Summer Reading
June 19, 2008
Del's asked about summer reading. Here's mine:
Theology: Johannes Vanderkemp, The Heidelberg Catechism; David F Wells, The Courage to be Protestant.
Two books on my passions: Jeremy Schaap, Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics. After Emil Zatopek, Owens has to be one of the great running heroes of the twentieth century. Then Johann Bruyneel, We Might As Well Win. This is Bruyneel's inside story of how he ruthlessly planned and executed victory after victory in the Tour de France. Two books for those who like to win; not for wimps or those with soul patches.
Terry Eagleton, The Meaning of Life. What can I say? Wittgenstein and Marx meet Monty Python at the hands of a humorous and scholarly prose master. At least once a week I wake up in the middle of the night wishing I was Professor Eagleton.
And I'm rereading Raymond Chandler, The High Window. The usual incomprehensible plot, but the prose and the dialogue are superb -- though, once again, not for those who want to get in touch with their feminine side. This book contains some of my favourite lines in all of literature, which I quoted in an article a few years ago but which the editor of the journal made me remove. Talking about a blonde, Marlowe says the following:
Theology: Johannes Vanderkemp, The Heidelberg Catechism; David F Wells, The Courage to be Protestant.
Two books on my passions: Jeremy Schaap, Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics. After Emil Zatopek, Owens has to be one of the great running heroes of the twentieth century. Then Johann Bruyneel, We Might As Well Win. This is Bruyneel's inside story of how he ruthlessly planned and executed victory after victory in the Tour de France. Two books for those who like to win; not for wimps or those with soul patches.
Terry Eagleton, The Meaning of Life. What can I say? Wittgenstein and Marx meet Monty Python at the hands of a humorous and scholarly prose master. At least once a week I wake up in the middle of the night wishing I was Professor Eagleton.
And I'm rereading Raymond Chandler, The High Window. The usual incomprehensible plot, but the prose and the dialogue are superb -- though, once again, not for those who want to get in touch with their feminine side. This book contains some of my favourite lines in all of literature, which I quoted in an article a few years ago but which the editor of the journal made me remove. Talking about a blonde, Marlowe says the following:
`From thirty feet away, she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.'
Hardboiled prose doesn't get any better than that.
