Books

January 11, 2018 by kevinstilley

Interesting quotes from “The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln” by Stephen L. Carter

“They know nothing of free black people. They are committed Abolitionists because they hate slavery and because they want to do good, but they have no particular interest in people of your race…. Like so many people of liberal persuasion, they value their own progressive opinions more than they value the people they hold those opinions about.” (page 116)

* * * * *

“The ways of the rich…. A very strange breed…. And Mr. Belmont, they say, is pretty nearly the richest of them all…. That should make him, I suppose, very nearly the strangest of them all.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jonathan, aware that the syllogism did not quite work, but unwilling to say so. (page 160)

* * * * *

“It is the nature of men, sir, especially great men, to see themselves as indispensable. Whereas it is in the nature of women to see their friends and families as indispensable.” (page 454)

* * * * * *

“In politics all rumors tend to be believed as long as they are harmful to the other side.” (page 461)

* * * * *

“The seance of self-justification had become too eerie.” (page 483)

July 9, 2017 by kevinstilley

Kevin Stilley on For Christ and Culture Radio

I am a frequent contributor to the For Christ and Culture radio program hosted by Barry Creamer daily on KCBI radio FM 90.9.

Here are links to some of the shows on which I have appeared.

January 6, 2017 by kevinstilley

Books & Reading – select quotes

As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest.
~ Joseph Addison

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.
~ Joseph Addison

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
~ Joseph Addison

Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
~ John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

Books are the most mannerly of companions, accessible at all times, in all moods, frankly declaring the author’s mind, without offense.
~ Amos Bronson Alcott, in Concord Days

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.
~ Maya Angelou

Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it’s right, it’s easy. It’s the other way round, too. If it’s slovenly written, then it’s hard to read. It doesn’t give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.
~ Maya Angelou

Some books are undeservedly forgotten, none are undeservedly remembered.
~ W. H. Auden

Reading maketh a full man.
~ Francis Bacon

Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.
~ Francis Bacon

He who loveth a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, or an effectual comforter.
~ Isaac Barrow

When I am dead, I hope it may be said: “His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”
~ Hilaire Belloc

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
~ Ray Bradbury

I speak as an unregenerate reader, one who still believes that language and not technology is the true evolutionary miracle. I have not yet given up on the idea that the experience of literature offers a kind of wisdom that cannot be discovered elsewhere; that there is profundity in the verbal encounter itself, never mind what further profundities that author has to offer; and that for a host of reasons the bound book is the ideal vehicle for the written word.
~ Sven Birkerts, in The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age (NY: Fawcett, 1994), page 6.

The information I most want is in books not yet written by people not yet born.
~ Ashleigh Brilliant

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
~ Joseph Brodsky

Reader, If it be not strong upon thy heart to practise what thou readest, to what end dost thou read? To increase thy own condemnation? If thy light and knowledge be not turned into practice, the more knowing man thou art, the more miserable man thou wilt be in the day of recompense; thy light and knowledge will more torment thee than all the devils in hell. Thy knowledge will be that rod that will eternally lash thee, and that scorpion that will for ever bite thee, and that worm that will everlastingly gnaw thee; therefore read, and labour to know, that thou mayest do, or else thou art undone for ever. When Demosthenes was asked, what was the first part of an orator, what the second, what the third? he answered, Action; the same may I say. If any should ask me, what is the first, the second, the third part of a Christian? I must answer, Action; as that man that reads that he may know, and that labours to know that he may do, will have two heavens — a heaven of joy, peace and comfort on earth, and a heaven of glory and happiness after death.
~ Thomas Brooks, in Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices, Thomas Brooks, Banner of Truth, 1652 p. 22

Books we must have though we lack bread.
~ Alice Brotherton

A good book is never exhausted. It oges on whispering to you from the wall.
~ Anatole Broyard

Laws die; books never.
~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it.
~ Anthony Burgess

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
~ Edmund Burke

All the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books.
~ Richard De Bury, in Philobiblion

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
~ Samuel Butler

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
~ Italo Calvino

Reading for experience is the only reading that justifies excitement. Reading for facts is necessary bu the less said about it in public the better. Reading for distraction is like taking medicine. We do it, but it is nothing to be proud of. But reading for experience is transforming.
~ Henry Seidel Canby

All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.
~ Thomas Carlyle

In books lies the soul of the whole past time; the articulate, audible voice of the past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.
~ Thomas Carlyle

Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.
~ Angela Carter

He gave himself up so wholly to the reading of romances that a-nights he would pore on until it was day, and a-days he would read on until it was night; and thus he sleeping little and reading much the moisture of his brain was exhausted to that degree that at last he lost the use of his reason.
~ Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, in Don Quixote

God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.
~ William E. Channing

“What shall I do with my books?” was the question; and the answer “Read them” sobered the questioner.
But if you cannot read them, at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they will. Read on from the very first sentence that arrests the eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas. . . . Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. If they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquanintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.
~ Winston Churchill

Anyone who has a book collection and a garden wants for nothing.
~ Cicero

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
~ Cicero

The only way to do all the things you’d like to do is to read.
~ Tom Clancy

A book in the hand is worth two on the shelf.
~ Henry T. Coutts

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper patterns at the right moment.
~ Hart Crane

Literature is man’s exploration of man by artificial light, which is better than natural light because we can direct it where we want.
~ David Daiches

The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.
~ Rene Descartes

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.
~ Charles Dickens

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
of Prancing Poetry.

This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll–
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul.
~ Emily Dickinson

The world is a library of strange and wonderful books, and sometimes we just need to go prowling through the stacks.
~ Michael Dirda

When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books. You will be reading meanings.
~ W. E. B. Du Bois

I seldom read on beaches or in gardens. You can’t read by two lights at once, the light of day and the light of the book. You should read by electric light, the room in shadow, and only the page lit up.
~ Marguerite Duras

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
~ Albert Einstein

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends. they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, the most patient teachers.
~ Charles Eliot

A collector recently bought at public auction, in London, for one hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an autograph of Shakespeare; but for nothing a school-boy can read Hamlet and can detect secrets of highest concernment yet unpublished therein.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson in “Experience”

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, in The American Scholar

When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes. My luggage is my library. My home is where my books are.
~ Desiderius Erasmus

There are those who, while reading a book, recall, compare, conjure up emotions from other, previous readings. This is one of the most delicate forms of adultery.
~ Ezequiel Martínez Estrada

When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than was there before.
~ Clifton Fadiman

If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the Empire were laid at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading, I would spurn them all.
~ Francois Fenelon

But he who truly loves books loves all books alike, and not only this, but it grieves him that all other men do not share with him this noble passion. Verily, this is the most unselfish of loves!
~ Eugene Field in Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac

The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy.
~ Gustave Flaubert

And indeed, what is better than to sit by one’s fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind beats against the window and the lamp is buring?
~ Gustave Flaubert in Madame Bovary

Read in order to Live.
~ Gustave Flaubert

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folk have lent me.
~ Anatole France

There are no bad books any more than there are ugly women.
~ Anatole France

Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.
~ Margaret Fuller

The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them that reading is a pleasurable activity.
~ Neil Gaiman

Digital reading will completely take over. It’s lightweight and it’s fantastic for sharing. Over time it will take over.
~ Bill Gates

The book must of necessity be put into a bookcase. And the bookcase must be housed. And the house must be kept. And the library must be dusted, must be arranged, must be catalogued. What a vista of toil, yet not unhappy toil!
~ William Gladstone

I have always suspected that authors lie about the books they read, their purported influences, much as men lie about their sex lives; they are at once ashamed and vain, reluctant to be judged, hiding behind a safe parapet like Joyce and Proust and Kafka.
~ Brian Glanville

The dear good people don’t know how long it takes to learn to read. I’ve been at it eighty years, and can’t say yet that I’ve reached the goal.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.
~ Ursula Le Guin

Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.
~ Mark Haddon

The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it ives you moral knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is moral illumination.
~ Elizabeth Hardwick

What is a book? Part matter and part spirit; par thing and part thought–however you look at it, if defies definition.
~ Ernest O. Hauser

I fell asleep reading a dull book and dreamed I kept on reading, so I awoke from sheer boredom.
~ Heinrich Heine

All good books have one thing in common. They are truer than if they had really happened.
~ Ernest Hemingway

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. From each of them goes out its own voice . . . and just as the touch of a button on our set will fill the room with music, so by taking down one of these volumes and opening it, one can call into range the voice of a man far distant in time and space, and hear him speaking to us, mind to mind, heart to heart.
~ Gilbert Highet

It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.
~ S.I. Hiyakawa

Poets are never allowed to be mediocre by the gods, by men or by publishers.
~ Horace as quoted by Montaigne

Reading is a sage way to bump up against life. Reading may be an escape, but it is not escape from my own life and problems. It is escape from the narrow boundaries of being only me.
~ Gladys Hunt, in Honey for a Woman’s Heart (HT: Heidi)

Every man who knows how to read has it in him power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant, and interesting.
~ Aldous Huxley

Farther than arrows, higher than wings fly poet’s song and prophet’s words.
~ Inscription on the Brooklyn Public Library

Books are the most enduring monument of man’s achievement. Through them, civilization becomes cumulative.
~ Inscription in the Detroit Public Library

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm’d and treasur’d up on purpose to a life beyond life.
~ Inscription in the New York Public Library.

Here genius lies enshrined.
Here sleep in silent majesty
The monarchs of the mind
~ Inscription in the St. Louis Public Library

People who don’t read are brutes.
~ Eugene Ionesco

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.
~ Thomas Jefferson

I cannot live without books.
~ Thomas Jefferson

The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.
~ Joseph Joubert

A reader finds little in a book save what he puts here. But in a great book he finds space to put many things.
~ Joseph Joubert

A book ought to be an icepick to break up the frozen sea within us.
~ Franz Kafka

A book is a gift you can open again and again.
~ Garrison Keillor

As a former English major, I am a sitting duck for Gift Books, and in the past few years I’ve gotten Dickens, Thackeray, Smollet, Richardson, Emerson, Keats, Boswell and the Brontes, all of them Great, none of them ever read by me, all of them now on a shelf, looking at me and making me feel guilty.
~Garrison Keillor

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.
~ Helen Keller

If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries.
~ John F. Kennedy

The aim of great books is ethical: to teach what it means to be a man. Every major form of literary art has taken for its deeper themes what T.S. Eliot called “the permanent things”–the norms of human action.
~ Russell Kirk, in Enemies of the Permanent Things. LaSalle, IL: Sherwood Sugden and Co., 1984. page 41

A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog’s ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins.
~ Charles Lamb

In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from the binding.
~ Charles Lamb

What is reading, but silent conversation.
~ Charles Lamb

Magazines all too frequently lead to books, and should be regarded by the prudent as the heavy petting of literature.
~ Fran Lebowitz

I have give up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself.
~ Oscar Levant

Any kid who has parents who are interested in him and has a houseful of books isn’t poor.
~ Sam Levenson

You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.
~ C. S. Lewis

A book is a mirror: If an ass peers into it, you can’t expect an apostle to look out.
~ G. C. Lichtenberg

Books, nowadays, are printed by people who do not understand them, sold by people who do not understand them, read and reviewed by people who do not understand them, and even written by people who do not understand them.
~ G. C. Lichtenberg

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.
~ Abraham Lincoln

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment.
~ John Locke

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks
All the sweet serenity of books.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Books are more than books. They are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men lived and worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.
~ Amy Lowell

My alma mater was books, a good library…I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.
~ Malcolm X

The world exists to be put in a book.
~ Stephane Mallarme

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.
~ George R. R. Martin

I am a machine condemned to devour books.
~ Karl Marx, in a letter to Engels, April 11, 1868

If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads.
~ François Mauriac

Readers, on the other hand, have at least 7.5 books going all the time. Actually, the number of books a reader takes on is usually directly related to the number of bathrooms he has in his home and office. I am working on a survey that will show that, over a lifetime, readers are in bathrooms seven years and three months longer than nonreaders.
~ Calvin Miller, “Confessions of a Librophliac” in Christianity Today, January 18, 1985, page 32.

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.
~ John Milton

As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.
~ John Milton

What enriches language is its being handled and exploited by beautiful minds–not so much by making innovations as by expanding it through more vigorous and varied applications, by extending it and deploying it. It is not words that they contribute: what they do is enrich their words, deepen their meanings and tie down their usage; they teach it unaccustomed rhythms, prudently though and with ingenuity.
~ Michel de Montaigne, “On Some Lines of Virgil”

There is hardly any grief that an hour’s reading will not dissipate.
~ Montesquieu

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear that it will go off in you face. . . . It is one of the few havens remaining where a man’s mind can get both provocation and privacy.
~ Edward P. Morgan

Malnutrition of the reading faculty is a serious thing.
~ Christopher Morley, in The Haunted Bookshop

Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.
~ Napoleon

The books that help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.
~ Pablo Neruda

We read to know that we are not alone.
~ William Nicholson

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.
~ Kathleen Norris

Read properly, fewer books than a hundred would suffice for a liberal education. Read superficially, the British Museum Library might still leave the student a barbarian.
~ A. R. Orage)

Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
~ P.J. O’Rourke

Until one has some kind of professional relationship with books, one does not discover how bad the majority of them are.
~ George Orwell

A great novel is a kind of conversion experience. We come away from it changed.
~ Katherine Patterson

I divide all readers into two classes: Those who read to remember and those who read to forget.
~ William Lyon Phelps

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.
~ Chinese proverb

The strongest memory is weaker than the palest ink.
~ Chinese proverb

No worse thief than a bad book.
~ Italian proverb

In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.
~ Anna Quindlen, in How Reading Changed My Life, page 6.

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. they are the destination, and the journey. They are home.
~ Anna Quindlen, in How Reading Changed My Life, page 70.

Tough choices face the biblioholic at every step of the way–like choosing between reading and eating, between buying new clothes and buying books, between a reasonable lifestyle and one of penurious but masochistic happiness lived out in the wallow of excess.
~ Tom Raabe, Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction

Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.
~ Hazel Rochman

A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.
~ Will Rogers

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
~ Will Rogers

People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory.
~ Franklin Roosevelt

The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television.
~ Andrew Ross

The universe is made of stories,
not of atoms.
~ Muriel Rukeyser, “The Speed of Darkness”

If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying.
~ John Ruskin, in Sesame and Lilies

You must get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable–nay, letter by letter… you might read all the books in the British Museum (if you could live long enough) and remain an utterly “illiterate,” undeducated person; but if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, — that is to say, with real accuracy– you are for evermore in some measure an educated person.
~ John Ruskin

The Bible is the one book to which any thoughtful man may go with any honest question of life or destiny and find the answer of God by honest searching.
~ John Ruskin

There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
~ Bertrand Russell

All my life I have been trying to learn to read, to see and hear, and to write.
~ Carl Sandburg

The peace of great books be for you,
Stains of pressed clover leaves on pages,
Bleach of the light of years held in leather.
~ Carl Sandburg, from his poem “For You”, in Harvest Poems: 1910-1960

Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.
~ Mary Schmich

The difference between the effect produced on the mind by thinking for yourself and that produced by reading is incredibly great…For reading forcibly imposes on the mind thoughts that are as foreign to its mood as the signet is to the wax upon which it impresses its seal. The mind is totally subjected to an external compulsion to think this or that for which it has no inclination and is not in the mood…The result is that much reading robs the mind of all elasticity, as the continual pressure of a weight does a spring, and that the surest way of never having any thoughts of your own is to pick up a book every time you have a free moment.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), page 89.

There’s so much more to a book than just the reading.
~ Maurice Sendak

Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed.
~ Seneca

It does not matter how many, but how good, books you have.
~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Learning to read . . . we slowly learn to read ourselves. Once we learn how to read, even if then we do not live more wisely, we can at least begin to be aware of why we have not.
~ Mark Shorer

We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
~ B. F. Skinner

No furniture is so charming as books.
~ Sydney Smith

Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
~ Lemony Snicket

Reading makes the full man, and it is the full man who alone can overflow for the profit of others.
~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Commenting and Commentaries, 24; quoted in Nettles, Living by Revealed Truth, 158

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
~ Richard Steele

Read. Read. Read. Just don’t read one type of book. Read different books by various authors so that you develop different style.
~ R. L. Stein

I guess there are never enough books.
~ John Steinbeck

And if a man reads very hard, as the old anecdote reminds us, he will have little time for thought.
~ Robert Lewis Stevenson, in An Apology For Idlers

As if a man’s soul were not too small to begin with, they have dwarfed an narrowed theirs by a life of all work and no play; until here they are at forty, with a listless attention, a mind vacant of all material of amusement, and not one thought to rub against another, while they wait for the train.
~ Robert Lewis Stevenson, in An Apology For Idlers

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.
~ Robert Lewis Stevenson, in An Apology For Idlers

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.
~ William Styron

My home is where my books are.
~ Ellen Thompson

Books are the treasured wealth of the world, to fit the inheritance of generations.
~ Henry David Thoreau

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
~ Henry David Thoreau

Books must be read as deliberately and as reservedly as they were written.
~ Henry David Thoreau

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!
~ Henry David Thoreau, in Reading

I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read towards the right and I recommend this method.
~ James Thurber

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.
~ Atwood H. Townsend

Book love, my friends, is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures.
~ Anthony Trollope

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change, windows on the world, “lighthouses” (as a poet said) “erected in the sea of time.” They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.
~ Barbara Tuchman.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
~ Mark Twain

‘Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read.
~ Mark Twain

If you’re going to be a prisoner of your own mind, the least you can do is make sure it’s well furnished.
~ Peter Ustinov

I was reading a book…’the history of glue’ – I couldn’t put it down.
~ Tim Vine

You tell me your favorite novelists and I’ll tell you whom you vote for, or whether you vote at all.
~ Stephen Vizinczey

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from out neighbors, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
~ Voltaire

Books rule the world, or at least those nations which have a written language; the others do not matter.
~ Voltaire

Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.
~ Voltaire

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.
~ Voltaire

A novelist has mad a fictional representation of life. I doing so, he has revealed to us more significance, it may be, than he could find in life itself.
~ Bernard de Voto

I only read what I am hungry for at the moment when I have an appetite for it, and then I do not read, I eat.
~ Simone Weil

Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.
~ E.P. Whipple

As in the sexual experience, there are never more than two persons present in the act of reading–the writer, who is the impregnator, and the reader, who is the resspondent. This gives the experience of reading a sublimity and power unequalled by any other form of communication.
~ E. B. White

Comerado, this is no book,
Who touches this, touches a man,
(Is it night? Are we here alone?)
It is I you hold, and who holds you,
I spring from the pages into your arms–decease calls me forth.
~ Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass”

Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of the viol or lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?
~ Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
~ Oscar Wilde

A ravening appetite in him demanded that he read everything that had ever been written about human experience. He read no more from pleasure–the thought that other books were waiting for him tore at his heart forever. He pictured himself as tearing the entrails from a book as from a fowl.
~ Thomas Wolfe, in Of Time and the River

The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.
~ John Wooden

We agreed that people are now afraid of the English language. He [T.S. Eliot] said it came of being bookish, but not reading books enough. One should read all styles thoroughly.
~ Virginia Woolf from The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume Two: 1920-1924

Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world.
~ Virginia Woolf in her essay “Street Haunting”

Of course, literature is the only spiritual and humane career. Even painting tends to dumness, and music turns people erotic, whereas the more you write the nicer you become.
~ Virginia Woolf

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
~ Henny Youngman

Our true birthplace is that in which we cast for the first time an intelligent eye on ourselves. My first homelands were my books.
~ Marguerite Yourcenar

You can make positive deposits in your own economy every day by reading and listening to powerful, positive, life-changing content and by associating with encouraging and hope-building people.
~ Zig Ziglar

January 3, 2017 by kevinstilley

Thoughts on Books Read in 2016

For more than a decade it has been necessary for me to come up with about twenty hours of fresh material each week for my lectures and sermons. When you are teaching and preaching that frequently it is essential that your reading be focused on the best resources available for preparation of your presentations. However, I have now moved out of the classroom into administration, and am no longer serving as pastor of a church, which means I was able to read anything I wanted in 2016. Maybe that freedom wasn’t such a good thing considering the below list of books read in 2016.

The list is desultory, but I found some of the information culled from it to be interesting:

Of the 85 books I read in 2016, 24 were non-fiction and 61 were fiction.
I read more science fiction/fantasy than any other genre (20 books).
18 of the books were books that I had read previously at least once.
7 books were autobiographical or heavily self-referential.
The author whose books I read most was Peter Clines (8 books.)
My favorite book from 2016 was a book on virtue in the public sphere.

I have broken the books down into two lists, fiction and nonfiction, and then sequenced them with my most enjoyable reading experiences at the top of each list. The books at the top are not necessarily the best books, but are the books of which I most enjoyed the reading experience.

NONFICTION:

The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice, by Vaclav Havel
- I read most of this book in 2015, then re-read it in its entirety in 2016. That’s how good I think it is. It is a compilation of the speeches of Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic. Havel is the kind of thinking, earnest, honest person that both Republicans and Democrats should be seeking to elevate within their parties. I wish I could have made every American read this book during the last year.
Jewish Theology, Systematically and Historically Considered, by Kaufmann Kohler
- While browsing the clearance shelves of a used book store I came across a copy of this book by a former President of Hebrew Union University. My copy of the book is a fiftieth anniversary addition of the 1918 original publication. I appreciate the fresh voice of the author (yes, even after 100 years), even if our understanding of history and theology is far removed from each other. The book is available for free as an Amazon download if you are interested in taking a look at it.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer
- I think it is safe to say this book has reached “classic” status. Everyone knows this is a great book. But perhaps you need to hear that it is also a very interesting and enjoyable read. And, I would hasten to say, it is a bit scary; it is all too easy to see things that led up to Nazi Germany permeating American culture at the present time.
Night, by Elie Wiesel
- The blurb from the book jacket describes it well, “Night is Elie Wiesel’s masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps.” I first read this book decades ago, I am glad I chose to read it again this year on the occasion of the Nobel Peace Prize winning author’s death.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, by Oliver Sacks
- The operation of the brain is a fascinating thing, and it is even more fascinating when the brain goes haywire. With the expertise of a clinician and the skill of a storyteller Oliver Sacks shares inconceivably strange perceptual and intellectual aberrations of the neurologically impaired.
The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters, by Albert Mohler
- People generally underestimate the level of leadership skills required to lead a Christian organization. After all, aren’t they all gentle Christian people committed to the same organizational vision, mission, and goals? It would be nice if it was that simple, but it isn’t. Mohler’s book is very good, and is must reading for anyone wanting to lead by conviction. For those who have already read dozens of leadership books and think they need not read another one, I would suggest that this book is paradigmatically different than what they have previously read and worth their attention.
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life, by Scott Adams
- Don’t expect a funny, ha-ha, book from this Dilbert cartoonist. Do expect a helpful, how-to-be-successful-in-life, book from someone who has turned around many personal challenges and business failures to make them work for him rather than against him. As Adams says in the book, cartoonists have a knack for simplifying matters. And, in this book he teaches you to establish simple systems for personal success rather than pursue endless goals.
A Little History of Philosophy, by Nigel Warburton
- If I was still teaching an Introduction to Philosophy class, I think I might use this book as a text. I don’t usually like intro texts because they simply regurgitate the same material that has been repeated by hundreds of similar texts. However, I found the author’s approach to be fresh and in many ways enlightening. Have a go at it.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss
- This is about as interesting a book as could possibly be written on the topic of punctuation. I read this book for self defense; I am surrounded by some very smart people who a less generous person might describe as grammar Nazis. Many a cabinet meeting and radio show has devolved into a passionate discussion of punctuation and sentence structure. (Having read E,S & L I know all the places in this post that are wrongly punctuated, but I have left the irregularities in place as a test for you.)
Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely
- Those of you who like the television series “Brain Games”, will enjoy this book that helps explain why we make the decisions we do. Behavioral economics is fascinating.
The Dictionary of Misinformation, by Tom Burnam
- Okay, I am embarrassed at how many things I thought I knew that are complete rubbish. Even more embarrassing is the fact that I had passed on heaps of misinformation to my kids. This book helped me unlearn many things that I should not have learned to begin with.
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
- It is always interesting to see how much agreement there is regarding virtue between orthodox Christianity and philosophers of very different stripes. Metaphysics? No! Definitely not. But axiology? Yes. For an exploration of this you may want to read C.S. Lewis’ book The Abolition of Man.
Total Truth, by Nancy Pearcy
- I have had this on my shelves for years and finally got around to reading it. It was not what I was expecting, but it contains helpful apologetic material. Those who are familiar and sympathetic with the writings of Francis Schaeffer , and those with an interest in intelligent design, will enjoy it most.
Critical Thinking Skills for Dummies, by Martin Cohen
- It’s okay. You can benefit from it if you bring some critical thinking skills to the reading experience and use them to evaluate the book itself. Unfortunately, there aren’t any books on this subject that I think are outstanding, and this book fits into the mediocre middle with the rest of them.
Logic for Dummies, by Mark Zegarelli
- It is okay. I think there are some better introductory texts on the subject. If you are interested in the subject you may want to check out Introduction to Logic by Harry J. Gensler
Word Lover’s Dictionary: Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, by Josefa Feifetz
- I am essentially a countrified hick, so it takes a lot of work to sound smart enough for the environs of my vocational and domestic habitation.
Quotable Quotes, by the Editors of Reader’s Digest
- A nice selection of quotes.
The Generosity Factor: Discover the Joy of Giving Your Time, Talent, and Treasure, by Ken Blanchard and S. Truett Cathy
- This book was given to me by a friend from a Foundation with whom I often work. Like most of Ken Blanchard’s books it is simple, short, driven by a narrative, and packs a punch.
Sleep Demons: An Insomniac’s Memoir, by Bill Hayes
- This autoethnography of an insomniac is fascinating in places as he explores various sleep disorders, and it provoked nostalgia in that he is about my age so many of his childhood memories are reminiscent of my own. However, it runs too long and includes many disturbing and cringe inducing sections such as his seduction and induction into homosexuality by older pedophiles and his lascivious San Francisco lifestyle.
Laughter is the Best Medicine, by the Editors of Reader’s Digest
- Hack, cough, sniffle, sniffle. No, it isn’t.
Humor in Uniform, by the Editors of Reader’s Digest
- Hmmm, somehow the humor in Reader’s Digest used to be more humorous to me when I was younger. I’ve changed, and probably not for the better.
To Live is Christ, To Die Is Gain, by Matt Chandler
- This book is okay, but I was disappointed that Chandler never asked, “Are you tracking with me?”
Foundations of Psychohistory, by Lloyd Demause
- This book helped pioneer the field of Psychohistory, but I sometimes had the feeling that I was reading the work of a very intelligent person who was under the influence of LSD.
Keep Moving, by Dick Van Dyke
- I wish I hadn’t read this book. I love re-watching the old Dick Van Dyke Show episodes and things revealed in this book will forever tarnish the experience. I would like to think Dick Van Dyke is the guy in the television series, not the guy in this book.

FICTION:

The Bodies Left Behind, by Jeffrey Deaver
- Jeffrey Deaver is one of my favorite authors, and this is my favorite of his many books. I can’t always recommend Jeffrey Deaver’s books due to the fact that they contain material that I can’t in good conscience recommend to someone else. But this one I have shared with family and friends and none of them seem to have been disappointed.
The Fold, by Peter Clines
- I read this because I had previously enjoyed Clines’ book 14. I liked The Fold even better than 14. Both books are exceptional sci-fi. Exceptional. Both contain some explicit material that limit my ability to recommend them.
14, by Peter Clines
- Time travel, multiple dimensions, seriously twisted bad guys, intriguing mysteries … what’s not to love about a book like this?
All Quite on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque
- Wow. Moving. A must read title for everyone.
Gilgamesh, by Stephen Mitchell
- An extraordinary work that I have read many times and keep coming back to. This isn’t a translation of the Gilgamesh Epic but a version of it. The author poetically and artfully brings vibrant language and a storytellers genius to the translations of other authors — he translates from English into English. This piece of ancient Mesopotamian literature illustrates the questions that mankind has always seemed to struggle with such as death, friendship, heroism, and civilization.
The Daybreakers, by Louis L’Amour
- I read this book in nine straight hours one Saturday. As a teenager I read every book by Louis L’Amour that I could get my hands on. Over the years I think I have read all, or nearly all, of his books. Last year I read his memoir, Education of a Wandering Man, and now I find myself wanting to read all of his books all over again.
Flint, by Louis L’Amour
- You can count on the protagonists of Louis L’Amour books to demonstrate the four cardinal virtues — Wisdom, Justice, Courage, and Temperance — and sometimes the three Christian virtues — Faith, Hope, and Love. Even in this book, where the main character has never really developed the social skills and value system usually associated with a hero, you still see the virtues on display. I made the mistake of picking this book up at bedtime and was tired all the next day because I couldn’t stop reading it until that time when a cowboy should be waking up his herd.
The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis
- I last read this book when I was sixteen-years-old. I remember being seriously disturbed by the reality of the spiritual world the first time I read it. This time, I was seriously disturbed by the depravity of man. This is an excellent little book for Christians to read and contemplate what it means to live a life worthy and pleasing unto God.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
- Wilde’s characters say such unexpected things. It is not always easy to answer whether Wilde is being witty, paradoxical, absurd, vulgar, brash or something else entirely. This would be a great book to discuss in a class or with a book group.
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
- This is the fourth time I have read this book. I read it first as a teenager and didn’t like it at all; I thought it too dark and not very entertaining. However, over the passing of years, and with each subsequent reading, I have come to appreciate the message(s) of the book, and the authors artful weaving of the story threads. It is a great book that should be read deliberately and thoughtfully.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman
- Exceptional writing that comes close to moving this from fantasy into the magical-realism genre.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
- Even though I had previously read this book, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of re-reading it. There is a reason why it consistently shows up at the top, or near the top of “Best Book” lists.
Call of the Wild, by Jack London
- I read both Call of the Wild, and White Fang during the summer of 1978. I very much enjoyed them then, and again now thirty-eight years later. I was curious in that before picking them up again this year I could remember almost every detail of Call of the Wild, but White Fang not at all. After reading them again this year I know why. Call of the Wild is an adventure story, whereas White Fang makes me think of those over-produced, heavily narrated animal movies. Interesting and good, but not all that memorable.
White Fang, by Jack London
- (See my notes for Call of the Wild.)
Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles Book 1), by Marissa Meyer
- When my teenage daughter told me that she was reading a series of books that are retellings of classic fairy tales, set in the future, in Asia and on the moon, and populated with Cyborgs and creatures that might be found on the Island of Dr. Moreau — well, I wasn’t expecting to be impressed. But, she asked that I give them a try, and I like to read what my children are reading, so I read this first volume with the intention of appeasing her and then moving on to something that was worthy of my reading time. What? Huh? I loved them. I read through five books of the series in about two weeks.
Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles Book 2), by Marissa Meyer
- (see the note above for Cinder)
Cress (The Lunar Chronicles Book 3), by Marissa Meyer
- (see the note above for Cinder)
Winter (The Lunar Chronicles Book 4), by Marissa Meyer
- (see the note above for Cinder)
Fairest: The Lunar Chronicles: Levana’s Story, by Marissa Meyer
- (a Lunar Chronicles prequel – see the note above for Cinder)
Ex-Heroes, by Peter Clines
- Okay, I know what you must be thinking, “A series of books about Zombies and Super Heroes? How lame can it get?” But, I had read Peter Clines’ books The Fold, and 14, and was looking for more. I wasn’t expecting to like Ex-Heroes, but found it to be enjoyable even if it was stretching credulity far beyond the breaking point. I ended up going through the five volumes in the series in a matter of just a few days. Pop culture aficionados will approve of the liberal references to silly little things. Every book in the series includes “Walking Dead” style nastiness, so I can’t recommend them to others even though I enjoyed them myself.
Ex-Patriots, by Peter Clines
- The second novel in Peter Clines’ Ex series. See my notes for Ex-Heroes.
Ex-Communication, by Peter Clines
- The third novel in Peter Clines’ Ex series. See my notes for Ex-Heroes.
Ex-Purgatory, by Peter Clines
- The fourth novel in Peter Clines’ Ex series. See my notes for Ex-Heroes.
Ex-Isle, by Peter Clines
- The fifth novel in Peter Clines’ Ex series. See my notes for Ex-Heroes.
The Girl on a Train, by Paula Hawkins
- A better name for the book would be Three Girls Having a Train Wreck. A very interesting first person writing style — I can’t think of anything quite like it (the comparisons with Gone Girl are nonsense.) It will eventually suck you in and keep you guessing.
The Android’s Dream, by John Scalzi
- This is one of two books by John Scalzi that I read this year. He is a talented author and his books are fun. What happens when an earthling kills an interstellar alien ambassador by excreting intestinal gasses? You’ll have to stop laughing out loud long enough to read on and find out.
Treasure Mountain, by Louis L’Amour
- I wish I could read these books in the same way that I did when I was a teenager. Unfortunately, my reading of them has been influenced by the movies that were made of them. I loved the Sacketts (the main characters), but now I get more Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott than the characters I created in my head when reading the book for the first time.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- This new verse translation by Simon Armitage of the medieval England poem is readable while retaining a lyrical flow. The book is enjoyable (if a bit strange) and an important King Arthur text for cultural literacy.
The Huckleberry Murders, by Patrick McManus
- I have read a handful of Patrick McManus books but this is the first of his Sheriff Bo Tully mysteries that I have read. This book is fun but not the same kind of rollicking fun that you get in his books like The Night the Bear Ate Goombah or Real Ponies Don’t Go Oink.
Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer
- Almost everyone whom I know would have serious problems with this book — Darwinian Fundamentalists would hate it for its attack on “accepted” science, creation scientists would hate it for its snide dismissal of their scholarship, literary purists would fault it for its pedantic meanderings, blah, blah, blah, — but I kind of enjoyed it some of the time. Except for the ending. I really didn’t like the ending at all.
Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
- Arthur C. Clarke is often credited with being the greatest science fiction author of the 20th century. And, if you read enough science fiction you will see his influence everywhere. This is usually considered his best book, and it is interesting, but I think it would have been better as a short story.
Who Goes There?, by John W. Campbell
- This classic sci-fi novella was originally written almost one hundred years ago, but unlike most sci-fi it has remained contemporary and chilling. Good book. It is the book upon which John Carpenter’s 1982 movie “The Thing” is based. It has been many years, but I remember the movie as being very suspenseful and scary; maybe I ought to watch it again. I have not seen the first movie that came out in 1952 or the most recent remake that came out in 2011. Maybe I should watch those also?
Down the Long Hills, by Louis L’Amour
- Louis L’Amour always tells a good story, and this book is an award winner. However, I found myself mentally changing some of the details of the book in order to make it more believable.
The Book Scavenger, by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
- This is a great book to share with your kids to nurture their inner bibliophile. It is supposed to be for children in grades 4-6, but I can’t imagine book lovers of any age not enjoying it. There is also a sequel (that I have not yet read) and it appears that it is going to become a series.
The Deerslayer (The Leatherstocking Tales), by James Fenimore Cooper
- I re-read all of the Leatherstocking tales this year. My general impressions haven’t changed much in the decades since I first read them. I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated The Deerslayer – and was just basically “okay” with the other four books of the series.
The Last of the Mohicans (The Leatherstocking Tales), by James Fenimore Cooper
- (see my notes for The Deerslayer)
The Pathfinder (The Leatherstocking Tales), by James Fenimore Cooper
- (see my notes for The Deerslayer)
The Pioneers (The Leatherstocking Tales), by James Fenimore Cooper
- (see my notes for The Deerslayer)
The Prairee (The Leatherstocking Tales), by James Fenimore Cooper
- (see my notes for The Deerslayer)
Agent to the Stars, by John Scalzi
- Preposterous, but very fun. It starts with some unnecessary very bad language, but becomes more tame as it goes along.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling
- When you have six kids, you find yourself reading the same books to the different children as they become age appropriate. So, yes, this is the third time I have read this book. And, yes, I still enjoy it. I like the earlier books in the Harry Potter series, like this one, much better than the later books.
Justice Redeemed, by Scott Pratt
- An agonizing “What were you thinking?” thriller that keeps you turning the pages at a brisk clip.
Magic Street, by Orson Scott Card
- Orson Scott Card is one of my favorite authors, but you see how far down the list (sequenced in order of how much I enjoyed them) that this book falls. Part of my displeasure came from his mixing the account of Jesus and things truly holy into his world of faerie magic. Otherwise, the book was very creative. It is a sort of continuation of William Shakespeare’s Midsummer Nights Dream, which you may want to re-familiarize yourself with before reading Magic Street.
Trigger Warning, by Neil Gaiman
- This book of short stories is brilliant in places — brilliant — and in others you just have to wade through until you get to the good stuff again. I also really enjoyed his essay explaining why he wrote the various pieces. It added meaning to the stories, made me feel the presence of the author in the telling, and helped me understand the writer’s craft a little better.
The Short Drop, by Matthew FitzSimmons
- Thoroughly enjoyed this one. Readers of thrillers will want to grab this one.
Candide, by Voltaire
- The eighteenth century’s analog to the twentieth century’s Black Adder.
The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane
- As a teenager I made the mistake of watching the 1974 movie made from this book which miscast Richard Thomas as Henry Fleming. After watching that movie, I avoided the book. I really didn’t like that movie at all. However, I recently found a nice leatherbound copy of the book that lured me in and I am glad that I finally got around to reading it.
The Chopin Manuscript, by Jeffrey Deaver and others
- This was originally published as a serial, with Jeffrey Deaver writing the first chapter, and then fifteen of the worlds greatest thriller writers each authoring a chapter in turn. Then, Deaver wrote the conclusion pulling all of the pieces together. It suffered some of the weaknesses you would expect from this kind of collaboration, but overall it was a good book.
The Rider of Lost Creek, by Louis L’Amour
- Not what I expected from a Louis L’Amour novel. Disappointed.
Solitude Creek, by Jeffrey Deaver
- This book is one of his Kathryn Dance thrillers. Unlike most of his books, it took me awhile to get into this one, and then I found the presentation of the criminal’s thought-life to be very disturbing. It was typical Deaver style in the way it twisted and turned and misled the reader until the big revelations, but in this case they seemed contrived. Probably my least favorite Jeffrey Deaver book.
The Sign of the Beaver, by Elizabeth George Speare
- I bought this Newberry Honor winning historical novel for my kids, but I think I enjoyed it more than they will. It is a survival story set in the 1700s when men were men and boys were men too.
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
- I love 19th century history, but I’m not such a big fan of 19th century novels, especially those books written by women for a female audience. However, this one catches your imagination and holds it all the way through. Nevertheless, I had to laugh out loud at parts of the conclusion, not in a good way.
The Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys
- This prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is the literary version of fan fiction. I had some trouble connecting the characters between the two books; maybe due to the difference in writing styles between the two authors. But, the connection was strong enough that I detested Rochester even more after reading this.
The Junkie Quatrain, by Peter Clines
- Yes, still more Peter Clines’ zombocalypse reading. But don’t worry about me, I have now read all of Clines’ books and can read something more edifying.
The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling
- Rather than read this whole book, I encourage you to just read the Rikki-Tikki-Tavi section and then watch the Disney animated Jungle Book cartoon of Mowgli the Man Cub. You won’t hear me say that very often.
The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
- This book is regarded as “the first mystery novel” and appears on many lists as one of the best novels of all time. However you shouldn’t worry too much if you haven’t read it. Like most nineteenth century novels it is exceedingly wordy. I wish it was reduced in size by half. It sometimes seems that nineteenth century authors are getting paid by the word and so they are stretching it out as long as they can. However, if you can survive the first 300 pages or so, you will end up with an interesting story for the last half of the book.
Saturday, by Ian McEwan
- I read this because it was required reading for my high school aged son. I can’t say I enjoyed it a lot, but I did appreciate the writing.
The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton
- I want to like Chesterton. I try to like Chesterton. But once again, reading this book, like some of his other works, was a laborious task. Go ahead, judge me.
The Roman Hat Mystery, by Ellery Queen
- I loved reading Ellery Queen mysteries when I was a teenager. But, either my reading tastes have changed, or this book does not measure up to the rest of the Ellery Queen canon. It was frustratingly slow.
Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
- This book has the most unbelievable, insipid characters of any book I can remember reading. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut
- This books spent 56 weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers’ List, but I find myself agreeing with Vonnegut’s appraisal of the book. When he was asked why he wouldn’t publish the book initially, he said “Because if was a piece of _______.” Breakfast of Champions is truly a terrible representative of literature books and all of the good they stand for. A nasty book with no heart!”
Lilith, a Romance, by George MacDonald
- I read two-thirds of the book but just couldn’t finish it. I know that people with an imagination are supposed to like George MacDonald, that he was inspiration for many great storytellers, but I feel like I am pushing a boulder uphill when reading his books.

January 29, 2015 by kevinstilley

Discussion Questions – – The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Cantos I-IX

What was your reading experience like? Did you enjoy it, or suffer through it? To whom could you recommend this book?

What factors might result in this text being difficult for some people to comprehend or enjoy?

Through where is Dante traveling? Does he ever explain why he is there?

Dante’s circles of hell seem to represent degrees of punishment for sin? What does the Bible say about degrees of eternal reward and punishment?

Is it spiritually beneficial to think of what Hell might be like?

The three beasts in Canto I have been traditionally interpreted as fraud, pride, and greed. How might Jeremiah 5:6 provide insight on the matter? (1.31-51)

Who is his guide? Why this person? (1.73-75)

How are Virgil and Beatrice related to Dante? Why do they appear in this work?

How might this work be considered as a “love story”?

Do you think this work might be considered as both literal (heaven and hell) and as an allegorical reflection of the world in which Dante lives – as a commentary on is own culture and times?

Do you think that it is common for people to systematically evaluate their own life and values when they have lost loved ones?

Why do you think Dante mixes so much classic mythology with Roman Catholic theology in this text?

Were there places in the text that you thought were inconsistent with what the Bible teaches?

How well do you think the average Christian understands the doctrines of sin, salvation, and hell?

One of the most famous lines in all of the western canon is found in Canto 3.9, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” Why do you think that quote has had such lasting influence?

In Canto III it talks about those who commit to neither God nor Satan. Is this possible?

In the first circle of hell (Canto IV) Dante gets invited into a group of poets of immense stature to engage in conversation. This is similar to the modern question, “Who from history would you invite to a dinner party?” So, who would you?

Dante places Aristotle, Socrates and Plato and other admirable people in the first level of hell because they were not baptized. What kind of theology lays behind this?

Who is in Dante’s 2nd circle (Canto V)? It might be said of many from this section that they were “led astray by love.” Do you think this a problem for very many people?

Dante writes “There is no greater sorrow, than to think backwards to a happy time.” (Canto V) Do you think this is true?

Dante’s 3rd circle (Canto VI) includes those who were gluttonous. Is gluttony really that bad? Do we really understand what is entailed by gluttony, or have we turned it into nothing more than “overeating”?
Clergymen are prominent among the greedy (avarice) in Dante’s 4th circle (Canto VII)? What historical reality might have led Dante to put them here?

Can Canto 7.64-66 be seen as commentary the level of satisfaction that the greedy achieve in this world as well as a picture of their eternal condition?

What do the angry in the fourth circle have in common with the greedy? Do you agree with this portrayal? (7.28-30, 112-115)

Dante gets a little payback on Filippo Argenti (Canto VIII). Many other authors have done the same. Do you have someone that you would want to put into a work like this? What might be a better way of dealing with your feelings?

In Canto VIII we see a connection between arrogance and wrath. Do you think this to accurately reflect human proclivities?

Many of you mentioned “fear” in the text as something worth consideration. What was it about “fear” that caught your attention/imagination?

December 16, 2014 by kevinstilley

Spring Textbooks

These are the textbooks I am using this Spring in classes I am teaching in The College at Southwestern.

HIS 1213 : Western Civilization II

The Penguin Atlas of World History: Volume 2: From the French Revolution to the Present, by Hermann Kinder and Werner Hilgemann — ISBN. 0141012625

Church History, Volume Two: From Pre-Reformation to the Present Day: The Rise and Growth of the Church in Its Cultural, Intellectual, and Political Context, by John Woodbridge and Frank James — ISBN. 0310257433

Literature and Science in the Nineteenth Century: An Anthology, by Laura Otis — ISBN. 019955465X

HIS 2203: Renaissance and Reformation History

Renaissance and Reformation, by William Estep — ISBN. 0802800505

The Protestant Reformation, by Hans Hillerbrand — ISBN. 0061148474

The Portable Renaissance Reader, by James Ross — ISBN. 0140150617

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: Select Narratives, by John Foxe — ISBN. 0199236844

IDE 2203: Renaissance and Reformation Seminar

The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri — ISBN. 0199535647

Institutes of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin — ISBN. 0801025249

Three Treatises, by Martin Luther — ISBN. 0800616391

Praise of Folly, by Erasmus –ISBN. 0140446087

On Divine Foreknowledge: Part IV of the Concordia, by Luis De Molina — ISBN. 0801489350

Utopia, by Thomas More — ISBN. 0140449108

The Prince, by Machiavelli — ISBN. 0199535698

The Scientific Revolution: A Brief History with Documents, by Margaret C. Jacob — ISBN. 0312653492

Hamlet, by William Shakespeare — ISBN. 0140714545

Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare — ISBN. 0199536120

December 5, 2014 by kevinstilley

Discussion Questions: The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century

CHAPTER ONE

Delsol asserts that modern man has given up on hope; “that hope today consists in doing without hope.” Do you agree with her? What evidence would you use to support her assertion or to argue against it?

Delsol describes those living without hope and expectations as a “the society of well-being alone” who are locked into a material world that “makes of us the sad heroes of emptiness.” What alternative does she offer to living in such a state? Do you agree with her diagnosis and prognosis? (page 4)

Delsol describes the “new culture” in which we find ourselves as “late modernity.” Why does she not use the more commonly employed term – “postmodernity”? (page 5)

She cites Plato as stating that “every institution ends up dying through the excess of its own principle.” She explains in following chapters how 19th century ideologies (principles) failed in the 20th century (excess) leading to the current “new culture.” How would her argument related to Francis Schaeffer’s assertion in How Should We Then Live that there is a flow to history? How far do you think we have to go back in time to understand our own identity, values, culture? (page 6)

Consider this question/comment from the text: “But can the principle of personal dignity be maintained and secured without the cultural world that justifies and sustains it? This principle, the fulcrum of human rights thinking , is not an isolated and insular belief, a concept that can simply stay afloat and find sustenance in nothingness.” (page 8) How does this question assertion echo Nietsche’s madman speech in The Gay Science? (see video below)

Do you agree with Delsol when she says, “The dignity of man as a unique being without substitute is a postulate of faith, not of science.” (page 8) Why, or why not? How might this argument be employed as part of a “taking the roof off” apologetic?

Delsol writes, “The ideas of human dignity depends upon an inherited cultural world. Indeed, it was by destroying this heritage that Nazism and communism pulverized it.” (page 8) In what ways did communism and Nazism attempt to destroy an inherited cultural world? Do you think that this strategy is being employed by some ideologues today? How? We make a distinction between western civilization and the western heritage and that of the rest of the world. Does that mean that those who are not part of the Western World do not believe in human dignity?

CHAPTER TWO

Delsol writes, “Because dignity is a distinction, the philosophy of human rights rests upon anthropocentrism: no man can have dignity if Man himself is not King of nature.” (page 12) Can you give examples of man being treated as one without dignity (poorly, inhumanely) due to the denial that man is distinct from the rest of nature? How does this relate to historical attempts to deny human status to certain people groups by denying that they have a soul or referring to them as “animals” or “monkeys”?

In the “enlightened” world in which we live, are there remaining attempts to deny human status (personhood) to anyone? How does this discussion relate to the moral philosophy of Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University? (pages 14, 24)

How does euthanasia, abortion, forced sterilization, infanticide, and eugenics fit into this discussion? (pages 14, 24)

Delsol writes, “Scientific progress was able to sweep away the certainty that the human species is unique because science found itself in charge of establishing certain criteria and definitions after religious messages had lost their legitimacy. Scientism, not science, disunites humanity, and scientism operates through the despotism of a rationality placed above all else.” (page 15) What is the distinction that Delsol is making between science and scientism? Are Christians anti-science?

Delsol argues that 20th century totalitarianisms were the logical result of the desacralization of humanity; “if humanity is no longer sacred, everything becomes possible, from hatred to mass assassination.” (page 21) This argument moves beyond that of Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamozov, “If God does not exist, everything is permitted“; not only is God necessary for morality but the idea that man is special to God – created distinctly in the imago dei. Do you believe that Delsol’s additional step is required as a basis for morality?

Delsol writes, “And perhaps the biblical tale does indeed represent the only guarantee against the temptation to displace the human species. It is nothing more than a story one might object. Yet dignity does not exist without this story, for dignity was discovered or invented along with it, and all our efforts to establish other foundations have turned out to be poor substitutes.” (page 21) Sartre posited a morality based not on an antropocentrism of derived dignity as Delsol describes, but on an antropocentrism that results from a “doctrine of action.” Do you think that Existentialism is one of the “poor substitutes” Delsol is referencing? What about Kant’s categorical imperative? To what other substitutes might she be referring?

She continues, “The creation story which bestows meaning, guarantees human dignity better than any form of reason ever could. For the problem is not to ensure that human dignity exists: this is the only certitude that we have. We do not need to prove it since we hold it to be above any proof.” (pages 21-22) Do you think that most people believe as Delsol does that the dignity of man is axiomatic (self-evident, unquestionable)? Do you think that the moral argument for the existence of God is persuasive? For whom in the “new culture” would it not be persuasive? (Further reading: The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis)

CHAPTER THREE

Delsol writes, “An offense against the good is always accompanied by a rejection of the true, and since Plato, philosophy has known that justice and truth walk hand in hand.” How might today’s moral relativity be considered the result of failed (or rejected) epistemologies? (page 27)

How might the following comment of Delsol be applied to the study of late modern history? — “It is not enough to have lived through experiences to enter into the future. They must also become the objects of our consideration. They need to be observed, translated, pondered, brought forward with us, so that the future can become more than just the passage of time.” (page 28)

Do you agree with Delsol that the failed totalitarianisms of the twentieth century were attempted utopias built upon the myths of self-creation, self-foundation, and self-sufficiency of mankind?

CHAPTER FOUR

Delsol writes, “Egalitarian utopia undoubtedly represents the most ancient social dream, having been longed for for centuries.” (page 35) What examples might she give to support this claim?

Delsol repeatedly speaks of “the events of 1989”. (pages 36, 48) To what is she referring?

Delsol talks of belief (ideological commitments) becoming an identity that cannot be renounced “without committing a kind of symbolic suicide.” (page 36) What are the consequences of this for those who are committed to failed 19th century mythologies of utopia or progressivism?

What does Delsol mean by “the logic of resentment”? (page 37) How serious an issue do you think this is in terms of American public policy?

Delsol describes the hypocrisy that occurs when someone refuses “to suffer the catastrophic consequences of his ideology, but he is too proud to publicly abandon it. He leads an upper middle-class life, but relentlessly disparages the middle class; he runs things as though he were a free-market advocate, but jeers at free market ideas; he enrolls his own children in demanding, even austere schools, while preaching indulgence for delinquency in schools attended by the children of others. In other words, he continues to propagate the utopia he no longer lives by and attacks the moralism of those who simply put into words what he himself is doing.” (page 37) Can you think of examples of this in public life? Delsol goes on to claim that such a person salvages their honor at the expense of “a diminished life for everyone else.” Do you think the general public is aware of this hypocrisy and its results? If so, why does it allow it to continue?

Delsol claims that derision and sarcasm are extremely effective cultural change agents employed by those embracing failed utopian ideologies and those committed to progressivism. (pages 38-40) Do you agree?

CHAPTER FIVE

Delsol writes, “The ideology of progress equates happiness with ‘maturity’, or replaces happiness with ‘maturity’ as a criterion of the good. Maturity means a distancing from childhood. The more society differentiates itself from the past, the better it will be.” (page 50) How does her comment relate to what C.S. Lewis says about “chronological snobbery”?

What do you think that Predrag Matvegevic means when writing, “The dissident is a hostage of truth.” (page 50)

Delsol writes, “The heaven’s were closed by magistrate’s order.” What does she mean? (page 51)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Due to lack of interest, tomorrow has been cancelled.” If asked what this means, you would probably respond that it is a reference to modern apathy. Why is apathy prevalent in the “new culture”?

Gilbert Keith Chesterton – select quotes

A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.
~ in The Everlasting Man

According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it.
~ in Orthodoxy

As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.
~ in Orthodoxy

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
~ in Orthodoxy

Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with its surer and more reverent realism, says that they are all fools. This doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin. It may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of man.
~ in Heretics

Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.
~ in Orthodoxy

Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
~ in The Innocence of Father Brown

Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.
~ in Illustrated London News

It has been often said, very truly, that religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary.
~ in Charles Dickens: A Critical Study

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
~ in All Things Considered

My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.
~ in The Defendant

One of the chief uses of religion is that it makes us remember our coming from darkness, the simple fact that we are created.
~ in The Boston Sunday Post

Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.
~ in Orthodoxy

The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust.
~ in G.K.’s Weekly

The modern critics of religious authority are like those who attack the police without ever heard of the burglars.
~ in Orthodoxy

The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.
~ in Orthodoxy

The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.
~ in Introduction to The Book of Job.

Theology is only thought applied to religion.
~ in The New Jerusalem

A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine, except that the fine is generally much lighter.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

A key has no logic to its shape. Its logic is: it turns the lock.

A saint is one who exaggerates what the world neglects.

All men are ordinary men; the extraordinary men are those who know it.

Americans are the people who describe their use of alcohol and tobacco as vices.

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly understood. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly understood.

An adventure is an inconvenience, rightly considered.

Blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction. Blasphemy depends on belief, and is fading with it. If anyone doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor.

Business, especially big business, is now organized like an army. It is, as some would say, a sort of mild militarism without bloodshed; as I say, a militarism without the military virtues.

Co-educate as much as you will, there will always be a wall between the sexes until love or lust breaks it down.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.

Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy.

Everything has in fact another side to it, like the moon, the patroness of nonsense. Viewed from that other side, a bird is a blossom broken loose from its chain of stalk, a man a quadruped begging on its hind legs, a house a gigantesque hat to cover a man from the sun, a chair an apparatus of four wooden legs for a cripple with only two. This is the side of things which tends most truly to spiritual wonder.

Evil comes at leisure like the disease; good comes in a hurry like the doctor.

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies even if they become fashionable.

For religion all men are equal, as all pennies are equal, because the only value in any of them is that they bear the image of the king.

He who will have all of God in his head will have his head split open.

I am incurably convinced that the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

If Americans can be divorced for ‘incompatibility of temper,’ I cannot conceive why they are not all divorced. I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one.

If there were no God, there would be no atheists.

It has taken me twenty years of studied self-restraint, aided by the natural decay of my faculties, to make me dull enough to be accepted as a reasonable person by the average man.

It is better to speak wisdom foolishly, like the saints, rather than to speak folly wisely, like the dons.

It is the test of a good religion whether you can make a joke about it.

It is in private life that we find great characters. They are too great to get into the public world.

It is true that in certain acute and painful crises of oppression or disgrace, discontent is a duty and shame should call us like a trumpet. But it is not true that man should look at life with an eye of discontent, however high-minded. It is not true that in his primary, naked relation to the world, in his relation to sex, to pain, to comradeship, to the grave or to the weather, man ought to make discontent his ideal; it is black lunacy. Half his poor little hopes of happiness hang on his thinking a small house pretty, a plain wife charming, a lame foot not unbearable, and bad cards not so bad. The voice of the special rebels and prophets, recommending discontent, should, as I have said, sound now and then suddenly, like a trumpet. But the voices of the saints and sages, recommending contentment, should sound unceasingly, like the sea.

It may be possible to have a good debate over whether or not Jesus believed in fairies. Alas, it is impossible to have any sort of debate over whether or not Jesus believed that rich people were in big trouble—there is too much evidence on the subject and it is overwhelming.

It might be reasonably maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke—that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.

Jokes are generally honest. Complete solemnity is almost always dishonest.

Journalism largely consists in saying “Lord Jones Dead” to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.

Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional halfholiday; joy is the uproarious labour by which all things live.

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

Nine times out of ten, the coarse word is the word that condemns an evil and the refined word the word that excuses it.

No man’s really good till he knows how bad he is, or might be; till he’s realised exactly how much right he has to all this snobbery, and sneering, and talking about ‘criminals,’ as if they were apes in a forest ten thousand miles away; till he’s got rid of all the dirty self-deception of talking about low types and deficient skulls; till he’s squeezed out of his soul the last drop of the oil of the Pharisees; till his only hope is somehow or other to have captured one criminal, and kept him safe and sane under his own hat.

Our Lord commanded us to forgive our enemies, but not to have none.

Pragmatism is a [philosophy] of human needs, and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist.

Rossetti makes the remark somewhere, bitterly but with great truth, that the worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.

Silence is the unbearable repartee.

Take away the supernatural, and what remains is the unnatural.

The anarchist … is disappointed with the future as well as the past.

The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.

The best way a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that he was born.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult, and left untried.

The dipsomaniac and the abstainer are not only both mistaken, but they both make the same mistake. They both regard wine as a drug and not as a drink.

The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange.

The globe-trotter lives in a smaller world than the peasant. He is always breathing the air of locality. . . . The man in the cabbage field has seen nothing at all; but he is thinking of the things that unite men–hunger and babies, and the beauty of women, and the promise or menace of the sky.

The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

The objection to an aristocracy is that it is a priesthood without a god.

The one stream of poetry which is continually flowing is slang.

The people who are most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.

The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt. There is one thing that Christ and all the Christian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony. They have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck.

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as foreign land.

The worst tyrant is not the man who rules by fear; the worst tyrant is he who rules by love and plays on it as on a harp.

There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy.

There are only three things in the world that women do not understand; and they are liberty, equality, and fraternity.

There is but an inch of difference between the cushioned chamber and the padded cell.

There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviare on impulse than in the man who eats grapenuts on principle.

There is the tragedy that is founded on the worthlessness of life; and there is the deeper tragedy that is founded on the worth of it. The one sort of sadness says that life is so short that it can hardly matter; the other that life is so short that it will matter forever.

This alarming growth of good habits really means a too great emphasis on those virtues which mere custom can ensure, it means too little emphasis on those virtues which custom can never quite ensure, sudden and splendid virtues of inspired pity or of inspired candour.

There are no uneducated men. They may escape the trivial examinations, but not the tremendous examinations of existence. The dependence of infancy, the enjoyment of animals, the love of woman, and the fear of death—these are more frightful and more fixed than all conceivable forms of the cultivation of the mind.

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

Tolerance is the virtue of people who don’t believe anything.

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes—our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around.

Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction; for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.

Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother. The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity.

We must make up our minds to be ignorant of much, if we would know anything.

What is bad in the candid friend is simply that he is not candid. He is keeping something back–his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things.

When people abandon the truth, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.

__________

Winston Churchill – Select Quotes
__________

August 11, 2014 by kevinstilley

Syllabus – Late Twentieth Century to the Present

Course Syllabus – Fall 2014
Late Century to the Present

The College at Southwestern
HIS 4203-A T/Th 7:00-8:15 a.m. Room S-119

Instructor: Kevin Stilley
Office Hours: By Appointment

(I keep office hours a few blocks from the college at Stadium Drive Baptist Church: 4717 Stadium Drive, Fort Worth, TX 76133)

Email: [email protected]
Website: http://kevinstilley.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kevinstilley
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kevin.stilley

Catalog Description

A study of social/political trends and philosophies from 1964 to the present.

Course Objectives

To gain knowledge of the main events, ideas and persons that shaped western civilization during the late twentieth century to the present.

Exploration of twentieth century trends, politics, and culture will help students place their experiences, interests, and information from other history courses into context.

Required Texts

The Penguin History of the 20^th Century, by J.M. Roberts (isbn. 9780140276312)

Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century, by Bob Blaisdell (isbn. 0486474674)

The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century, by Chantal Delsol (isbn. 1932236473)

Postmodern Times, by Gene Edward Veith, Jr. (isbn. 0891077685)

(Please bring a Bible to class with you.)

Blackboard

Blackboard and SWBTS student email will be used for class communications. Students should check both Blackboard and student email dailyfor possible communications from the instructor.

Assignments

Grades will be determined based upon completion of two exams, a student presentation, an editorial exercise, and class participation.

Midterm Exam (30%) – This exam will be conducted via Blackboard so please be sure to have a good internet connection available on the day of the exam. Mac users, I encourage you to NOT use the Safari web browser when taking this test or navigating the Blackboard interface.

Final Exam: (20%) – The final exam will be a single essay question, asking you to distinguish between the concepts of “late modernity” (Chantal Delsol) & “postmodernity” (Gene Edward Veith), and to make an argument for the one that you think best describes the world in which we live.

Student Presentation (20%): Each student will select one speech from the book Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century, explain the historical context of the speech, and share how and why it is culturally significant. All students will be reading the speeches in advance so group discussion will follow the presentation.

Editorial Exercise (25%): Assume the role of an editorial assistant who has been tasked with revising the book Great Speeches of the 20^th Century. Your assignment is to find one speech from the late 20^th century that should be added to the book. In addition to the text of the speech, you need to present a point paper with adequate argumentation for its rhetorical qualities and its historical significance. Further, in order to add this speech to the text, you must select one speech to remove from the book and explain why you selected it. This assignment is to be submitted via Turnitin and is due no later than midnight on October 31. Late papers will receive a 50% reduction in grade.

Participation (5%): All students are expected to attend class, be punctual, and participate appropriately in classroom discussion. To engage in classroom discussion of the assigned reading it is imperative that all reading assignments be conducted in a timely fashion.
- Attendance will be recorded at the beginning of all class sessions. Absences or tardiness will adversely affect your grade. Absences in excess of 25% result in an automatic failure of the class.
- Students are free to record the class.
- Guests are welcome, but please notify the instructor in advance.
- Laptops, iPhones, and similar devices may NOT be used during class as their usefulness is far outweighed by their ability to create a distraction and contribute to the cultural habit of inattentiveness.
- If you become drowsy you may stand at the back or the side of the room until you can resume your seat without falling asleep.

Grades

Grades will be determined by the following scale: 100-98 (A+); 97-93 = A; 92-90 (A-); 89-88(B+); 87-83 (B); 82-80 (B-); 79-78 (C+); 77-73 (C); 72-70 (C-); 69-68 (D+); 67-63 (D); 62-60 (D-); Below 60 = F.

August 7, 2014 by kevinstilley

Textbooks – Late Twentieth Century History

Here are the textbooks I am using this semester for my class on Late Twentieth Century History (HIS 4203) at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The Penguin History of the Twentieth Century

Great Speeches of the 20th Century

The Unlearned Lessons Of the Twentieth Century

Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture

Interesting quotes from “The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln” by Stephen L. Carter

Kevin Stilley on For Christ and Culture Radio

Books & Reading – select quotes

Thoughts on Books Read in 2016

Discussion Questions – – The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Cantos I-IX

Spring Textbooks

HIS 1213 : Western Civilization II

HIS 2203: Renaissance and Reformation History

IDE 2203: Renaissance and Reformation Seminar

Discussion Questions: The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century

Gilbert Keith Chesterton – select quotes

Syllabus – Late Twentieth Century to the Present

Textbooks – Late Twentieth Century History

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