Week Five of the 2013 Book Challenge

I finished Evening in the Palace of Reason a day late and in spite of several major distractions.  As predicted, the alternating story lines were distracting at times, but given the fact that I was reading in short spurts it turned out to be a blessing.  I was able to stop and consider each section before moving on.

The chapters on Frederick the Great filled in the dry facts of history and were easy reading.  However, the technical discussion of musical techniques was rather more difficult.  I was reading a "real" book and kept jumping up to read the large dictionary.  There is something to be said for the Kindle dictionary! 

My thanks to The College Student for the loan of his Kaplan cd's of Three Sonatas and Three Partitas for Solo Violin.  I think, perhaps, it is time to add to my music library and see if Professor Robert Greenburg does Bach.

I found several things worth copying in my new commonplace book; two are repeated here:

"Some thought the celestial music was abstract, an ephemeral spiritual object, but others insisted that it was real, inaudible to us only because it had been sounding constantly in the background from the time of our birth."  p. 49  ~Evening in the Palace of Reason James R. Gaines

"Luther's mandate for music to deliver 'sermons in sound' had several important results over time.  It gave new life to an ancient connection between musical composition and classical rhetoric, which after all shared music's new purpose of moving an audience in a particular direction." p. 81  ~Evening in the Palace of Reason James R. Gaines

The second book I finished was a repeat:  Whose Body?  (Dorothy L. Sayers)  I missed a Kindle Daily Deal for Gaudy Night but found two other Lord Peter books and a collection of short stories.  Of course, I had to buy them. It is my duty to collect Wimsey for The College Student whether in print or e-book!

I found this gem which set off my Charlotte Mason radar:

"...but Lord Peter found himself confronted with a surly manner and what Lord Beaconsfield described as a masterly inactivity."  ~Whose Body?  Dorothy L. Sayers

It was a busy week; I found a Kindle edition of Richmond Lattimore's Odyssey on the 100 Books for $3.99 or less page to go with my "real" copy.  I also bought the Kindle version of The Diamond Age (Neal Stephenson) for my Week Six reading.  That and the Sherlock Holmes collection I found in January should keep me busy for awhile.