Well, I really do thank you for your very helpful suggestions regarding family friendly films! I was truly in a rut. This evening, since Troy is gone overnight for a work retreat, the kids and I went to the library with my hand-dandy must-see movie list and brought home Chitti Chitti Bang Bang, which they've never seen, and I haven't seen in ages. They were a bit skeptical, especially Ben. "I don't like movies with songs," he complained. But lo and behold, throughout each and every musical number, he would dance up a storm. All this to say, they loved it and so did I. I think for our next "date night" we'll try the Mission or maybe "Diary of a Country Priest." I forgot to also mention, we, too, loved O Brother Where Art Thou and as a huge Graham Greene fan, I'd recommend (for adults of course) The Quiet American starring Michael Cain and Brendan Fraser.
So... do I dare impose further by asking you to tell me your favorite book, either fiction or non-fiction? I will go first. There are so many to choose from, but in terms of a total package (i.e. beautiful writing, complex characters, and stories that strengthened my faith and stuck with me), I'd have to say, The End of the Affair and The Power and the Glory, both by Graham Greene. Have you read them?
You go next, please. I have my pen in hand and my notebook open...
24th anniversary
4 weeks ago
15 comments:
Glad your kids loved this! I am too scared to show this to my kids at the moment because my oldest (6) is a clone of me as a child, and I had nightmares about that evil candy man for a long time after watching the movie... to this day I still can't watch anything sad, scary or violent. In fact I think I'm getting more sensitive as time goes by.
I've never been a big reader but my sister's favourite books are the Godfather books. I never get sick of reading What Katy Did.
Perhaps I should confess that my all-time favourite movie is An American in Paris, which I have seen over 200 times.
Oh, I totally understand. I feel the same way about the old version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which I watched as a kid and then refused to eat gum for a long time afterwards because of Violet turning violet and then having to be "juiced."
Molly,
I have too many to name. But you can check out my latest blog post for a list of favorite books. A great book for both kids and adults (my high school students loved it!) is "The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip" by George Saunders. Excellent!
When I visited my grandparents for summertime vacations, they always let me read their Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series. I was only 8 or so at the time if that old.
Orthodox wise, I love the Father Arseny books. I just finished a book called, Three Cups of Tea, that details the life of a man setting up schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Very intriguing, and I would love Orthodox input on it. I remember loving "The Pillars of the Earth" when I first read it many years ago. I am also a big Jane Austen fan.
I'll give it some more thought and let you know.
Well, Molly there are so many!
We recently read "Because of Winn Dixie" by Kate DiCamillo and onto her next book: "The Tail of Despereaux" Love it!
"The Wind in the Willows"
"The Secret Garden" "The Little Princess" both by Francis Hodgson Burnell
"A Wrinkle in Time" Madeline L'Engle
"Tom Sawyer" "Huckelberry Finn" "The Prince & Pauper" all by Mark Twain
Any Puffin classics: "Around the world...", "The Count of Monte Cristo", "The Red Badge of Courage", "Little Women", and any Little House series, Anne of Green Gables, Horatio Hornblower series..
there are just so many!
We typically find a novel that may correspond with our History curriculum. For instance: last year we read "Cleopatra" from the "Royal Diaries" for children. Hannah just loved it. And for Colin, we read "Julius Ceaser" and "Marc Anthony" in graphic novel form. The Acclaim Books - Classics Illustrated are a great way to get them introduced to classical novels
hope this helps...and now I need to watch Chitti Chitti Bang Bang for the 100th time "Truly Scrumptous!"
I love so many books, especially Orthodox ones. My favorites are Wounded by Love by Elder Porphyrios, St. Nektarios: the Saint of our Century, and The Life of the Virgin Mary, Theotokos. I also loved Fr. Seraphim Rose's, Genesis, Creation and the First-Created Man, God and Christ by St. Gregory the Theologian and Monastic Wisdom, letters by Elder Joesph the Hesychast.
However, when I was in my undergrad Great Books program I read a lot of very interesting books that were not Orthodox. One of my favorites was a play called R.U.R. , very interesting. Shakespeare's Hamlet, Aristotle's The Ethics, Virgil's Aenaid, Homer's Iliad, Shelly's Frankenstein, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Lewis of course, Plato's The Republic and many others, Blessed Augustine's Confessions is very good too.
But the author I would like to draw your attention to for children (and adults) is George MacDonald. He was a Scottish author and much beloved by C.S. Lewis. He has some very interesting stories for children with many Christian undertones. One of his books, The Goblin and the Princess is a movie I believe. I think your children (and yourself) might find them engaging. I think it's always nice to read stories and see how they convey truths. My favorite of his is called The Light Princess- it is particularly meaningful.
I hope you find some of these titles to be of interest.
Well, DEFINITELY not for children, but I was completely absorbed in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. BTW, if you saw the movie and haven't read the book, you've done yourself a terrible disservice. My favorite non-fiction is Faith Is Not a Feeling by Ney Bailey, and my favorite children's book is Goodnight, Moon. Your kids are definitely past that stage (except maybe Mary), but I just adore the way the author puts soothing sounds together. When I was young, I loved the Amelia Bedelia series (very silly) and the Ramona Quimby series. Oh, and I just read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe series for the first time a few years ago and was absolutely spellbound by it . . . that'd be a good one for all of y'all.
So are you mainly blogging here now?
And favorite books? Oh my. There are so many. I've always loved both the Narnia Chronicles and Lewis' space trilogy. Pride and Prejudice is an all-time fav. My new favorite is Father Arseny.It was life-changing and I've been loaning it to everyone I can.
And total honesty here, I LOVE the Harlan Coben books, especially the Myron Bolitar series. So funny, even though they're murder-mystery novels. I loved Anne of Green Gables and Trixie Belden when I was younger. And I absolutely LOVED the Father Brown stories by G.K. Chesterton. OH! And the Peter Whimsey series by Dorothy Sayers. George MacDonald is good, too, although a little, um, over my head. I liked Charles Williams In The Place Of The Lion, but I was reading it while taking a philosophy class and so was thrilled with the Platonic ideals and all that. I think those brain cells fled when I had kids. :)
Um, yeah. I like books. :)
And my FAVORITE movie is The Princess Bride. :) I just showed it to my kids and they loved it. Although I'm sure most of the humor goes over their heads. :)
I'll echo others by mentioning C. S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia, Till We Have Faces, the Great Divorce), Jane Austen, The Time Quartet (Wrinkle in Time, etc.), and I'll add Jane Eyre, The Things They Carried, The View from Saturday, The Betsy-Tacy series, A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle, and anything by L. M. Montgomery.
I read the Quiet American several years ago for school and enjoyed it. I should consider reading some of his other works...
Well, my goodness, thank you again!
I will not hesitate in the future to hit you up for even more great suggestions on a variety of topics. I wish we could gather and discuss these books one by one! I wish I were a faster reader!
Lucy,
You asked if I was mainly blogging here now. The answer is yes, in that I post something small here pretty much daily. I am a bit behind on my "Close to Home" site, which basically contains my Ancient Faith Radio podcasts in written form, because I am frantically working on my final book revisions due at the end of this month. After that, depending on my homeschool responsibilities and other writing deadlines, I should be back up to speed!
It's been a joy to hear from all of you!
My favorite piece of world literature these days is a short story by Borislav Pekić called "Megalos Mastoras and His Work" which is in an anthology of Serbian short stories called The Prince of Fire. It is unfortunately out of print, but is available to be purchased as a digital download from Amazon here: http://tinyurl.com/5jypvw
Check it out. I bet you'll love it. I also highly recommend the short novel Live and Remember by Valentin Rasputin.
My favorite read with the kids book from this summer is the classic, The Little Prince. We all loved it - ages 2 up to 32.
So I'm back visiting this post because I am dying for a good book to read. I'm thrilled to find many I've never heard of, and have requested 5 or so from the library, including "The End of the Affair" that you recommended. I'll let you know how it goes with reading them!
So, I'm back again! Just checking to see if there are any new suggestions for books. I also wanted to let you know that I read "The Power and the Glory", and I absolutely loved it! It was better than "The End of the Affair", which I could hardly believe as I thought that one was spectacular. Thank you so much for the recommendations! I don't think I ever would have discovered his books otherwise.
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