The Latin-Centered Curriculum

When I need a break from the endless reading that seems to come with classically educating my daughter, I pull out Thackeray's Vanity Fair. Have you read Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth? Fabulous! Fabulous! Fabulous!

I've started reading Elizabeth Peters (aka Barbara Michaels, aka Barbara Mertz). The books she writes under this psuedonym are primarily mysteries based in Egypt in the early 1900s (featuring an egyptologist family, as well as Howard Carter, et al.). They are somewhat reminiscent of Agatha Christie. As Barbara Michaels she writes neo-gothic mystery novels. Very much brain candy, though. :)

Heather
Mama to Mary (9), Ian (5), and Alistair (3.5)

I probably wouldn't have mentioned it, but your description of favorite "escape" reading fits this book perfectly. I just read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It's a novel about Dracula, so it is medieval, historical, and a supernatural thriller. The book is about Vlad Tepes, the historical figure the name Dracula comes from. The characters run across him and get into a bit of trouble while conducting some historical research, and then have to track down his grave to finish him off. There is a lot of history of Eastern Europe especially around the time of the Ottoman invasion and capture of Constantinople. The suspense comes from tracking down historical documents all over Europe that give clues about who he was, how he became a vampire, and what happened to his body. I liked quite a bit of it, but I feel it wasn't as good as it should have been. It was fun, I liked the characters and the history, but I didn't like it as much as my friend did. I just thought I'd let you know about it.

I just ordered Climbing Parnassus, so that's next on my list. In the mean time, I'm rereading some of Richard Mitchell's books on the internet. I'm in the middle of The Gift of Fire. His books are free on the internet: http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/. If you've never heard of The Underground Grammarian, you are missing out on a lot of laughs. Richard Mitchell was modern education's greatest and most hilarious critic. His book The Gift of Fire is about his idea of a true education. I just finished the chapter The Right Little Thing where he explains why Jesus was the best model of an educator.

Angilee

Paradise Lost. I have to admit that Milton has never been one of my favorite writers, and to my shame, I hadn't managed to make it all the way through Paradise Lost until now. I'm still not fond of him, but I did come away with an increased respect for him as a poet.

The next thing on my list is to revisit Tennyson's Idylls of the King. I read it in graduate school, i.e., in a flurry, and have always meant to come back to it with more leisure. It's only taken me 15 years... ;)

-Drew

***
"I wonder how far I shall carry any opinion with me when I plead for active effort to revive the general use of Latin?" - Hilaire Belloc
***