A Little of What We've Been Reading and Watching Lately...

Books:

I just started reading Hallie Lord's Style, Sex and Substance: 10 Catholic Women Consider the Things that Really Matter and am really enjoying it (lots of laugh-out-loud stuff as well as some most excellent substance). Avoided the sold-out-on-first-day-on-Amazon problem by getting it on Kindle. ;)

I'm also enjoying Fr. James Martin's Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life. It is quite good and true and VERY FUNNY, but I knew I'd like it as I heard him give a talk on the same subject in Milwaukee last year.

I did finish the aforementioned Seek First the Kingdom: Challenging the Culture by Living Our Faith by Cardinal Wuerl. It's an excellent book.

And it seems like I'm always, slowly, re-reading Caryll Houselander's beautiful classic The Reed of God.



Movies:

Downton Abbey - John and I watched the entire first two seasons (all that's available so far) in about 10 days last month. Quite enjoyable in many ways, though there were a few spots early on where I began to wonder if it was going to turn out to be a soap opera. Really quite the contrary - excellent character development, historical perspective (how many World War I era dramas set in England have you watched or read?), etc. etc. For those not in the know, it's not a story for the whole family, though we are now watching and discussing our way through it with some of our teens.

The Way - I very much enjoyed this movie. I love stories about the intersection of modern secular culture with the faith - especially when they don't take their ideas too seriously. I also found all of the on-location stuff along El Camino de Santiago to be very fascinating and beautiful. Makes me want to make trek myself one day.

Midnight in Paris - This was a fun, quirky movie with some rather lovely ideas and dialogue scattered throughout. I don't want to spoil the plot, so I will say very little, but I do rather enjoy movies that seem to embrace a healthy melding of idealism with the beauty of reality.

Moneyball - Great story, especially for those who love baseball. It's funny, though, how off-putting the name is. For a quite a long time I suffered from the misconception that it was some sort of documentary on how baseball is financed (ugh!). I also have to admit, as a life-long San Francisco Giants fan, that it was a really odd sensation to find myself rooting for the Oakland A's. ;