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Joel J Miller's avatar

This is delightful. There is nothing better than a list. What are the days of creation other than God’s to-do list. Check. Good. Check. Good. Etc. Augustine said God created the entire world simultaneously but expressed it as a list for the sake of our ease in understanding.

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Grace Hamman's avatar

Augustine, man. He is just too good sometimes.

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Melody's avatar

If you need a fiction win, might I recommend The Feast by Margaret Kennedy (1949)? It's a seven deadly sins allegory, so a bit of a catalog (but you have to figure out who's who), and it's set on the Cornish coast in the summer. It got me out of a fiction slump earlier this year, fresh as a sea breeze!

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Ann Kennedy Smith's avatar

Agreed - I loved that book a couple of years ago. Must dig it out again as the perfect summer read (if we dare catalogue it in that way...)

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Grace Hamman's avatar

I DO need a fiction win. This book has come across my radar before but I forgot about it. Will definitely track down a copy!

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Melody's avatar

It was recently put back in print by McNally Editions, if that helps! :)

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Catherine Nunan's avatar

I have downloaded a sample on Kindle to peruse. Thank you.

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Grace Hamman's avatar

Excellent! I think I had tried to track down a used copy a couple of years ago so that's great news.

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Jennifer A. Newton-Savard's avatar

Chaucer’s catalog of birds in “The Parlement of Foules” :-)

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Grace Hamman's avatar

Yessss!

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Catherine Nunan's avatar

Oh brother Chetwyn! What a prayer. I join you in asking the same. That is so encouraging, to know that such human thoughts and the way they are expressed, transcend centuries. Brothers indeed. I also noticed that Mary is sitting in the middle of that gorgeous illustration and that she has the scripture on her lap. I always forget that she was there, and it was with her that the others gathered, in that room, to pray and wait. I am going to read the Plough article you recommended too. Like you, the last few weeks have been a bit 'ho hum' as far as fiction goes and so I am re reading from my own shelves. Some months are indeed like that.

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Grace Hamman's avatar

That's so funny, I thought the same thing about Mary in the upper room. I forget that the women were there as well. A beautiful reminder. And I'm glad you love Chetwyn's prayer. I related so much to it! Have thought about it a lot since seeing it in that manuscript.

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Lucy Seton-Watson's avatar

Old English catalogue poems in the Exeter Book

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Grace Hamman's avatar

So good!

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Lindley Traynor's avatar

This beautiful meditation is a gift to me today. Thank you, Grace!

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Grace Hamman's avatar

Thank you for your kind words!

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Ann Kennedy Smith's avatar

This is delightful, Grace. You had me at the subtitle (I do love the university library catalogue) and I was intrigued to think of it as a literary device too.

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Grace Hamman's avatar

Another wonderful catalog, indeed!

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