What is everyone reading?

[J]

The Sorrows of Empire (Johnson)

 

[Protopsalti]

About Marriage & Priesthood by St. John Chrisostom

 

[Asteriktos]

A book I wish I would have read years ago! It's one of those books that make you want to grab ahold of the closest Orthodox brother and say "Why didn't you tell me about this!?"

The Non-Orthodox: The Orthodox Teaching on Christians Outside the Church, by Patrick Barnes

 

[Matthew777]

This is just a thread to ask what everyone is reading.

Is anyone reading any philosophy?

 

[Bobby]

The Wealth of Nations is pretty good philosophy. I'm a big Adam Smith fan

 

[Asteriktos]

I got done re-reading The Method by Descartes a couple days ago. He has some interesting thoughts in the introduction (particularly about history, and the biases of someone who travels vs. someone who doesn't), but to be quite honest, I don't really see what other people seem to see in that type of philosophy. Personally, I can "get more" out of one page of the writings of the Desert Fathers than I can get from entire books by Plato, Nietzsche or Descartes. ???

 

[Matthew777]

The Wealth of Nations is pretty good philosophy. I'm a big Adam Smith fan

.

That book was a big influence on Darwin, you know.

 

[Matthew777]

I got done re-reading The Method by Descartes a couple days ago.

I love the jabs that Pascal takes at Descartes for attempting to prove the mystical with the analytical and reducing God's work to natural physics.

 

[Crucifer]

Anybody have any good Lenten reading recommendations? I'm thinking of finding something by Fr. Alexander Schmemann.

 

[Mor Ephrem]

Just in case anyone has gotten the wrong idea in recent days, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church has NOT canonised Charles Darwin. 

Crucifer,

I've not read it, so I can't say for sure, but if you're looking for Lenten reading by Fr. Schmemann, I've heard good things about Great Lent.   

 

[aurelia]

I just got done reading Harry Potter book 5 for the elevendy milionth time. ^-^

other than that, soem essays by Amy Tan, my Introducing the Orthodox Faith homework pages and Esthers Easter Dress: A Young Girls Adventure Through Holy Week so i can get some basics on the Orthodox Easter things coming up. its a childrens book, but i am finding they are a wealth of information for those who dont know or may need a refresher course!

I was reading through the older posts, and i highly recomend learning Latin..it is SO easy!

 

[Pravoslavbob]

Anybody have any good Lenten reading recommendations? I'm thinking of finding something by Fr. Alexander Schmemann.

Crucifer,

I have read "Great Lent" by Schmemann and I HIGHLY recommend it.  An amazing book.

Bob

 

[Asteriktos]

Monks and Laymen in Byzantium: 843-1118, by Rosemary Morris

 

[penelope]

La femme et le salut du monde (Woman and the salvation of the world) by Paul Evdokimov, recommended to me by an older man who actually used to know Evdokimov personally.  I've only read the intro so far...

 

[ania]

Currently reading "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis.  Is a bit slow in the beginning, but picking up speed now.  Seems I'm going to have to hit up Amazon.com for "Perelandra" and "That Hideous Strength," (was lucky to find "Out of the Silent Planet" in the "$0.50 a book salvage bin" at my parents' local library). 

 

[MsGuided]

Currently reading Pharmacotherapy: A Pathophysiologic Approach.  It's a lovely 2400+ page book, fifth edition of course...oh wait...you mean interesting books....eh sorry I got nothin...

 

[Donna Rose]

Currently reading "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis.  Is a bit slow in the beginning, but picking up speed now.  Seems I'm going to have to hit up Amazon.com for "Perelandra" and "That Hideous Strength," (was lucky to find "Out of the Silent Planet" in the "$0.50 a book salvage bin" at my parents' local library).

Oooh! i almost bought all 3 books at once w/ a Christmas gift card to B&N my bro gave me...decided instead to get more tolkien books lol...when ur done w/ the whole series, i'd be interested to hear what your thoughts are on em

as for what i am reading now: Rosa - The Life of an Italian Immigrant. it's for class, but it's actually quite good and entertaining

 

[Pravoslavbob]

Currently reading Pharmacotherapy: A Pathophysiologic Approach. It's a lovely 2400+ page book, fifth edition of course...oh wait...you mean interesting books....

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: !!!

Well, there must at least be aspects of it that are interesting.....

 

[MsGuided]

Yes of course...if anyone would like information on how to quit smoking, get rid of that nasty cold, treat their asthma, COPD, dyslipidemia or hypertension...then come on down and join the fun!

 

[Pravoslavbob]

Well, there you go!  We heard it here first. 

 

[aurelia]

Now of course I am reading Great Lent, and also the entire Sacrament of Confession service.  *sigh* I have so much work to do.

 

[Bogoliubtsy]

Red priests: renovationism, Russian Orthodoxy, and revolution. by Edward Roslof
and
The Age of Reason by Sartre.

 

[monkvasyl]

My spiritual father gave me the best obedience, many years ago (I still follow it), read the entire service before I attend that service.  This is something ideal for all readers.  We tend to be too busy "doing" the service to actually find the time to attend and pray the service.

 

[SouthSerb99]

In The Interest of Justice: Great Opening and Closing Arguments of the Last 100 years... by Joel J. Seidemann.

 

[Hesychios]

I have a nasty habit of keeping multiple books on the coffee table in various degrees of use. I  am trying to limit my reading to perhaps two at a time!

Currently I am finishing up MATTHEW'S Christian-Jewish Community by Anthony J. Salarini and I find it fabulous. I usually will read the Prologue of Ohrid for the day (if I can) and once in a while I will pick up my volume of the Collected Dialogues of Plato with the hope that I can get through a dialogue in a few days (usually when I am on vacation or have a long weekend).  I am hoping to read them all eventually, I have only finished five.

I started Dante's Divine Comedy, it's pretty deep and entertaining, it's in the queue for me to return to it when I finish the book about Matthew's Gospel.

This is all pretty hit-or-miss, I am not a very disciplined reader.

Michael

 

[BrotherAidan]

Ania
You will like Perelandra and That Hideous Strength - both are better reads than Out of the Silent Planet - it sort of sets the table for the other two books; That Hideous Strength is one of the ten best books all time that I have read!

 

[Veniamin]

In The Interest of Justice: Great Opening and Closing Arguments of the Last 100 years... by Joel J. Seidemann.

I'll trade you my Property textbook for that one.  Property reading is not fun.

 

[SouthSerb99]

I'll trade you my Property textbook for that one. Property reading is not fun.

No deal... and an argument can be made that your offer could be construed as "cruel and unusual". lol 

 

[Felipe Ortiz]

Don Quixote- (struggling, but I will finish it... some day)

I hope you have already finished it, Ania!  It is indeed a hard reading (and much harder if you try to read it in Spanish), but it is marvellous... my favorite novel -- together with Swift's Gullivers' Travels.

I've not read it, so I can't say for sure, but if you're looking for Lenten reading by Fr. Schmemann, I've heard good things about Great Lent.

Yes, Fr. Alexander Schmemann's Great Lent is quite good.

I've just begun Hellenism, the History of a Civilization by Arnold J. Toynbee, a very interesting (and amazingly scholarly) historian of the first half of XX century. He seems to be somewhat forgotten nowadays; that's a pity. Toynbee was much more concerned with religion than the average historian. Though he was not an Orthodox Christian and many of his religious ideas were very far from Orthodoxy, his general approach and method can surely provide many insights to Orthodox Christians with a taste for history.

The first chapters of this book are great. The definition of Hellenism he presents in the first pages is: a civilization in which the city-state was the major cultural expression of the humanistic religious ideology. He defines humanism as an idolatrous (he indeed uses this word) worship of the man instead of God. And the goal of this book is to show the essential connection between the hellenic worship of man and the growth, the achievements, the collapse and the final fall of Hellenism.

 

[Veniamin]

No deal... and an argument can be made that your offer could be construed as "cruel and unusual". lol 

Not if you had taken the deal.  No harm to one who consents, remember?

 

[idontlikenames]

just got done reading "Synchronicity" by Carl Gustav Jung.....very enlightening......makes you wander about the "materialism" which has sweld sway over the neurosciences for the past century.....

For a long time, I doubted the existence of "souls" (even being Orthodox).....now I may start believing in them again......

 

[ania]

Ania
You will like Perelandra and That Hideous Strength - both are better reads than Out of the Silent Planet - it sort of sets the table for the other two books; That Hideous Strength is one of the ten best books all time that I have read!

I gotta agree with you there on "That Hideous Strength."  I finished it last night (finally, never realized I was such a busy person until I tried finishing a book I really like).  It started out a bit slow but after the first 3 chapters I was hooked.  C.S. Lewis has a rather poetic quality to his writings, sometimes you can almost see a rhythm. 
Perelandra, the 2nd book, was a good read as well, and I highly recommend it. 
C.S. Lewis definitely makes you think on a more spiritual level, and his theological ideas are very sound. 

I also ordered "Father Arseny" from Amazon, but after reading some 30 pages, became rather tired of the poor translation.  I will try finishing it perhaps after Pascha, but I doubt I'll be finishing it very soon. 

 

[ania]

I hope you have already finished it, Ania! It is indeed a hard reading (and much harder if you try to read it in Spanish), but it is marvellous... my favorite novel -- together with Swift's Gullivers' Travels.

I have not finished Don Quixote, unfortunately.  It is sitting on my bookshelf between Terry Pratchett's Discworld series (which I've read) and Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot," (which I started, but also put aside), with it's bookmark still in place from where I stopped reading last fall.  After Pascha it's one of the books that I'll take up again, at least for another few chapters.  I'm sure the read gets easier as you go along. 

I've developed the habit of forcing myself to read a chapter of a book that is "good for me" every day, before going on to read a book that I want to read  (which usually isn't any good at all).  This way I at least get something edifying. 

 

[Matthew777]

I am reading Jesus Before Christianity by Dominican Father Albert Nolan. I am almost half-way done and so far, this has been one of the best books on the person of Jesus that I have ever read. The message of Jesus on the Kingdom of God and how we are too build it is too often ignored. We become so fixated on Christ as an object of worship that we neglect His message that we must follow. This is not to say that we are not to worship the Son of God but He did say, "If you love me, follow my commandments". We cannot have right worship without right action.

May peace be upon thee and with thy spirit.

 

[BrotherAidan]

An equally compelling book, Matthew is The Message and the Kingdom. One must put aside the assumption the authors seem to take uncritically from liberal New Testatment scholars that Paul created a different religion from Jesus and also one must put aside the authors' agnosticism regarding the resurrection, but for a clear picture of the brutal, grinding, oppressive nature of the Roman Empire along with Paul's social teaching there are few better books.

 

[SouthSerb99]

Just finished reading (back to back) "The Orthodox Church" by Bishop Kallistos Ware and "The Non-Orthodox: The Orthodox Teaching on Christians Outside of the Church" by Patrick Parnes.

What a difference of opinion in their treatment of the heterodox!

 

[Elisha]

Just finished reading (back to back) "The Orthodox Church" by Bishop Kallistos Ware and "The Non-Orthodox: The Orthodox Teaching on Christians Outside of the Church" by Patrick Parnes.

What a difference of opinion in their treatment of the heterodox!

Was that a newer edition of TOC?  I have yet to (finish) the comparison article on orthodoxinfo between the versions.  I have The Non Orthodox and think it is a great book, but also think TOC is great as well.  I read an early edition of The Orthodox Church.

 

[Matthew777]

Has anyone read Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future?

 

[SouthSerb99]

Was that a newer edition of TOC? I have yet to (finish) the comparison article on orthodoxinfo between the versions. I have The Non Orthodox and think it is a great book, but also think TOC is great as well. I read an early edition of The Orthodox Church.

No, I believe I have the most recent edition...  I was unaware of the comparison article... yet another article to read! 

 

[Asteriktos]

Collected Works: Volume 2; St. Francis, Everlasting Man, St. Thomas by G.K. Chesterton