So, onward...
I have read my first book from my reading list. I really should have started this earlier, lol, but never mind that. Fortunately the first one was short (mercifully short).
The book was The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, my father's choice.
If you've never read it, it's an interesting book full of proverbs and insights into the human condition. Interestingly, it makes me wonder if my dad has indeed ever read it...I'm not sure how it happened, but he's managed to turn himself into one of the most inflexible, intolerant people on the face of the earth. Man, that bums me out and I wish there was something I could do about it. He's the kind of person who unleashes some racial/bigoted slur or another and upon being called out on it he says, "Oh, but I didn't mean it. I'm not a racist." He's the child of Czech immigrants...He's really not in any position to be intolerant.
Anywah, wow. Rant much?
The book itself was pretty decent and some of the proverbs are rather brilliant. Here are a few of my favourites:
"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."
"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding."
"For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?"
"To judge you for your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy."
"You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you." (On Children)
"Work is love made visible."
Etc and so forth. So yeah, not a bad book. An interesting choice from my father...A case of cognitive dissonance, methinks.
Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love by Stephanie Dowrick
Buddhism For Busy People by David Michie
Wetlands by Charlotte Roche - translated by Tim Mohr
Go Ask Alice by Anon
The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood
The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
To Kill a Mockingbird
Pride and Prejudice
Pythagorus’ Trousers by Wertheim
So Much to Tell You by John Marsden
All Quiet on the Western Front
Next on the list is my mother's choice, Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love by Stephanie Dowrick. I've started reading it and so far it's an oddly put together self-help book. I see why it was influential in my mum's life though, at a certain point and the good parts of it are well-written, but honestly I have a bee in my bonnet about this particular author. I think there's a "holier than thou" attitude about her that rubs me the wrong way. Anyway, I said I'd read it and I will.
Adieu xx