Morning Musings

Independence day is coming (Friday) and I am planning at least three blog posts for that day. One will be about our Christian heritage and the part it played in the formation of the Bill of Rights. One will be about the American Empire and how we differ from the historic empire model. The last will be a post on defining the American dream. Don't miss that last one.

In the meantime you might have noticed the list in the side-bar of books I am reading right now. A word on those:

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt is considered one of the best biographies of TR available. Edmund Morris received, I believe, a pullitzer for it. If I'm not mistaken it was also made into a movie starring Leonardo DiCapprio which would explain why I haven't bothered watching. But the book is excellent and I am taking my time with it. Not that it isn't a page-turner, it is that, but I have so much on my plate that I only read it on weekends when I'm at my folks' house and I set a course to complete it by the end of the year. It covers T-Rex's life from birth through his election as President. It is the first volume of a planned trilogy of which only the first two have been written thus far. The second is called Theodore Rex.

The Hobbit I have read at least four times already--once as a 7th grader, again as a young adult, then aloud to my oldest son when he was in kindergarten, and now to my younger son who will be in kindergarten next year.

The Confessions of St. Augustine is a classic which everyone should read. My copy was published by Moody. It is the edition edited by Dr. Paul Bechtel in 1981, working primarily with an edition translated from the Latin by Anglican clergyman E.B. Pusey (1800-1882). Those of you who grew up with the King James Version of the Bible will feel right at home with this translation for it has the same style of language. I will blog more on this book.

The Case for Christ I have mentioned in a previous blogpost. Nearly done with it I hope to put it back on the shelf this weekend.

Pawn of Prophecy--pure escapism. I read this series of books when I was a teenager and completely taken by the fantasy genre. I picked it back up to see if it could still maintain its captivating spell now that I'm a more mature reader. So far not bad. Better than some I have returned to after twenty-plus years.