Egypt is certainly in the news these days, perhaps inspiring some, like me, to read about this volatile and strategic nation with such a rich heritage and history.
Nonfiction books for adults: Beneath the Sands of Egypt: Adventures of an Unconventional Archaeologist by Donald P. Ryan. Reviewed by S. Krishna. Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror by Nonie Darwish. Reviewed at Amy Reads. A Border Passage: From Cairo to America by Leila Ahmed. More Egyptian Nonfiction from The New Yorker.
Books about Egypt for children: The Day of Ahmed’s Secret by Florence Parry. Zarafa: A Giraffe’s True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris by Nancy Milton. Reviewed by Magistramater. Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile by Tomie de Paola What’s the Matter Habibi? by Betsy Lewin. Look What Came from Egypt by Harvey Miles. Franklin Watts, 1998. We’re Sailing Down the Nile by Laurie Krebs. More books for children about Egypt, a list compiled by Bernadette Simpson.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, my ruminations on the state of love, romance, and marriage in contemporary Young Adult fiction:
Boy meets girl.
Boy loses girl
Boy finds girl again.
Marriage, happily ever after.
But now it seems that the recipe for romantic comedy (in the sense of happy ending) in Young Adult novels is more like:
Boy meets girl.
Boy loses girl, or at least complications ensue.
Boy finds girl again.
Mandatory premarital sex in the penultimate chapter.
Ambiguity and lack of commitment.
I’ve read two young adult novels this past week that followed the latter formula, and although I could see it coming, it was a disappointment both times. I liked the characters in both novels. I wanted more for them than a quick coupling in a motel room or an act of incredible vulnerability and tenderness that ended in a nebulous commitment to “see where this relationship takes us.”
The problem with this ubiquitous plot outline is not that premarital sex is mentioned or portrayed or described. Of course, young people engage in premarital sex, and it’s naturally going to be a part of young adult fiction sometimes. However, the problem that I see is that young people are being trained —in books, movies, magazines and on the web– to expect that their relationships with the opposite sex will lead to one night stands and uncommitted sex. No one connects sex to marriage, either before or after the act; no one seems to want commitment or marriage. Hardly anyone expresses the idea that sex means anything. It’s a just a fun, expected thing to do together on or after a date, like walking on the beach or going to a movie. On the third date or after a certain amount of time, you are expected to have sex if you really care about someone. But don’t think that this physical act means that the relationship has entered a new level of commitment, or heaven forbid, that you and your sexual partner, whom you of course love very much, will get married, spend your lives together, and create a family.
Let me emphasize that sex is NOT what the following books are about. That’s part of the problem. Sex is an afterthought or a step in the logical progression of a relationship that may or may not last. And nobody in any of these books tells the young characters that sex is meant for marriage, that two people who are committed to each other for a lifetime can express themselves in sexual relationship in ways that go way beyond the physical and touch the spiritual. Or even that it will hurt like you-know-what to have a sexual relationship with someone and then break it off and move on. Or, on a very practical level, that STD’s are rampant, and casual sex is an excellent way to contract an STD that may become a more constant companion than the guy or girl you slept with last night.
Here are just a few of the otherwise good recent YA novels that seem to me to reinforce this idea that sex is just another bump in the road, something to be experienced whether the relationship is going to last for five months or for a lifetime: Harmonic Feedback by Tara Kelly. An autistic teen learns that sex can feel incredibly good and bring her close to the young man she loves, but neither the girl nor her paramour mentions marriage. Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. Semicolon review here. Saving Maddie by Varian Johnson. Semicolon review here. Willow by Julia Hoban. Semicolon review here. Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler. Semicolon review here. Sex as a game, recreation for the bored and the vacationing. How to Say Good-bye in Robot by Natalie Standiford. After the Moment by Garrett Freyman-Weyr.
There’s just no sense whatsoever in these books of the sacredness of a sexual relationship. Our bodies are connected to our souls. We are persons made in God’s image, and what we do with our bodies affects our entire being. Sexual coupling was intended for a committed long-term marriage relationship, and without the commitment, it’s a harmful and ultimately unfulfilling act for both the man and the woman involved. When are we going to tell teens and each other the truth about sex?
Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.†But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
Amazing story. If it weren’t so heavily footnoted and corroborated, I would find it difficult to believe such a miraculous survival story. Louis Zamperini, the subject of this riveting biography, was an Olympic runner. He won a bronze medal in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and he planned to compete in the 1940 Olympics. Louie, as he was called, was getting close to breaking the four minute mile, but World War II derailed Louis’s Olympic and world record hopes. However, the rest of the story which chronicles Louie’s experiences during and after World War II is even more astounding and transcendent than any world record in a sporting event. I don’t think I’ve ever read about anyone who survived the multiple ordeals that Zamperini was able to live through and then also managed, by the grace of God, to live a full and joyful life afterwards.
One of my urchins says she doesn’t believe in miracles. I think she’s saying she’s never heard a Voice from on high or seen a person instantly healed or witnessed the sudden appearance of manna from heaven. However, if what happened in the life of Louis Zamperini wasn’t a series of miracles, I don’t know what to call it. First of all, Louis and the pilot of his B-24 bomber survive a crash in the Pacific and forty plus days on a raft without supplies in the ocean. And it only get worse when the two Americans land on the Marshall Islands and are “rescued” by the Japanese army.
But the greatest miracle of all comes after the war is over for everyone else, when Louie is still trapped in the prison of his own mind.
No one could reach Louie, because he had never really come home. In prison camp, he’d been beaten into dehumanized obedience to a world order in which the Bird (a cruel Japanese prison guard) was absolute sovereign, and it was under this world order that he still lived. The Bird had taken his dignity and left him feeling humiliated, ashamed, and powerless, and Louie believed that only the Bird could restore him, by suffering and dying in the grip of his hands. A once singularly hopeful man now believed that his only hope lay in murder.
The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer. In seeking the Bird’s death to free himself, Louie had chained himself, once again, to his tyrant. During the war, the Bird had been unwilling to let go of Louie; after the war, Louie was unable to let go of the Bird.
This book actually brought me to tears, something that seldom happens to me while reading. I was reminded that as Corrie Ten Boom often said, “There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still.”
I was also reminded of my conviction that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary evils. The Japanese were not planning to ever surrender to the Allies. In the book, Hillenbrand tells how the POWs in Japan saw women and children being trained to defend the homeland to the last person. And the Japanese had a “kill-all policy” which ordered prison camp commanders to kill all the prisoners of war if it ever became evident that they might be rescued and repatriated. This policy was carried out in several Japanese prison camps, and “virtually every POW believed that the destruction of this city (Hiroshima) had saved them from execution.”
Man’s inhumanity to man continues on into this century, but if we are to avoid and prevent future horrors, we must remember the past. And we must be presented with stories that affirm the possibility of redemption, even from the darkest of atrocities.
Dystopian novels usually start with a dystopian premise: something has happened to change the world we know into a horrible place to live.
What if government become so big and so repressive that it controlled everyone and everything? 1984 by George Orwell.
What if everyone in the world suddenly lost their fertility and stopped having babies? What would the world be like after twenty or thirty years of no new pregnancies? Children of Men by P.D. James.
What if our world were destroyed and reconfigured by climate change and the greed of oil hungry corporations and industries? How would a future world cope with a severe scarcity of oil? Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. Semicolon review here.
What if the world seemed perfect, no hunger, no violence, no inequality? But what if the underlying mechanism that sustained the culture and kept it pure and perfect was horribly unjust and hateful? The Giver by Lois Lowry.
What if a repressive government used cyber-tools to monitor and control all dissent and to quash freedom? Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Semicolon review here.
In Epitaph Road the premise is: what if most of the men in the world were killed by a virus that only affected males, and as a consequence women ruled the world?
As it turns out, the result of getting rid of all of the men looks pretty good at first. Poverty, crime, war, and hunger have all disappeared. I happen to think Mr. Patneaude is mistaken in his predictions of what a female governed an female dominated world would look like, but it’s an interesting proposition anyway.
Kellen Dent is one of the few, the disrespected, the males. He and all of his fellow men are restricted by law to only a few possible professions and required to have “minders” with them whenever they travel. So when Kellen finds out that the virus that killed all the men in the first place is coming back and may infect his father, it’s not easy for him to find a way to warn his dad. Then, as Kellen finds out more and more about the governing authorities and what’s really going on beneath the surface of his seemingly peaceful world, he must make life-and-death decisions not only for himself but also for the people he loves and for whom he is responsible.
The best part of this novel was the way it turned everything upside down as far as gender roles and prejudice are concerned and yet at the same time it reinforced the preconceptions that we have about the real differences between men and women. In the book, the men are responsible for all the violence and crime in the world. With men a distinct minority, women are free to walk out alone in the cities without fear, to be intelligent without caring about male competition, to go anywhere, do anything. Men, on the other hand, are restricted, discriminated against, sometimes even treated as potential criminals and second-class citizens. One of the most coveted jobs for a man is sperm donor. I really liked the way the book made me think about why we need both men and women to make a vibrant God-honoring culture and about what roles men and women play in the growth of good government and cultural achievement.
The issue that I had with the novel was that it seemed to move too fast. The characters came to decisions and acted in ways for which I, as a reader, felt unprepared. I often read reviews in which the reviewer complains that the pace of the novel was “too slow” or “uneven.” I actually felt that the pace of Epitaph Road was way too rapid. I needed more time and information to get to know the characters in the novel and to understand why they acted the way they did. Kellen was generally understandable, probably because I knew him the best. The rest of the cast–Kellen’s parents, his aunt, his two female friends/accomplices–seemed to act too quickly without adequate motivation or at least without reasons that I had enough knowledge to understand.
Still, as long as I skipped over the questions about motivation and preparation, I enjoyed reading the book. I would be interested in a sequel–if it answered my “trust questions” such as why did Tia and Sunday suddenly trust Kellen enough to risk their lives for him? And why did Gunny, another character, protect some kids he didn’t know? And why did Dr. Nuyen share secrets with Kellen when she was essentially working for his enemies?
Good solid dystopian fiction for the die-hard fan.
I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.
I remember, I remember
The roses red and white,
The violets and the lily cups–
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,–
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then
That is so heavy now,
The summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.
I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now ’tis little joy
To know I’m farther off from Heaven
Than when I was a boy.
Sad poem with a kind of Thomas Hardy/A.E. Houseman feel to it. According to Wikipedia, Hood was a humorist and a poet. He liked puns and wordplay. He certainly wasn’t feeling very humorous when he wrote I Remember, but it does have an almost pleasant sort of melancholy feel to it.
Hood was friends with Victorian novelist William Makepeace Thackeray who said of Hood: “Oh sad, marvelous picture of courage, of honesty, of patient endurance, of duty struggling against pain! … Here is one at least without guile, without pretension, without scheming, of a pure life, to his family and little modest circle of friends tenderly devoted.”
Nice epitaph.
I think I ordered this YA novel from the library because it was on the list of nominees for the Cybils, Young Adult Fiction category, and I had some grandiose idea of reading several of the books that were nominated in that category after finishing the Middle Grade Fiction list. The title of this particular novel begins with “A”, and it’s about a road trip. With a premise like that, how could it miss?
(I love road trip stories. It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Road to Rio with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Rain Man with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. The TV series Route 66. The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson. Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon. However, I’ve never actually read the classic American road trip book, On the Road by Kerouac, because I’m not much for trippin’ while trippin’.)
Talk about detours. Back to Amy and Roger. I loved this book right up until Maryland. Amy is a California girl, traveling across the USA in her mom’s red Jeep Liberty, with good looking college guy Roger, designated driver for said Jeep. The two are headed for Connecticut where Amy will deliver the car to mom, and Roger will take a train to spend the summer with his dad in Philly. Of course, the two are destined to fall madly in love and live happily ever after. But there are glitches. Roger has a girlfriend, or maybe an ex-girlfriend. Amy’s just recovering, or maybe not recovering, from some mysterious traumatic event which seems to have something to do with her father’s death a couple of months before the story begins. Amy’s not too perky. Roger’s still hung up on Hadley, the beautiful, rich ex. Roger drinks root beer, and Amy drinks cream soda (until she discovers sweet tea in Kentucky). Roger listens to Dashboard Confessional, Owl City, The Lucksmiths, and many, many others I’ve never heard of. Amy listens to, believe it or not, show tunes.
Roger and May’s Epic Detour Road Trip of Discovery was fun. They discover America’s loneliest highway in Utah. Amy takes pictures of trees. They eat in lots of diners. Roger’s friend, Cheeks, shows them the best of Wichita, Kansas. They picnic on a golf course. They spend the night in a honeymoon suite, the last vacancy in town. They spend another night in the Jeep Liberty in the Walmart parking lot. Unfortunately, when the twosome get to Maryland, they’ve worked through all their psychological problems and previous entanglements , and the only thing left to do is . . . of course, go to bed together. No, the Act is not described explicitly or salaciously. Yes, the very fact of the road trip having to end this way made the book change from a book I wanted to give my sixteen year old daughter with my recommendation into a book that I wished I could have given to my sixteen year old daughter without reservations or hesitation.
I have an entire post composed in draft form about the permutations that have occurred in the old “boy meets girl” plot line. My basic premise is that instead of boy and girl overcoming obstacles and eventually getting married and living happily ever after (or not, as in Romeo and Juliet), now they overcome obstacles and fall into bed together without benefit of clergy or marriage certificate. This change in young adult (and adult) fiction is not an improvement on the old formula, and although it may or may not reflect the culture at large, it’s a sad state of affairs. I aspired to commitment and marriage, and I certainly hope my children do the same.
Obama Prayer: Prayers for the 44th President by Charles M. Garriott.
Confession time: I requested this book from the author when I received an email pitch, but then when I got it, I didn’t really want to read it. President Obama is not my favorite politician/leader, and if I read the book I’d probably be convicted about actually spending valuable time praying for the man and his presidency. Did I want to do that? And then, what if I did pray for Mr. Obama, but God didn’t do anything that I recognized as an answer to my prayers? Or, like in the story of Jonah, what if God did bring Mr. Obama and the rest of his administration to repentance and change? Would I believe it? Or would I rather see God’s wrath outpoured on those with whom I disagree both morally and politically?
Ouch. So first I prayed for my own rather faithless and vengeful heart to be changed, and then I read the book.
Each chapter of this brief but powerful book of less than 100 pages attempts to answer in various ways the question, “How then do we pray for Barack Obama, the President of the United States of America?” I was led to pray for Mr Obama’s words and decisions, for his family and the example he sets for the families of our nation, for wisdom for him and for his advisors, for him to pursue and maintain truth, for protection for him personally and for our nation, for him to display both justice and mercy in his actions and in the laws he executes. Each chapter ends with a prepared prayer that the reader can use to place before the Lord in behalf of President Obama, to intercede for him and for his government of our nation.
We are commanded as Christians to pray for our leaders. I prayed often for President George W. Bush and his administration. For President Obama, not so much. I don’t understand prayer very well, and I fail to pray for all the reasons I already confessed to, and also because sometimes I’m just lazy. However, not praying when we are told plainly to do so in the Bible is wrong, and I am determined to obey God whether I totally understand why He asks what He asks or not. So I recommend this little book to you if you are a Christian citizen of the United States who wants to to do what God commands in regard to our government and our president. I’m going to keep this book next to my Bible for the next year or two to remind me that God is in control and to help me to remember to pray for Barack Obama.
“We must keep this in mind when praying for a president. The call to pray for President Barack Obama and his administration is first of all a call to dependency on God. It is a call to respond to the work of grace within our lives. It is a reminder that in the political realm neither we nor the president are ultimately in charge.”
“I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” I Timothy 2:1-5
Still reading through south central Africa, today we’re in the country of Malawi. Malawi is another country that borders Zambia, where a group from my church will be traveling this summer to work at Kazembe Orphanage. (If you are interested in participating in this mission trip by donating books to the Kazembe Orphanage, see this post at Semicolon for details.)
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind has been billed as a story of scientific and technological innovation, but it couldjust as well be advertised as a survival story. Much of the first half of the book tells how William and his family survived a horrendous famine in 2002 brought on partly by natural disaster (drought), but also exacerbated by government ineptitude and apathy. William is unable to attend school past the primary level, since his family can only afford one communal meal per day during the famine. School fees are out of the question.
By the time the famine is over, with William’s family still too poor to send him to school, William borrows a book from the local lending library. The book, Using Energy, tells about windmills, and William sets out to build a windmill for his family to generate electricity using old bicycles, scrap metal, and tractor parts. He calls his invention, “electric wind.”
The story of how William manages to study on his own and then scrounge and save to beg, borrow, and buy the things he needs for his windmill is inspiring but also somewhat sad. Why do I have so much when others have so little? It’s amazing that William Kamkwamba was able to overcome opposition, prejudice, and a lack of education to build something that improved the life of his family. I wonder what I would have been able to make of my life without all of the advantages that I have enjoyed as a citizen of one of the richest nations in the world.
I would suggest you read the book if you’re interested at all in this sort of story; however, you can also read more about Mr. Kamkwamba and his windmill at the following websites:
Books like this one are the ones that make me unsure about calling what I do here at Semicolon “book reviews.” I’m not sure Rene Gutteridge’s thriller/mystery/adult novel Listen was all that well written, although it was certainly adequate and told a straightforward story. There were a few places where the motivations of the characters were unclear to me. And I thought the plot had a few holes in it. The characters were OK, but none of them was all that complicated or showed that much growth and change.
Nevertheless, Listen made me think about important stuff, and it held my interest all day today as I read it. And if a book makes me think, I value and recommend it. I’m not that interested in finding the picky little issues that make the book less than critically acclaimed and worthy and pointing them out to all of you (if I’m smart enough to find and articulate those problems in the first place). If that lack of attention to critical detail makes me a bad reviewer, then maybe I’m not really a reviewer. Maybe I’m just a book talker. Or a book discusser.
So, now that I’ve got that distinction off my chest, Listen by Rene Gutteridge made me think about words and the power of words and about gossip and privacy and about what we should post on the Internet and how seriously we should take the words of others posted on blogs or Facebook or Twitter for all to see. I have a friend who posted some pictures on her Facebook page a few months ago. Some people in her church didn’t like the pictures, or the captions that went with them, and didn’t think they were appropriate. These people took their concerns to the church leadership instead of to the young lady in question. The entire matter became a huge Issue, and a lot of people were hurt. Some of them are still hurting.
Listen deals with this problem of words and how accusations and indiscreet words can hurt, especially when those allegations and loose words become public and get distorted by gossip and hearsay. In the book, someone is posting private conversations verbatim on the internet. People start reading and see their own words and words about themselves, and people get hurt and lose trust in one another. The website in the book, called www.listentoyourself.net, is made up of random private conversations that the website author somehow manages to overhear and transcribe. Nevertheless, even though this is a book about the power of the internet, it’s also a book about a problem as old as humanity itself–the power of the tongue and of words to both heal and harm.
When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. James 3:3-9
What do you think? What should we do about words that we see and read on the internet? If you see words that you think are harmful to either the person posting them or to others, how do you respond? If the words are public (on the internet), should your response also be public? What if the words have nothing to do with you? Is it still your business?Should you insert yourself, either publicly or privately, into a conflict that others are having in a public forum? If so, when? Should people say things in private that they would be embarrassed to have made public for all to see? Should we say everything (on Facebook, for instance) that we’re thinking as long as we don’t think it will hurt anyone else? What kind of power do words have? Where do you draw the line in sharing personal details about your life on your blog or on other websites? How can we tame our tongues so as not to hurt and wound others?
If you’ve read Listen, you may have even more insight into some of these questions. If you’re concerned with these sorts of problems and issues, you may want to pick up a copy of Rene Gutteridge’s thought-provoking book.
3. Check out the finalists announcement at the Cybils blog. Winners of the Cybils Awards for Children’s and Young Adult Literature are announced every year of Valentine’s Day.
17-26. More recommended novels about love and marriage: The Love Letters by Madeleine L’Engle. Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins Random Harvest by James Hilton Green Mansions by WH Hudson. ““Our souls were near together, like two raindrops side by side, drawing irresistibly nearer, ever nearer; for now they had touched and were not two, but one inseparable drop, crystallised beyond change, not to be disintegrated by time, nor shattered by death’s blow, nor resolved by any alchemy.†Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Yes. Heathcliff and Cathy were actually the worst of lovers –capricious, unfaithful while remaining bonded to one another, but let’s not quibble. “I am Heathcliff!” says Cathy, and what better description of the marriage of two souls is there in literature? Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Jane and Mr. Rochester are as radically faithful and loving in their own way as Cathy and Heathcliff imagine themselves to be. And they actually get together before they die, surely an advantage for lovers. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy are the epitome of lovers in tension that finally leads to consummation. Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers. Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane are such a hesitant, battle-scarred pair of lovers that thye almost don’t get together at all, but that’s what makes the series of romance-within-a mystery novels that culminates in Gaudy Night so very romantic. They’ve used the same formula in TV series ever since, but Sayers is much better than any Remington Steele (Laura and Remington) or Cheers (Sam and Diane). And Ms. Sayers was even able to write a credibly interesting epilogue novel in Busman’s Honeymoon, which is better than the TV writers can do most of the time. At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon. Who says love is only for the young? Father Tim and Cynthia make it through thick and thin and through five or six books, still in love, still throwing quotations at one another. They’re great lovers in the best sense of the word.
27. My Love Song Playlist (very retro–70’s) The Twelfth of Never by Donnie Osmond. Cherish by David Cassidy and the Partridge Family. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As ev’ry fairy tale comes real
I’ve looked at love that way
I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It’s love’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know love at all. ~Joni Mitchell
I Honestly Love You by Olivia Newton John. Evergreen by Barbra Streisand. Can’t Help Falling in Love With You by Elvis Presley. Laughter in the Rain by Neil Sedaka. L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole.
28-34. Recommended Movies for Valentine’s Day Marty. “Ernest Borgnine (Oscar for Best Actor) stars as a 35 year old Italian butcher who’s still not married in spite of the fact that all his younger brothers and sisters have already tied the knot.” It Happened One Night. Clark Gable is a reporter in this romantic comedy about a run-away rich girl. Much Ado About Nothing. Kenneth Branaugh and Emma Thompson. The reparte between Benedick and Beatrice is so memorable that you may find yourself quoting Shakespeare in spite of yourself. My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I really loved the fact that Ian knew that he was not just marrying a girl but also her family. The Princess Bride. Romance at its finest and funniest. “That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying ‘As you wish’, what he meant was, ‘I love you.’ And even more amazing was the day she realized she truly loved him back.” You’ve Got Mail. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are a great pair. Romeo and Juliet. The Franco Zefferelli version.
53. If you didn’t manage to send out Christmas cards or a Christmas letter, or even if you did, use Valentine’s Day as an excuse to communicate with family and friends by sending out a Valentine card and family letter.
60. Make a list of fifty famous couples (Romeo and Juliet, Adam and Eve, Isaac and Rebekah, Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler). Put each name on a separate slip of paper or card and see how many your kids can match together.
65. Have a “Golden Girls Valentine’s Day Party” for the over sixty ladies in your church, your family, or your neighborhood. From The Common Room.
66. 1968 movie: The Love Bug with Dean Jones, Michele Lee, and Buddy Hackett. Herbie the Volkswagon Beetle with a mind of its own inspires love wherever he goes.
73. Give out valentines to all your friends and neighbors with these verses printed on them: “Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God, and everyone who loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love.†I John 4:7-8
