the saint back in 2008.

Part 1:

Notwithstanding the very difficult conditions in which he had to work, he gained the faithful’s trust, thanks to his holiness of life and rich humanity, achieving truly magnificent results for his time and for the future. He was a man immersed in God: his desire for God was always alive in the depths of his soul and precisely because of this he was always close to his neighbour, to the needy people of his time. Indeed, during a desperate period of havoc, he was able to create peace and give hope.

Part 2:

He was a passionate reader of the Bible, which he approached not simply with a speculative purpose: from Sacred Scripture, he thought, the Christian must draw not theoretical understanding so much as the daily nourishment for his soul, for his life as man in this world. For example, in theHomilies on Ezekiel, he emphasized this function of the sacred text: to approach the Scripture simply to satisfy one’s own desire for knowledge means to succumb to the temptation of pride and thus to expose oneself to the risk of sliding into heresy. Intellectual humility is the primary rule for one who searches to penetrate the supernatural realities beginning from the sacred Book. Obviously, humility does not exclude serious study; but to ensure that the results are spiritually beneficial, facilitating true entry into the depth of the text, humility remains indispensable. Only with this interior attitude can one really listen to and eventually perceive the voice of God. On the other hand, when it is a question of the Word of God understanding it means nothing if it does not lead to action. In these Homilies on Ezekiel is also found that beautiful expression according which “the preacher must dip his pen into the blood of his heart; then he can also reach the ear of his neighbour”. Reading his homilies, one sees that Gregory truly wrote with his life-blood and, therefore, he still speaks to us today.

….

Above all he was profoundly convinced that humility should be the fundamental virtue for every Bishop, even more so for the Patriarch. Gregory remained a simple monk in his heart and therefore was decisively contrary to great titles. He wanted to be – and this is his expression -servus servorum Dei. Coined by him, this phrase was not just a pious formula on his lips but a true manifestation of his way of living and acting. He was intimately struck by the humility of God, who in Christ made himself our servant. He washed and washes our dirty feet. Therefore, he was convinced that a Bishop, above all, should imitate this humility of God and follow Christ in this way. His desire was to live truly as a monk, in permanent contact with the Word of God, but for love of God he knew how to make himself the servant of all in a time full of tribulation and suffering. He knew how to make himself the “servant of the servants”. Precisely because he was this, he is great and also shows us the measure of true greatness.

Link to Gregory’s Pastoral Rule at New Advent

Posted in Amy Welborn, Catholicism, Italy, Jesus, Life, Liturgy, Michael Dubruiel, Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion | 1 Comment »

Book Week….

September 2, 2014 by Amy Welborn

….that is, my books.

(And of course, my intention was to publish this on Tuesday. Now it’s Wednesday. So it will be a short week. Perhaps it will be “Book Weeks.” Probably.)

Since Adventures in Assisi is now available, I’m going to seize the moment and take the week to offer a bunch of posts on the books I’ve written over the past fifteen years or so. I’m going to begin today by suggesting some resources for those of you with adult education formation to plan…

(And remember, you don’t have to be An Official Staff Member of a Parish in order to get a small group going. You can, you know, call up some people, invite them to invite friends, pick a book…and go to someone’s house or a coffeeshop or bar and..talk about it!)

First, some formal studies:

Loyola Press has a series of Scripture studies, and I wrote two of them:

Parables: Stories of the Kingdom

and

Matthew 26-28: Jesus’ Life-Giving Death.

Both are designed to be used over 6 weeks. You can tell because the series is called 6 Weeks with the Bible.

If you’d like something just as substantive but a little less structured, you could try The Words We Pray, also published by Loyola.

It’s a series of essays connecting the content, historical background and spiritual resonance of traditional Catholic prayers.

I have a page about the book here.

Here’s an excerpt at the Loyola site. An excerpt of the excerpt:

The words of our traditional prayers are also gifts from the past, connecting us to something very important: the entirety of the Body of Christ, as it was then, as it is now, and as it will be to come.

How many billions of times have Christians recited the Lord’s Prayer? How many lips, both Jewish and Christian, have murmured the ancient words of the Psalms?

There is a sense in which each of us is alone in the universe. At the end, there is no one but us and God. We are beholden to no one but him, and he is the one we face with an accounting of how we have used this gift called life.

But we are not alone. We have billions of brothers and sisters, all of whom breathe the same air and whose souls look to the same heights for meaning and purpose.

We whisper the words of the Hail Mary at our child’s bedside, in concert, in God’s time, with every other mother who has looked to the Virgin for help and prayers when the burdens of parenthood seemed unbearably heavy.

Every child stumbling through the words of the Lord’s Prayer, offering up simple prayers for simple needs out of the simplest, deepest love—every one of those children has countless companions lisping through the same pleas, and we are among those companions.

Together we beg God for mercy, we rage at God in confusion, we praise God in full throat. And when we do so using the Psalms, we are one with the Jews and Christians who have begged, raged, and praised for three thousand years.

We’re not alone. And when we pray these ancient prayers, in the company of the living and the dead, we know this.

I know of several small groups through the years that have used The Words We Pray as a source book. It might be nice for RCIA as well.

Do you want something FREE?

If your group members have access to computers or tablets – which most of us do – you could use Come Meet Jesus or Mary and the Christian Life, both out of print now, but both available at no cost to you or anyone else.

More about Come Meet Jesus, including the download.

More about Mary and the Christian Life, including the download.

Of course I can’t claim the real content for this, but I did write the study guide for Fr. Robert Barron’s series on Conversion. Both it and the 6 Weeks with the Bible study on Matthew would be good for Lent, for those of you planning ahead. (It will be here sooner than you know!)

Finally, you might also find Michael’s How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist and The How to Book of the Mass good – the former for study/discussion groups, and the latter for RCIA.

Oh, one more thing. Fiction-reading groups are very popular and a great way to bring up interesting issues of faith in a non-threatening and not-overly personal kind of way (although the good group facilitator will have developed the skill of tactfully handling the oversharers anyway, right?). There are loads of good books out there for that purpose, but you might take a look at the titles in the Loyola Classics series. I was the General Editor of this series for a long time – that means I cleared rights to books, acquired authors to write the forwards and then wrote the author bios and discussion questions for each book.

The titles are here.

Posted in Adventures in Assisi, Amy Welborn, Bambinelli Sunday, Books, Catholicism, Jesus, Lent, Michael Dubruiel, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, Writing | Tagged adult education, Amy Welborn, Bible Study, books, Catholic, discussion, fiction, formation, Mary, Mass, Michael Dubruiel, Pope, Prayer | Leave a Comment »

7 Quick Takes

August 29, 2014 by Amy Welborn

— 1 —

And now…it gets real. As in, with this weekend up until Christmas….whirlwind. Lots of stuff going on, but fortunately my role in most of it is check-writer and driver, which I don’t mind.

Travel? One, maybe two Nashville day trips, depending on the timing of a birthday party I’ve heard is in the works for next weekend. I would like to take them to see this production of As You Like It, but would also like time to prepare the boys for it, so this weekend would be too soon, since I had no idea this production was happening until about an hour ago.

The evening after art class, he’s still inspired.

— 2 —

When your 9-year old complains that his abs ache from the homeschool boxing workout and then goes to play with his snake, you kind of wonder how we all got to the place we are, whatever that place is.

— 3 —

Speaking of snakes, we’re relieved to report that Rocky ate. Finally. Yup, that’s right. We’ve had him for over two months, and he had not eaten up to last week. I had been assured by The Experts On The Internet that as long as he wasn’t losing weight, it would be fine, that ball pythons can go months without eating, etc., but honestly it was getting ridiculous, and his owner was starting to really worry and have bad dreams about his snake dying, so we took a deep breath, gave up on the frozen/thawed rodents (I’d gone through a pack of two dozen, and tried everything recommended to get him to eat…he just looked away and slithered in the opposite direction, no matter what), and went and bought a live one. That is, a mouse. Alive.

Are you horrified? Well, sorry. It’s not my favorite thing, but here we are with this snake THAT MIGHT LIVE FOR THIRTY YEARS I’M TOLD and it needs to eat, and in the wild, well, they eat living things. And I guess since I almost, you know, lost him, I probably owe him a shot at nourishment. There are, however strong feelings about this issue on both sides in the herp community, with some feeling very strongly that feeding live rodents to snakes is, among other things, dangerous for the snakes – they could be injured by the prey. This seems to be more of a risk with rats, who are meaner and have sharper and larger teeth and claws. I’ll just say that the mouse…didn’t fight back. I admit, I was so used to Rocky rejecting food that I was shocked when he struck, and not just because a snake strike is so blindingly fast.

Of course…he was probably pretty hungry.

(My thought on this is that Rocky was probably only fed live by his breeder – we bought him at a reptile show, and these fellows had a lot of snakes. It seems to me it would be a major hassle to feed dozens of snakes with frozen/thawed feed – you have to thaw them, then warm them up so that the, er, prey, exudes some heat that will hopefully make the snake believe it’s alive. To do this for a slew of snakes, all the time? Nah. A lot easier, I’m guessing, to feed them live and be done with it…)

(Can you believe I even know anything about it? Pretty crazy. Well, life is all about learning and growing, I say….)

(I will also say that since we’ve had him, Rocky has shed – and that suppresses their appetites as well. It was really very funny. I had noticed the snake’s eyes changing color from their normal black to a greyish blue, and that he wasn’t coming out of his hide even at night. I knew that these were signs that a shed was on the horizon, and I can’t forget the day I pointed this out to Michael. “Look at his eyes,” was all I had to say, and he did and he JUMPED up and down in ecstatic joy and raced around the house. “YES! HE’S GOING TO SHED!” We didn’t actually see it happen – we off somewhere – Charleston, I think – and when we returned ,there was the skin, now proudly displayed among various rocks, minerals and Mayan memories….)

— 4 —

So, er, what else? Education in the Home is chugging away just fine. Herpetology, obviously. Piano lessons have begun again, the extra music theory class has begun, boxing class was experienced and will continue for at least a few more weeks despite the aching abs, art class is happening. Math, check, Logic, check, cursive, check. We buzzed through the Brave Writer work on The Cricket in Times Square pretty quickly and I think we’ll do Farmer Boy next. I have the Greek book, but haven’t started it yet with him – next week. He’s working through this workbook called Meet the Great Composers. He spends a lot of time every day reading through library books about various historical and scientific subjects. Homeschool science center classes begin in a couple of weeks.

Many, many rabbit holes, as per usual. Some are just built into the discussions. He practices extra math by working out the ages, for example, of the composers. We have the atlas out anytime we read, tracking cities and countries. We have an ongoing list of challenging spelling words that he’ll learn over the week, pulled from all the different things he’s studying and reading – this week, ranging from “parallel” and “perpendicular” to “Baroque” to “shrieking” (from The Cricket)

And the videos. For example Smarter Every Day. This guy who does the Smarter Every Day videos – actually lives in (or around?) Huntsville, I discovered. This video about jellyfish stinging mechanisms was fantastic.

And I admit, having others that I trust educate the eighth grader? A relief. Not because he was difficult…not at all. But just because they’ll do a fine job, and it’s good for him to be there with others, both peers and adults. He’s also so accustomed to the warp and woof of our Teachable Moment Home that he doesn’t object at all when I, er, enhance what he says he’s learning with a video here or a book there or that we are still doing our Shakespeare memorization, albeit at a slower pace. I have no idea what will happen for high school (I’d like to homeschool/roadschool 9th grade, but he’ll probably have his own opinions on that) yet, but we’re good for now.

Speaking of homeschooling, as we often do, at one of the special classes this week, I chatted with a woman who pulled her 4 school-aged kids out of a Catholics school and is homeschooling this year. Why? Nothing bad about the school, which is fine in every respect. But, as she said, “They were doing homework until 9 and 10 every night, every weekend was all about projects, and the school was taking over our life. We had no family life.”

— 5 —

This week’s exercise podcasts?

This documentary on Indian servicemen during World War I was fascinating- definitely worth your time. I look forward to the second.

On the recommendation of a friend, I listened to this episode of This American Life – about a North Carolina doctor who seeks the truth about his predecessor in the clinic where he works, a man who murdered his own father. It was certainly absorbing, but there was one element that bothered me – I can’t really go into it without spoiling the twist for future listeners, but if you’ve listened to this one (or read the transcript), let me know in the comments.

(I used to listen to This American Life all the time, but I stopped, I think because Ira Glass’ vocal mannerism started grating on me. Or maybe I just preferred Fred Armisen’s version instead…)

— 6 —

Reading?

I read My Two Italies, a memoir of a scholar of Italian literature born of working class Calabrian parents. The “two Italies” are, of course, his parents’ southern Italian background and the Italy represented by his more cultured intellectual pursuits. There is another key personal detail that I think is the core of the book, but gets mostly overwhelmed by not-quite relevant material – that is, until the very end, which is quite moving. It feels like a good, meaty Atlantic or New Yorker article expanded to book length, to the material’s detriment.

I have just started The Restoration of Rome, a new history that is getting slammed on Amazon party because of informality in the writing, but the premise of which – the popes did what the later emperors were unable to do – intrigues me, especially as articulated by a contemporary historian. So I’ll forge on.

— 7 —

And…speaking of books….don’t forget this one! I’ll be doing a few posts next week on this…promise!!