In Common is my (mostly) weekly Commonplace roundup – notable quotes from the week, and current reading list.

I have not kept up with my commonplace over the winter months, but I am trying to get back into good habits. I’ve managed to keep up with my reading schedule since the new year, and so I am pretty motivated to start my weekly summaries as well.

One of my longer term reads I started in January is the Introduction to The Gateway to the Great Books. This short offering is similar to the Introduction to The Great Books of the Western World (which is awesome, by the way), introducing readers to the value of reading good books. One thing that is mentioned is the different kinds of reading matter, and how different books call for different styles of reading. Not everything needs to be read actively, but in the same vein not all books are worth reading at all.

“We need to remind ourselves of this bygone situation in which a book was a lifelong treasure, to be read again and again. Deluged as we are with a welter of printed words, we tend to devaluate all writing, to look at every book on the shelf as the counterpart of every other, and to weigh volumes instead of words. The proliferation of printing, on the one hand a blessing, has had, on the other, a tendency to debase (or, in any case, homogenize) our attitude toward reading.” (GTTGB, Introduction p.19)

As for the importance of actively reading a book (and Mortimer Adler was all about actively reading, pencil in hand to mark up the book):

“Buying a book is only a prelude to owning it. To own a book involves more than paying for it and putting it on the shelf in one’s home. Full ownership comes only to those who have made the books they have bought part of themselves – by absorbing and digesting them. The well-marked pages of a much handled volume constitutes one of the surest indications that this has taken place. Too many persons make the mistake of substituting economic possession or physical proprietorship for intellectual ownership.” (GTTGB, Introduction p. 29)

I’ve got so many good books going on right now, including our read alouds (for school as well as bedtime)! I’ll share some more excerpts next week.

Current (Personal) Reads:

• The Soul of Wit – GK Chesterton on William Shakespeare
• Gateway to the Great Books: Introduction (Volume 1)
• The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
• The Tamuli by David Eddings
• Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
• Desperate by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson
• Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis with Beth Clark
• Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff
• Know and Tell by Karen Glass

Current Read Alouds:

• King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green
• The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyon (a VERY long term read, but I am determined to finish this spring)
• Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
• A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle