Today, a foggy Sunday morning, is a good reading day. It reminds me of another good reading day a couple of years ago. Two books, besides my Bible, were on my docket: a novel, Anna Karenina by Tolstoy (my third or fourth read through), and What Jesus Demands from the World, by John Piper. Below are … More Love Idols that Destroy Love
Robert Coles was a Harvard professor who wrote a number of best selling books in the 1980’s and ’90’s on the moral development of children that shocked the educational establishment. In an article appearing in Christianity Today (Feb. 6, 1987) he made a number of observations that powerfully underscored my 50 year obsession with older … More Why I Read Old Books
Have you read J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit? Stay tuned for a story about the Tolkien’s problems in writing the books. I’m 2,000 words into the writing of a short story inspired by a professor I knew 35 years ago, a book I read 30 years ago, a wonderful church in … More Writing is a Confounding Work
Today was a good reading day. Two books, besides my Bible were on my docket, a novel, Anna Karenina by Tolstoy and What Jesus Demands from the World, by John Piper. Below are two passages, one from each that I think illumine one another. The first one is from Tolstoy. It comes from part two, … More Destroying Our Own Lives
There is a scene in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (Part 2, Chapter 22), where Tolstoy uses the innocent response of an eight-year old boy to the wickedness of the presence of Vronsky in his mother’s circle of friends. It is a brilliantly written scene, powerful in its picture and effective in its movement of the plot. … More Children as a Compass for Goodness
I made a mistake this morning. I picked up Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and read the first sentence, then I read the first paragraph and before I knew it, I was two chapters in and now I am hopelessly committed to reading the book again, for the fifth time. Don’t be too impressed. The chapters are … More Confession: I’m Addicted
Two weeks ago, I started a new site dedicated to observations and great quotes from Russian novels. Here’s the latest entry. https://greatbooks4communicators.wordpress.com/
No nation produces better novelists than Russia. It isn’t even close. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pasternack, Chekhov, Nabakov, Solzhenitsyn, Turgenev, these are men whose greatest books are worthy of being read multiple times and who have enraptured the imagination of millions all over the world. Crime and Punishment and the Brothers Karamozov by Dostoevsky are filled with such … More The Lies We Tell Ourselves
It was a lazy Sunday afternoon at the Schoenleber household today and my bride and I took the time to watch the 1948 version of Anna Karenina. Which led me to the following discovery. There have been . . . at least 18 different movie versions two theater productions nine operas four ballets and one radio production. Amazing. But … More On the Watching of Old Films
Sunday Musings I was at it again Saturday, asking embarrassing questions of restaurant personnel while with a friend. JimmyJohns in Big Rapids, MI was the site this time and my somewhat shocked friend was the son of my pastor friend in Michigan who I am filling in for while he is away on a much … More What Will You Do with Today?
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