What I Read in August
End-of-summer books and flowers
Happy Monday, friends! Before the month ends, I thought I’d share my round-up of summer reads and summer plants. 🌻 If you already caught my August Reading Vlog, you’ll know it’s been a great bookish month filled with new and old favorites…
Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
“My people have a law never to speak much of sizes or numbers to you others, not even to sorns. You do not understand, and it makes you do reverence to nothings and pass by what is really great.”
My expectations for this first in C.S. Lewis’s space/fantasy trilogy were pretty low - I picked it up mainly out of curiosity. I’m happy to say I really enjoyed it! It took an evocative, creative and faith-filled approach to the idea of the creation of the universe and life on other worlds. The story follows Ransom, a philologist (I have to wonder how much Tolkien inspired this character!), who travels to the planet “Malacandra.” Without giving too much away, I loved discovering the meaning behind the book’s title, and Ransom’s descriptions of space were so beautiful…
“The very name ‘space’ seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam…Older thinkers had been wiser when they named it simply the heavens.”
Searching for and Maintaining Peace by Father Jacques Phillipe
“In view of this combat, happy is the man who has filled his quiver (Psalm 127) with arrows of good thoughts, that is to say, with solid convictions, based on faith, that nourish one’s intelligence and fortify one’s heart in times of trial. Among these arrows in a hero’s hand, one of the affirmations of faith that should permanently reside in us is that all the reasons that cause us to lose our sense of peace are bad reasons.”
The title of this small treatise says it all: it’s filled with reflections about how to remain rooted in God’s peace of heart amidst the troubles and storms of life. I would highly recommend it! There are sayings of the saints and “arrows of good thoughts” that I found to be really powerful and helpful in a practical way.
The Proper Place by O. Douglas
“I don’t believe there’s an ill in all the world that a good fire and a good tea can’t do something to lighten.”
I don’t know why it has taken me this long to discover O. Douglas! She was a Scottish author who wrote during the first half of the twentieth century, and her stories are just the sort I love best: quiet and cheerful but also deep and full of interesting characters and portraits of village life. The Proper Place follows the fortunes of Lady Jane Rutherford and her daughter and niece who have to leave their “proper place,” their ancestral Rutherford home, but they make the best of it and find a charming new home right next to the sea. The plot doesn’t necessarily take the turns you would expect or hope, but it was wonderful nonetheless.
The Devil to Pay by Dorothy Sayers
“Art thou an authority upon happiness, thou shadow of an immortal grief? Master, I was never wise; but age and time have instructed me. To aim at happiness is to miss the mark; for happiness is not an end at all. It is something that comes of itself, when we are busy with other matters.”
The Devil to Pay is a retelling of the Faust legend, and that quotation is spoken by Wagner, the wise servant of Faust. It’s Mephistophiles he’s addressing as, “Thou shadow of an immortal grief.” Christy Luis from Dostoevsky in Space inspired me to pick this play up for Faustathon this month! I’m so glad I did - Dorothy Sayers is one of my favorite authors, and I love becoming more familiar with her works.
Essays by Michel de Montaigne
“I speak my mind freely on all things, even on those which perhaps exceed my capacity and which I by no means hold to be within my jurisdiction. And so the opinion I give of them is to declare the measure of my sight, not the measure of things.”
Montaigne was on my summer classics TBR, and I was able to dip into my edition of the collected essays this season! No matter which page I turn to, I’m sure to find something thought-provoking and interesting. That above line is from “Of books.”
I Married Adventure by Osa Johnson
“At best, life is much too short for all the work we’ve set out to do. And anyhow, I guess money isn’t very important to Osa and me…when you live in Africa, down close to the earth and the animals, you acquire a different set of values from when you live in the city. Living anywhere away from the city would do the same thing, of course. And what makes it great is that Osa feels exactly the same as I do about it.”
It was a delight to revisit Martin and Osa Johnson’s story with the Bookish Kingdom this month! I Married Adventure was our readalong/book club pick for August, and it was the perfect month for some adventuring to remote regions of the world. Martin and Osa were a husband and wife team of pioneering photographers and explorers. It’s so inspiring to hear Osa tell the story of their lives together and how courageously and matter-of-factly they faced every difficulty.
She describes the places and the individuals they encountered so that you feel as if you were right there with her, from Borneo to Kenya, from meeting the South Seas chieftain Nagapate to being guided by the “little brother to the elephants” Boculy to hosting the wealthy backer of their safari, Mr. Eastman. Side-by-side with tales of their carefully-planned expeditions, animal encounters, and photography challenges are funny little details like this one…
Mr. Eastman pretended great delight and proposed that we go home and celebrate by baking a couple of lemon pies. If this amazing man was intemperate about anything - he almost never drank - it was about lemon pie. He never ate less than two large pieces, and poor Martin, who actually disliked lemon pie, followed suit, proving to me that he could, if necessary, be a perfect host.
I’m with Martin - not really a fan of lemon pie - but now I find myself wishing I could enjoy a piece with Osa and Mr. Eastman in her beautiful dining room next to Lake Paradise! I loved Osa’s description of all the seeds she brought to Lake Paradise and how determined she was to grow a garden there. Speaking of gardening…
It has been such a joy to see so many of the plants I’ve been tending throughout these past months blooming lately, from morning glories to sunflowers to moonflowers! As the song goes, “Someone blessed these seeds I sowed.” Hopefully my flowers will continue into September, but I’m already thinking of different plants and techniques I want to try next year!
I bought a few cute pumpkin pillows at Joann’s the other day, so fall can’t be far away! I’m excited to get started on the books on my September TBR, including All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot, which is our book club/readalong pick for next month. What are you planning to read this autumn?
Glad you enjoy out of the Silent Planet, might suggest Planet Narnia by Michael Ward show how Space and Planets influence Lewis works