May
22
My dear friend TBS of A Tale of Two Sisters has tagged me with a book meme. I can’t remember the last time I sat down to read anything for pleasure, but I’ll give it a go anyways.
Three works of non-fiction everyone should read:
1. Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet – anyone who knows anything about me is aware that two of my children are severely affected by autistic spectrum disorders. Mr. Tammet is an autistic savant, which, contrary to popular perception, is not the norm for individuals with these disorders. He’s an exceptionally intelligent young British man who is capable of calculating ‘pi’ out to 22,514 digits and learns new languages in a matter of days. Though I haven’t yet read this book, it is high on my list, and based on what I’ve seen of Mr. Tammet, the book should open minds on what autism is and what it isn’t, directly from the mind of someone suffering from the disorder.
2. Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Dr. Temple Grandin – Dr. Grandin is a highly accomplished scholar in the area of animal husbandry, and has used her experiences growing up with autism to help her design cattle-handling facilities. She’s living proof that autistic people can go on to live happy, healthy and productive lives, as long as they have the support they need from friends and family.
3. Reflections of Self by Sondra Williams – I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Mrs. Williams early last year, and she’s a remarkable woman whose managed to raise 4 children, all while suffering from rather severe autism. This is a book of her poetry, and it is remarkable to read the eloquent and emotive words of someone who has such difficulty expressing herself verbally.
Three works of fiction everyone should read:
I can’t remember the last time I read fiction. It was probably in college, when I was taking classes toward a minor in English. Here’s what I can remember as my favorites.
1. Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai – I read while I was a student at Michigan State, and my roommate was reading it for a class on English-language literature written outside ot traditionally English-speaking countries. The book centers around the struggles one family endures while trying to care for an adult brother with autism in post-colonial India. Desai is most compelling when she’s describing the lush environment in which her characters live. Note that I read this long before I had children with autism. I suspect God was trying to prepare me for what my future held.
2. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis – I first read them while I was in middle school, and had no idea that they were allegorical. I was raised in a household that had no religious sensibilities whatsoever, but I loved the adventures the children had in the fantasy world of Narnia. Every parent should read these books to or with their children at least once, as I plan to do when my children are a little older.
3. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien – this is the book that sparked my love of reading at a very early age. I believe I read it some time in 3rd or 4th grade, and I’ve probably read it 20 times since.
Three authors everyone should read:
1. C.S. Lewis
2. Pope John Paul II
3. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI
Three books no one should read:
1. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy – pure drudgery that I was forced to read as a high school junior. I loathed every second of it, and my classmates felt the same. Our teacher finally realized that, for the first time thatyear, none of us had actually read the book, so he wrote his exam such that we could pass it after having read only the Cliffs Notes.
2. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens – Hitchens is one nasty, angry man who engages in the typical tactics of other nasty, angry atheists who seek to blame all the evils of the world on religion. This man practically urinated on Mother Theresa’s grave. Anyone who can’t even find one good thing to say about Mother Theresa isn’t worth the time it takes to read anything he’s written.
3. Roman Catholicism by Lorraine Boettner – pure fiction. Boettner frequently made claims about the Catholic Church that are bald-faced lies, and mostly failed to cite his sources. Karl Keating, in Catholicism and Fundamentalism, referred to this work as the ‘anti-Catholic Bible,’ and despite the fact that it has been condemned by most honest Protestant scholars, many fundamentalist and evangelical pastors still refer to it as the definitive work on Catholicism from a Protestant perspective. All remaining copies of this book should be rounded up and burned.
