Ode to Good Books

Books.

They are almost human-like in their ability to arrest our interest, fill our thoughts long after the cover's closed, give us new ideas, inspire our own creativity, stretch the boundaries of our knowledge as they force us to wrestle with complicated subject matter; they carry us off to new worlds, and even comfort us when we are lonesome--for reading is really nothing more than a long conversation that cannot be heard outside our heads.

A 2010 count by Google revealed nearly 130 million individual book titles in the world today.That is a truly staggering number of written works.

I come from a long line of voracious readers. I can remember winter evenings of my childhood spent at my grandparents' house, in which the grown-ups sat around the living room reading books, papers, magazines, commentaries, etc., and we children pored over stacks of decades-old yellow-tinged comic books. All the aunts and uncles who married into this strange family quickly grew bored with the dull company. But for those of us who had the Reading Gene, such evenings were the epitome of delightful.

My family's house today has bookshelves in every room of the house (with the possible exception of the bathroom--with lots of people living in one house, bathrooms are in far too high demand to have any leisure time in there!).

I outgrew the bookcase in my bedroom, and last spring the floor in front of it was piled high with stacks of books I couldn't bring myself to dispose of. When I moved away (temporarily), the first thing we put into my new cottage was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, which looked so roomy back in July (now it's almost full).

Why the obsession with books? Consider the statistics: After graduating from high school, ONE THIRD of adults will NEVER AGAIN read another book. After college, it's worse: 42% of college graduates will never read another book in their lifetimes. In America today, HALF of the adult population is UNABLE to read an 8th grade-level book with satisfactory comprehension. 80% of American families have not bought ONE BOOK in the past YEAR, and nearly two-thirds of the nation's population has not been inside in a book store in more than FIVE YEARS. We are a tragically ignorant nation.

But it's not that just going out and starting to read will fix the problem. Not any book will do. Much of the written material available will do more harm than good if consumed. I have friends who consider themselves avid readers, yet have consumed only from the fantasy genre for the past decade! While good fantasy has its place, a decade-long diet of it is as unhealthy as eating dessert in place of breakfast, lunch and dinner for a year. You will be unwell, imbalanced, addicted to it, and unable to appreciate other foods.

For my girls, the thirteen girls I've been praying for and writing to for nearly a year, I have been seriously thinking, planning, and praying about a decision that will take things up a notch. A big notch. We are going to reverse the trend of non-reading and frivolous reading. We are beginning to collect the Good Books of each of the following genres, and read them together. Such subjects are rarely heard of outside the classroom, but they are truly foundational if young women are to be insightful into their world, knowledgeable of its history, aware of its future, and if they are to become vital contributors and contenders in their culture. We live in an age and in a country in which ignorance is inexcusable. By the grace of God, we will make up for lost time, put away foolish reading, and instead fill our minds with only those things that spur us on to harder thinking and a deeper understanding of our Lord and His created order, that we might comprehend and appreciate His nature more, and become more useful in His hand as instruments of light on a darkened planet.

The list will change as we add to it, but for now, these are the things we deem most important with which to fill our minds. The list of book titles for each genre is also growing as we labor to compile a curriculum of only the truly Good Books.

·         Theology & Doctrine

·         Philosophy

·         Economics, Business, & Finances

·         Law & Government

·         Politics & Current Events

·         History

·         Basic Sciences

o   Biology

o   Geology

o   Geography

o   Chemistry

o   Physics

o   Mathematics

o   Geometry

o   Botany

o   Engineering

o   Astronomy

o   Ecology

o   Technology

o   Genetics

o   Anthropology

·         Medicine, Nutrition, & Health

·         Household Management

·         Culture/Art/Aesthetics

·         Music

·         Self Defense and Firearms

·         Communication, Language, & Literature

·         Trade Skills & Agriculture