A List Of New Things

Here's a few things about me that have changed in the last few years. They may or may not affect what I write about on Boni Libri. I've already noticed that I'm writing fewer reviews and more opinion pieces based on books... Perhaps this is a new direction for me! Anyway, the new things await.

1. I have doubled the size of my collection of books. I moved away from my parents in September 2013, leaving about 200-300 books behind. Hopefully they will one day join me here in Ottawa... Over the last couple of years, however, I have amassed another 300-odd books which follow me around college residences in wine boxes. Thankfully, my roommate understands (she has a pretty sizable collection herself) and we converted a closet into a library back in September. The picture below shows a good portion of the current books, but doesn't include the piles scattered around the room or the ones on our desk and dressers. Maybe we have a problem...

2. I am getting married in July. Yes, me, the girl who was going to be a nun and never have relationships with anyone. I did eventually realise that being a nun was not a good way to fix my problems with humanity, though, and when a handsome and lovely young man appeared on the scene I was open to giving a relationship a chance! We started going out in October 2013, he proposed on January 1, 2015 (with a book, appropriately enough!) and we'll be married this summer. Its going to be fun merging our collections of books, as I have (ahem) a lot and he has a goodly number of his own. 

3. I became Catholic in September. Hehehe... this is an interesting one to explain to people. I did once resolve that I would be a nun, but never Catholic, however, God has other plans and I'm now Catholic and not a nun. The road to this decision was very long and complicated and involved a mixture of prayer, talking to older Christians, reading, and visiting different churches. Technically, I'm Anglican Use Catholic, which refers to a group of churches that left the Anglican church and went back to Rome. They've kept the unique and beautiful tradition of Anglicanism, with the prayer book and a few other things, but are fully Catholic. I have felt a lot of peace since making the switch, although it was a hard one to make, but I think it is where God wants me. 

4. I did Augustine College... and lived. Some of you may have heard of Augustine College in Ottawa, Ontario. Its a tiny one-year liberal arts program that studies the history of Western culture and ideas. My class was only ten people, which is about average, and we all did the same classes: Philosophy, Art History, Greek or Latin, Literature, Science, Medicine and Faith, Scriptures, Church History, Music, and Augustine's Confessions. It was an amazing year, not just because the classes were excellent, but also because the community living and friendship aspect was so good for me. After being homeschooled it was a big change, but it was a helpful change and one that needed to happen. I will have to do a post just on Augustine College sometime, as the things I learned have influenced my life, faith and thinking so deeply. 

5. I'm still learning. And always will, hopefully for the rest of my life. After Augustine I got a job nannying, but that didn't complicate my life enough, so I started taking a few classes as well during the winter semester at Dominican University College. I'm finished now, but the classes were really good and very much helped me grow and continue to learn. I was surprised that not only did I gain new knowledge, but the classes I've been taking have been helping with my faith too. Dominican only does philosophy and theology and the professors, most of whom are Dominican friars, have devoted their lives to studying and teaching their specific areas, so it has been a great environment to learn in. There's something very beneficial, I think, about learning in a place where theology is taught not just as knowledge about God, but as knowledge in order that we might know God and our own world better. 

6. Things are still really hard. I am technically a grown-up and all of these good things have happened to me, but it is still challenging to live well and to put certain things behind me. I tried to do it on my own last year, as I was in a strong community, away from home and from some difficult aspects of my life for the first time, but something I've come to realise is that I'm not meant to 'do life' on my own. That is what being a Christian, part of the body of Christ, is. So, this past year has been quite difficult as I'm figuring out how to navigate life both in community and on my own. Also, something I learned from Augustine College has stuck with me: that Christians do not belong on earth,We are pilgrims headed for a higher goal and as such we cannot expect the world to be easy or even to feel at home in it because, really, our home is somewhere outside of this world, in God's presence.

Morning in the Riesengebirge - Caspar David Friedrich

Terry Pratchett

One of the authors that my tastes have expanded to in the last few years is Terry Pratchett and his extraordinary creation, Discworld. I'd been leaving science fiction and fantasy alone for a while, something which I will explain in a post of its own someday, but I was encouraged to give Pratchett a try as it was so different to most of what I had encountered before. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the first book and have continued to devour the books in rapid succession. I'm now well into the series and very much enjoying the varied Discworld tales, often as light relief from the theology books and the extremely heavy early twentieth-century novels I'm into currently.

Pratchett, who became Sir Terry in 2009, was born in 1948 and from an early age used his lively imagination to write stories, even having some of them published. Headed towards being a journalist, he continued to write and be published while otherwise employed and it was only after a stint as a press officer that he wrote the first Discworld novel, The Colour Of Magic, which came out in 1983. By the time the fourth Discworld novel came out in 1987 Pratchett was a full-time author. He continued to create Discworld novels at a rate of about two a year, with forty being the current total as of April 2015. In 2007 Pratchett was diagnosed with Early-Onset Alzheimers, which seriously affected his writing, although he continued to write books and collaborate with other authors until his death on March 12, 2015.¹ 

Terry Pratchett's creative genius is evident even from the early stories he published as a teenager. In 'The Hades Business' (A Blink Of The Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction, Corgi Books, 2012), written by an eleven year old Pratchett, the beginnings of what would become Discworld are already present. Thus, in addition to the 'canon' of Discworld novels, I can heartily recommend his early fiction and other works, including collaborations with other authors. Good Omens in particular, which was written with Neil Gaiman, is well worth a read.

As flights of fantasy and the height of whimsy as well as comic commentaries on the world the Discworld novels are still very easy to read, fairly short and quite manageable for many reading levels. The prose is likewise accessible and engaging, while also being very witty and well-written, with many jokes and small details which make the books an interesting and hilarious read for readers of many different strengths and backgrounds. In addition, to the reader familiar with British culture and history, there are many extra details which betray the author's skill and brilliance with comic prose. Pratchett's characters are also more well-rounded and better represented that in some fantasy books, especially as a character can appear in more that one book due to the sheer number of volumes in the series.

Although the prose is not difficult and the fantasy element may be considered childish by some, the Discworld books are not for the very young, as the comic reference and comment on culture and society side of things can be both a little complex and perhaps more mature than, say, C.S Lewis. The books are probably best enjoyed when one has seen a little of the world and can begin to poke fun at it. In addition, many of the subjects commented upon, such as Death, or systems of government, or policing, need some prior understanding in order for the comic element to be best encountered. That being said, there is some considerable depth to the Discworld books and they stand up to multiple readings quite well.

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1 Biographical information drawn from the BBC, Guardian, and Telegraph online obituaries and memorial articles.