Captivated Reader
Link: Flickr - Normal's Overrated
Non-fiction
Tyson, Assist Me to Proclaim: The Life and Hymns of Charles Wesley (book received a five-star rating on Amazon)
Johnson, Ghost Map (cholera epidemic in London East End and how Dr. Snow’s discoveries changed science, cities, views of bacteria)
Culver and Dorhauer, Steeplejacking: How the Christian Right is Hijacking Mainstream Religion (four stars in Amazon, interesting T of C)
Barry, The Great Influenza (study of horrors of the New1918 epidemic and development of medical education in America)
Fortey, Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms (paleological study of animals who evidence ancient origins of life)
Newell, New Harmony: The Spirit, the Earth, and the Human Soul or Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality (frequent and well-liked speaker at local events, friend of Jane Owen, good writer acc. Sherrianne Standley)
Fiction
Dostoievsky, Crime and Punishment (brilliant study of the psychology of murderer and policeman)
Camus, The Plague (Christian existentialist study of bubonic and pneumonic plague in 1950s North Africa)
“The Dream of the Rood,” “The Wanderer,” and Beowulf (medieval tales reflecting the introduction of Christianity into England)
Greene, The Heart of the Matter (crisis of faith in Roman Catholic official working in post-war Africa)
Poetry
Homer, The Iliad (the origin of Western literature, anti-war poem set during Trojan War)
Milton, Samson Agonistes (Milton’s play based on Samson and Delilah)
Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book I (allegorical study of rise of Protestantism—and concomitant fights to overcome Roman Catholicism--set in mythological era of knights and quests, by the poets’ poet)
Shakespeare, Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, All’s Well That Ends Well, Coriolanus, Titus Andronicus, or any other play
Six American Poets (Dickinson, Whitman, Frost, Hughes, Williams, Stevens)
101 Great American Poems (from Anne Bradstreet to Countee Cullen)