(Historical Fiction)
Burr by Gore Vidal
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Grant by Max Byrd
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren*
Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
Dessa Rose by Sherley Anne Williams
The Human Stain by Philip Roth
(Women and the Novel)
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
Oroonoko by Aphra Behn
Evelina by Frances Burney
Emma by Jane Austen
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Sula by Toni Morrison
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
[I had already read both Emma and Jane Eyre, but it was fun to reread them]
*Okay, so I only read 17 books... I read the first 22 pages or so of All the King's Men and had no desire to keep going. The chapters were 50 pages long each, the text was in tiny print, and the novel itself was over 400 pages! Plus there were Spark Notes online...
The sad thing is, I spent probably $200 on those books, and I am only going to get about $30-$35 when I sell them back because classes don't normally reuse the same books; therefore, they buy each book back for $1.50 or $2 or so.
Wrapping Things Up in Faye
My mom is coming up here on Sunday to bring some stuff home for me - my little red Volvo doesn't have quite as much room as the Bronco did when I moved everything up here. I need to start packing stuff, which is such a weird feeling.
Although I will be here for another week, I don't have much work to do. I have two more finals (not big deals), this Saturday and next Wednesday, then next Thursday and Friday I have Campus Crusade staff meetings. Next year, they are forming a Student Staff team, and they asked me to be on it! I am really excited about this new ministry opportunity. I will get to be a part of the larger planning, vision casting, and on a new level of leadership. I am really excited about leading the women's side of the movement, whatever all that will entail. It will be challenging, and will take up a good portion of my time, but I know that it will be growing and it will just be an awesome experience.
And I will be a junior in college. So weird. Junior sounds so old. And the fact that I will turn 21 in the fall! I can't even think about this anymore.
Psalm 62:8
"Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge."
I love this. When I think of someone being my refuge or my place of rest, I think of someone that I can tell everything to, someone that knows everything about me, someone with whom I can truly be myself and feel safe, even when I don't with the rest of the world. All through the Psalms, David refers to God as his refuge or his fortress or his strength, and I am continually realizing that God wants to be that in my life. Unfortunately, a lot of the time I turn to other people when I need to vent instead of pouring out my heart to God. And I have awesome friends who want to listen to what is going on in my life, but they don't need to be the only ones that I turn to.
I love that we can pour our hearts out to God - even when our problems involve His plan or struggling with what He is teaching us. David also models this throughout the Psalms - check out Psalms 13, 22, 77, and 83, for example. He is not afraid to tell God that he feels like he has been abandoned or that he is frustrated with the way that God is handling things. But, at the end of his ranting, he remembers where God has been faithful. It's not that he doesn't trust God or is no longer following God, but he knows that he will be able to look back one day and see God's hand, even if it seems invisible now.
2 comments:
Emma is one of my favs. You are too though, of course.
I'm jealous of your Women and the Novel class (though definitely not jealous of all the hard work you have to put into it! :). I love the line near the beginning of Mrs. Dalloway when she's walking through London. I know the passage ended with something like, "life, London, this moment in June."
Spark Notes are a beautiful thing. :)
Beautiful thoughts on that Psalm. I think that truth - knowing eventually I get to see how God walked us through some of the more intense and psycho moments he seemed absent - is one that often carries me through. I love how honest David was in his relationship with God. Very often, he seemed passionate and confused simultaneously. I definitely get that. Good luck finishing your finals!
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