The Well Educated Mind of Susan Wise Bauer

I had been wanting to read Susan Wise Bauer's book "The Well Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had" for quite some time. So...imagine my excitement when I stumbled across a copy at the library this last week. (I eagerly snatched it up. Thoroughly excited of course!) Though it was not an easy read, it did contain some interesting book lists, which I have included here, that are meant to be read in order. (I must admit that I have a certain weakness for lists such as these. They make my heart feel lovely. The books themselves have a similar effect.) Happy reading.

The Novel List

Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes
The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
The Return of the Native – Henry James
Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
The Trial – Franz Kafka
Native Son – Richard Wright
The Stranger – Albert Camus
1984 – George Orwell
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
If on a winter’s night a traveler – Italo Calvino
Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
White Noise – Don Delillo
Possession – A.S. Byatt

The Autobiography List

The Confessions – Augustine
The Book of Margery Kempe - Margery Kemp
Essays – Michel de Montaigne
The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself – Teresa of Ávila
Meditations – René Descartes
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners – John Bunyan
The Narrative of the Captivity of Restoration – Mary Rowlandson
Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
An Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin – Benjamin Franklin
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written By Herself – Harriet Jacobs
Life and Times of Frederick Douglass – Frederick Douglass
Up from Slavery – Booker T. Washington
Ecce Homo – Friedrich Nietzsche
Mein Kampf – Adolf Hitler
An Autobiography:  The Story of My Experiments with Truth – Mohandas Gandhi
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
The Seven Storey Mountain – Thomas Merton
Surprised by Joy:  The Shape of My Early Life – C.S. Lewis
The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Malcolm X
Journal of a Solitude – May Sarton
The Gulag Archipelago – Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Born Again – Charles W. Colson
Hunger of Memory:  The Education of Richard Rodriguez – Richard Rodriguez
The Road from Coorain – Jill Ker Conway
All Rivers Run to the Sea:  Memoirs – Elie Wiesel

The History List

The Histories – Herodotus
The Peloponnesian War – Thucydides
The Republic – Plato
Lives – Plutarch
The City of God – Augustine
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People – Bede
The Prince – Niccolò Machiavelli
Utopia – Thomas More
The True End of Civil Government – John Locke
The History of England, Volume V – David Hume
The Social Contract – Jean-Jasques Rousseau
Common Sense – Thomas Paine
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – Edward Gibbon
A Vindication of the Rights of Women – Mary Wollstonecraft
Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville
The Communist Manifesto – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy – Jacob Burckhardt
The Souls of Black Folk – W.E.B. Du Bois
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism – Max Weber
Queen Victoria – Lytton Strachey
The Road to Wigan Pier – George Orwell
The New England Mind – Perry Miller
The Great Crash – John Kenneth Galbraith
The Longest Day – Cornelius Ryan
The Feminine Mystique – Betty Friedan
Roll, Jordan, Roll:  The World the Slaves Made – Eugene D. Genovese
The Distant Mirror:  The Calamitous Fourteenth Century – Barbara Tuchman
All the President’s Men – Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
Battle Cry of Freedom:  The Civil War Era – James M. McPherson
A Midwife’s Tale:  The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 – Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
The End of History and the Last Man – Francis Fukuyama

The Drama List

Agamemnon – Aeschylus
Oedipus the King – Sophocles
Medea – Euripides
The Birds – Aristophanes
Poetics – Aristotle
Everyman
Doctor Faustus – Christopher Marlowe
Richard III – William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – William Shakespeare
Hamlet – William Shakespeare
Tartuffe – Moliere
The Way of the World – William Congreve
She Stoops to Conquer – Oliver Goldsmith
The School for Scandal – Richard Brinsley Sheridan
A Doll’s House – Henrik Ibsen
The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde
The Cherry Orchard – Anton Chekhov
Saint Joan – George Bernard Shaw
Murder in the Cathedral – T. S. Elliot
Our Town – Thornton Wilder
Long Day’s Journey Into Nght – Eugene O’Neill
No Exit – Jean Paul Sartre
A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams
Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller
Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett
A Man for All Seasons – Robert Bolt
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – Tom Stoppard
Equus – Peter Shaffer

The Poetry List

The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Iliad and the Odyssey – Homer
Greek Lyricists
Odes – Horace
Beowulf
Inferno – Dante Alighieri
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer
Sonnets – William Shakespeare
John Donne
Psalms – King James Bible
Paradise Lost – John Milton
Songs of Innocence and of Experience – William Blake
William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
John Keats
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson
Christina Rossetti
Gerard Manley Hopkins
William Butler Yeats
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Robert Frost
Carl Sandburg
William Carlos Williams
Ezra Pound
T. S. Eliot
Langston Hughes
W.H. Auden

When I Grow Up...

Sunday....while showering the dirt off Youngest Son after a long weekend camping at Detroit Lake....a conversation occured.

Mama: Someday you will be a Papa.

Youngest Son: I don't want to be a Papa when I grow up.

Mama: What? Why not?

Youngest Son: Papa's have to work everyday. I don't want to work everyday. I want to play.

Mama: Oh....

Youngest Son: Play everyday. (With emphasis and arms folded.)

Back with Gratitude

Hello. It has been a while. Since then and now. Much has happened. Perhaps one day I will tell of it...but for now I am simply grateful to be back. (Even if back is not what it once was.) I will start with some Gratitude. Gratitude Monday on a Thursday.



92. My very own little viking. (Complete with sticky Red Lollipop face and hands.)




93. Oldest Son and his Rainbow Lollipop. It was a must have that turned into a should not have. (I recall they did not taste well when I was a child as well. I am thinking Disneyland.)




94. Brothers. They truly melt my heart.

95. Sisters and a niece. (Truly a blessing to have sisters.)

96. The way the sky reflects off the wet sand.

97. The little footprints that walk upon it.

98. The wild ocean. (The way it makes me feel.)

99. Oldest Son and his BEAUTIFUL eyes. (I know I say this often. True. There is great love here.)

100. Boy Cousins. (I enjoy the differences in hair. Makes me smile.)

101. The photo contest loser. (It was tragic, but I could not pick my own son. He will get over it. It was only a LIFESAVER after all.)

102. Youngest Son. (This photo tells the truth about this boy.) He is unique. He is sweet. He is silly. He is clever. He is a handful. He is pure boy MAGIC and I love him so.

And so it begins...

You see that boy with his arms in the air? The one most excited about the goal? That is my boy. That is Oldest Son at his first soccer game. My heart swells with pride at this photo. No...he did not score the goal. One of the other boys did. That did not stop his joy. Simple. Pure. Joy.

He had joy when he had the ball. (Note the grin on his face.)

He had joy as he lined up the dreaded "Soccer Triangle." (Love that sweet look on his face.)

More joy as he kicked that ball down the field...the wrong way. (He had the ball! Who is he to care what way it goes? I don't think he even heard all the shouting that he was going the wrong direction.)

And the ball...the soccer ball. I never wanted to do this. I never wanted to spend my weekends at games and my weekdays at practice. And I ask myself...why do I do it? And the only answer I can come up with is for the joy. The joy Oldest Son has when he plays. Simple joy. How can a Mama ask for more?

So...go the wrong way if you like. You never have to make a goal for me. You don't have to be the biggest or the best. You just have to be you...and keep your joy. (And when I cheer and shout...just know that is the competitive side of Mama. I always enjoy a good game and taking sides.)

Yes...that is me at a soccer game. (I guess Husband had to document this.) And sweet Youngest Son. Poor boy. It is rough being the little brother at a soccer game. Especially when they break out the treat bags! Hang in there little one. You will grow up all too soon for this Mamas liking!

Keep smiling Oldest Son. Keep running and playing with all your heart. I sure do love it!

And while all your teammates are focused on getting warmed up...you just turn that little head and smile. The smile that melts me every time I see it. The smile that came when I least expected it. One of the best smiles to enter my life. The joy in your spirit is unique and rare and wonderful. Smile on Oldest Son...and Hello Soccer.

Gratitude Monday...Crescent Bar Style

80. Sometimes the best things in life are the little things in your life. (This is all the kids on the last day of our "Friendcation.") I sure do love all the little things in my life. They are pretty sweet most of the time and a little sour some of the time!

81. The joy of watching Husband and Friends Husbands as they work on Project Sandbar Waterslide 2010. Just good, albeit gritty, fun!

82. Pulling Husband in the early morning sun behind the boat he loves!

83. Oldest Son and his sweet smile.

84. The simple happiness that is having both Oldest Son and Youngest Son looking at the camera at the same time! (This happens only once or twice a year at best!) (They love the boat too! Like Papa Like Sons.)

85. Sweet Youngest Son and his love of the "Pool."

86. His too cute for words goggles.

87. The way he says "Look at me Mama!" (Said just before diving under the water and popping his head up to quickly look and make sure I was looking!)

88. Youngest Son and his sweet soul. I am afraid he is getting older.

89. Two of my three sisters.

90. How we all wore black swimsuits on the same day...without planning.

91. The help those two girls give me on vacation. They are truly a blessing.

The Rose Parade

Oldest Son and Youngest Son watch the Portland Rose Parade. The fact that they are both in the photo and that it is not blurry is a small miracle.

Youngest Son looks onward with one of his Cousins in the background as well. It makes you wonder just what a parade looks like through the eyes of a two year old boy?

Loved this float. Love Portland Town. Such a great place to call home.

My sweet little Niece. It was her birthday this day. I bet she thought the parade was just for her! Happy Birthday to Me!

Oldest Son loved his free red balloons. I let him pick a chocolate from Moonstuck. We had come with Grandma Grape. There were too many fun things to count!

"Time Is of the Essence" by Irene Foster

Now is the time to get things done...

wade in the water,

sit in the sun,

squish my toes,

in the mud by the door,

explore the world in a boy just four.

Now is the time to study books,

flowers,

snails,

how a cloud looks,

to ponder "up,"

where God sleeps nights,

why mosquitoes take such big bites.

Later there'll be time

to sew and clean,

paint the hall

that soft new green,

to make new drapes,

refinish the floor -

Later on...when he's not just four.

"Can we go at the dead end again?"

papa’s day

as i sit in my bed

exhausted after a long day of life

i listen to the sweet voice of our papa

words of curious george bring laughter

soft and loud

silly and sweet

though bedtime should have come

they have found their way back

to our bed

he found then and met them with patience

and offered them one more story

i am so thankful for him

when i have no more

when i am done

he pulls through

he brings much needed relief

i love that papa of ours

he is truly the best

always

 

I Heart Safeway!

I got off work about an hour early yesterday and made my way over to the Salmon Creek Safeway for a little weekly grocery shopping. I was not planning on getting a lot, but one thing led to another and this is what I ended up with.

Pep Farm Crisps

(3) Hamburger Helper

Honey Nut Cheerios

Trix

Molten Choc Cake (2)

Wheaties Fuel

Jolly Time Kettle Corn

Cheetos (4)

Tortilla Chips

Snyder's Pretzels (4)

Sobe Life Waters (6)

Vitamin Waters (3)

Simply Potatoes (2)

Whole Milk (2)

Quik Choc Milk (2)

Yoplait Yogurt (10)

Fage Greek Yogurt (2)

Frozen Dinners (2)

Always Pads

LA Looks Gel (2)

Stayfree Pads

OB Tampons (4)

Alice in Wonderland Blu-Ray DVD $24.99

Bananas (5)

Green Onions

Romaine Lettuce

Cilantro

Whole Rotisserie Chicken

Total: 36.72 OOP

(My total before all the COUPONS was about $137.00!)

Memorial Weekend Love

I just love holiday weekends. More appropriately I just love holiday weekends where I am not working. I was supposed to be working but some nice person was willing to work my day for me and I her day for her. (I just love amicable relations.) (I just love it when things turn out in the end.)
We spent the weekend up at The Lake where my family has property. I just love being there. It brings back so many good memories and it requires one to just let go. In fact, camping in general is a loss of control. No house to clean. No dishes to wash. No clothes to launder and fold and put away. No bed to make. No toys to put away. Yes...camping is the perfect get-away for the Type A individual such as myself. I can finally let go and I love it.

(Some examples of the simplicity of camping.)

1. After dinner. No dishes. Just burn them in the fire or throw them in the trash.

2. Wake up in the morning and roll out of one's sleeping bag. No bed making needed.

3. The kids can run and make all the mess their sweet hearts desire. I don't care. I don't have to clean it up.

Yes, most everything about camping appeals to me. Like I said, I love it.

I don't even mind the clean up when one arrives home. Throw it all in the wash and put it all away. (Restock all the camping bins so they are ready for the next adventure.) The house is clean and the bed feels so good. In fact...everything is good. You are home and everything is as it should be. Oh...and that first shower after a weekend away from one. So good. Love it.

The mind is rested. The memories are made. The soul feels free. The kids are worn out and sleep soundly. Love, love, love camping. (Even camping in the rain.)

P.S. Husband loved camping as well, though everyday he would threaten to go home if the weather turned. (Which it did.) Though he never went through with his promise. We were having too much fun and love and camping...in the rain.

Just Some Oldest Son's Birthday Party

I just love those lashes! (Where did he get them?)

Youngest Son just loves that frosting. Every last bite.

He is totally gross...at times...but I just love that boy.

Oldest Son and Youngest Son just love Dinosaurs and the color green.

Just some Oldest Son and his missing front tooth!

Just the best 5 year old Birthday Boy around!

The Couch

Hello there void. I am feeling a bit lost again. Not the kind of lost where you can't find your way. Rather the kind of lost where you feel a bit alone on the journey. The journey from child to adult is often guided. It is protected from the real reality of life. Sure, there are bits and pieces of real life to be lived inserted here and there. Just enough to help prepare us. Then you arrive. At first the freedom mixed with responsibility is exhilarating and exciting. So much ahead. So much life to live. Then, one day you wake and you realize you are not the 20 year old you once were. (Is that really my backside in the mirror? When did it start to look so…old?) Life has come and it is here to stay. Full of so many things. Day in and day out. Take this last Sunday for example. The morning was full of the usual bed making; dressing, straightening up, breakfast. Church comes and goes. It is good. Talk of what it really means to be His. I feel moved in my soul. Worship is powerful and I feel the sacred for a moment. A jaunt to the Farmers Market is graced with a bit of rain, but to no surprise for those of us born and raised here. Home again we come. Lunch and lunch cleanup. I make my way to the couch at the kind prompting of Husband. It feels so good. It is the first time I have ACTUALLY sat on my couch in many months. (I do quite a bit of sitting on my couch during College Football season, but that is another story. I heart College Football!) Not the kind of sitting to brush hair or put on shoes, but the kind where you just sit. I sat and I sat and I sat. I watched You Got Mail and laughed and cried and remembered the first time I saw it. Of course I had photos to edit from Oldest Son's 5 year old birthday party the day before, but one cannot be idle when there are only so many hours in a day. I eventually tore myself off that couch. I helped build a LEGO Water Plane with some boys that I happened to birth. Husband made dinner and I cleaned it up. Jammies went on. Lunches were packed. Plants watered. Toys put away. Lights shut off. To bed. And we begin again in the morning. (Of course we were up multiple times in the night soothing bad dreams and scaring off monsters. The day never really ends. The responsibility never really leaves.) And so…I feel a bit alone. I know I am not. I just miss me. I miss my hobbies. My interests. My active self, not just at a gym with the masses, but out in this wonderful place we live. And every now and again. Those glimpses of me come through. Every now and again I find that time. The time to just be. Like the couch. And it all waited. It was there when I got up. Waiting. Just need to remember it is OK to sit down. OK to let go. OK to be me.

P.S. Perhaps next time we can discuss why I often wish I could scream and cry out emotions but I am simply unable? Another day. I have two boys patiently waiting to show me the "Racing Track" they built. That is my life. And if I am honest with you…with me…I really do love it.

The Siouxon

I have these two boys. Oldest Son and Youngest Son. They are quite something. I know I speak as their Mama, but the things they say and do. Examples to follow.

The other night in bed. Just as we were about to fall asleep. We heard a noise and wrote it off as not important. We went back to the business of falling asleep. (Very important business I might add.) In the morning I discovered a certain Little One was not in his crib. He was sleeping, with his feet hanging off the bed, with his Big Brother and his Pooh Bear.

Last night. Youngest Son woke up at 0543 with a bad dream. I know this by the sound he makes and the words that follow.

Youngest Son: The D (pronounced duh) Moose! The D Moose! (As he falls out of his crib and I meet him at his doorway.)

After much holding and loving and calming Youngest Son finds his place in our bed and snuggles down next to Papa. Meanwhile, Older Son has woken and I am walking him back to bed. After all, it may be light out, but that is way too early on a school morning for any 4 year old!

After Oldest Son is calm in his own bed and youngest son is babbling a mile a minute to his all too sleepy Papa, I remember Youngest Son was NAKED. In to his room I march and notice there are no jammies and no diaper there. Also, the bed happens to not be wet either. Hmm....

I am making my assumptions that Husband put Youngest Son to bed without jammies or a diaper and not sure what to think about this. Then I decide to investigate a little bit more before I jump to wife-like conclusions. I go into the Kids Bath and notice that there, by the toilet are his diaper, his jammies, and his most prized possession, Pooh Bear (which is not a Pooh Bear but just a Bear he named Pooh). Oh, and lots of yellow pee all around. That boy is off I tell you. He won't pee during the day in the toilet, but he pees during the night in the toilet.

Just today. Oldest Son is napping after being exhausted from being up so early. Youngest Son is quietly in his bed "sleeping." I hear this noise upstairs. I ignore it until I hear this.

Youngest Son: I need your help Mama.

Youngest Son: Mama!

I make my way upstairs only to discover that Youngest Son is on the toilet and all around him on the floor is clean white toilet paper.

Youngest Son: (Big Smile!) I go poop!

Mama: Lots of praise and encouragement.

Apparently he only goes poop or pee when he can use it as an excuse to get out of his crib.

On that note. Husband had a great story about Oldest Son over the weekend. Pretty funny. It goes something like this.

Oldest Son: I got an idea. (While driving in the car.)

Papa: What?

Oldest Son: No more hot sauce for older kids. Hot sauce is for younger kids. Older kids can have a time out. (Very matter of fact on this.)

Papa: What age kids can get hot sauce?

Oldest Son: 2 1/2 year olds.

Papa: Really?

Oldest Son: And adults. They like hot sauce.

I love those kids and that husband.