Reading Through the Centuries Project: Black Beauty

So y'alls, guess what? A year late...I met my goal of reading Black Beauty! Hoo boy, that's right, it only takes me a year to finish reading a book normally assigned to school children.

Goals: I meet them.

Now I can watch the movie that I got "for the family" last Christmas- I told myself I wouldn't watch it until I finished the book. Clearly it wasn't enough motivation to get the thing finished quickly. I will give a report on how the movie is. Hopefully it won't take me a year to watch.

My verdict on the book- worth reading. It's a really interesting historical lesson in the living conditions of people and horses in different social circumstances in the middle of the nineteenth century. I think it definitely served Anna Sewell's purpose of informing her contemporaries about things they might not have realized were cruel or inhumane- and might have made people think about the way they treated the animals they used on a daily basis. For example, the popular custom of making carriage horses wear 'bearing reins'.

These reins, which by themselves are not necessarily cruel, but when over-tightened- which was the fashion during this era- forced horses to carry their heads unnaturally high- cutting off the horses' breath and placing serious strain on their neck muscles. Sewell devoted a lot of the book to mentioning these reins and describing their effects on the horses- they went out of style in her lifetime, I wonder how much affect Black Beauty had on that- the book was very successful at the time it was published.

It's a really quick read- not that you'd know it from my pace, but the chapters are short and easy to read. If you're looking for something to read, try it- it's free on most e-readers too! Score!

Anna Sewell- ca. 1878

I Made It To Another Book!

(Notice I said "To" another book and not "Through" another book.)

How goes the Read Through the Centuries Project you ask? GREAT! I read The Scarlet Letter!

Oh hey....did that not impress you? Are you sitting there saying..."Wait...didn't you read that back in 2010?" and then did you think "and waaaait...didn't you say you were going to do some follow up on it once you finished?"

Yes and yes.

I read it awhile ago- what can I say, I'm slow. As for follow up....here it is:

I read it! It was good! You should read it! Don't let your Tenth Grade Self tell you it was stupid and boring! Your tenth grade self doesn't know what he/she is talking about! 

There's my follow-up. That is probably going to be what 'follow-up' will look like for this project. If I give myself too many responsibilities like Writing More Than Three Sentences- I'm going to quit. I just know it. We don't want that. So we are going to institute a "Did You Like It? Check Yes Or No" policy on the rest of the books in the project. I will write more if I'm moved to do so, if not, then not.

Plus, the point is just to read a variety of books, not to get all academic and whatevs. Not that there is anything wrong with that of course.

So ON to the next book!  Which is...(drum roll)...Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin. I picked that up in the library today. I was a history major in college (which probably explains this project) with a concentration in African American Studies (who knew right?!) so this book practically jumped off the shelf and said READ ME.

And who am I to turn down some poor lonely book when it just wants to be read and loved? No sir, I will not reject a book that throws itself at me in that way. 

Ok, so that might be an exaggeration. The book just informed me that it "in no way threw itself at me like some cheap paperback romance and that if I don't tell the real story its going to march it's cute little binding back to the shelf from whence it came".

Well ok, Book. I'll tell the "real" story. I was the one seduced by the shiny cover and the interesting sounding write up on the back. There. Happy now? Geez...books these days.

Although, I seem to remember that it MIGHT have shimmied itself a little in my direction. I refuse to take all the responsibility.

Anyway, I will start reading it as soon as I finish rereading The Memory Keeper, which I'm almost finished. I read that one before I had a kid, so its proving interesting to read again afterward. Its a good one. I recommend it. (And its recent for all you Don't Like Old Books people).

Now, thanks to this post, all I'm going to be thinking about for the rest of the day is why book is pronounce book and not b-ew-k. Cause that's how its spelled. English- who wrote the rules for this language?!

Update: Reading Through the Centuries Project

I am still working on Black Beauty and will post at least once more on that one before I’m through with it. I use it as a springboard for my Victorian Era horsemanship studies, so it’s not just a pick up and read through kind of book since I make notes as I go.

I read a couple of modern books over the Christmas holiday, I read Broken by Lisa Jones, which is a really interesting book about the author’s friendship with a Arapaho healer and horse trainer in Wyoming. I recommend it. I am also still working through Women Who Run with the Wolves, which I read when I am in the mood for self reflection and working on my psyche.

I started another book for the Read Through the Centuries Project, which is The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I read this one before, but it was in the tenth grade and I must say that I’m probably getting way more out of it now than I did when I was 15. I don’t remember much about what I thought of it back then- it isn’t one of the ones that I remember hating vehemently (Dangling Man is one of those) so I probably thought it was ok; but the fact that I don’t remember too much about it means that I didn’t get as much out of it as I should have.

The reason I picked it is because I found it in my boxes of books in the basement and it meant that I couldn’t have to a) leave the house and b) spend any money. Although, it doesn’t seem like I spent much on it when I did buy it- the version I have is the Dover Thrift Edition, which according to the back cost $1.00. We’re big spenders over here at casa Hope.

I’m currently on chapter ten of The Scarlet Letter and I’m really enjoying it. It is a really good book. I mean, I realize that it’s a ‘Classic’ and there must be a reason that high school students across the country are forced to read it; but I tell ya, that Nathaniel Hawthorne really knew how to weave a tale.

The symbolism and the commentary on the human soul…Deep, man. Deep.

What I will probably do with the books in the RTCP, is a brief background post (key word being brief) and then a post or two of my favorite quotes or passages. I’m not a book critic, and summaries are boring (and I’d rather people, you know, read the book), so I feel like giving some background and then some good quotes struck me as a fair enough plan. Then I won’t get overwhelmed and feel like I’m doing book reports. It’s not that serious- I’m really just trying to get myself to read interesting stuff I might not pick up otherwise.

So, there you have it. I will continue reading, and if you don’t have a book currently in progress, might I recommend The Scarlet Letter?