Are there any fundies who actually read?

[alba]

The ones who do read widely are often obnoxious about it. Books like G.A. Henty and Elsie Dinsmore, etc that reinforce patriarchy and dominionsim. Almost always inapplicable to real life, just puffing up their grandiose ideas of proper society. What the one blogger (My Lady Bibliophile) said about how books that promote strong girls and women are annoying to her - that's what i encountered in our homeschool circles. So companies like Vision Forum found old Victorian fiction to reprint that fit their ideals. But thankfully my Dad and Mom didn't really have a problem with mainstream books. They only banned witchcraft and trendy culture genres. Mystery and adventure were fine. My mom loves John Grisham books, although she wouldn't let me read a few of them until i was older, due to some of the content. Michael Crichton was another favorite. The Cat Who... mysteries, and James Herriot. Fundies could learn a lot from James Herriot about real life and learning how to live in harmony with people who have different lifestyles. Mom went through and blacked out all the cussing. :lol: And i also got into sci-fi I wrote a fan letter to one of the authors of a really great book and illustrated it with a bunch of spacecraft drawings in pencil, and he sent back a signed postcard made out of the cover of one of his other book series. Probably just the standard thing authors did for fan mail in the 90's but it definitely was exciting back then.

How could I forget Elsie Dinsmore? I've never read her books, but I've seen them discussed before.

ETA: All this talk of blacking out profanity reminds me of something my mum told me. She's a librarian, and for a while they had a problem with a patron blacking out profanity in their books. This individual got their hands on Trainspotting. One wonders what was left :lol:

To the bolded: I was surprised by a couple posts in this thread mentioning reading classics, because there are so many that are not fundie-friendly: half the Canterbury Tales, most of Shakespeare, Austen, even much of Dickens. I suppose that if parents/church leaders screen books first, though, that takes away the risk that your kid will read something scandalous.

From what I've read lurking around here off and on, I'm thinking that I would be classified as fundie-light.

My top ten books list would include Animal Farm, the Scarlet Pimpernel, Northanger Abbey (one of Jane Austen's less well-known books) and The Long Winter (Laura Ingalls Wilder), along with some Christian biographies like The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. I also enjoy reading popular history books and historical fiction such as the Hornblower series.

I am picky about content, in that I don't tolerate more than a small amount of swearing (which often gets whited out if I'm going to keep it), avoid explicit violent content, and prefer to avoid sexual content, though in some good historical fiction (The Sunne in Splendour) where it's not a huge part of the book, I'll just white-out those parts. I can find plenty to read for myself and for my children. We have 7 full-size bookcases full of books.

Edited to change bookshelves to bookcases for clarity.

Oh, Northanger Abbey's my *favourite* Austen book. Did you read Val McDermid's modern rendition? I LOVED it. I know some people aren't keen on the idea of "updating" Austen, but I was intrigued by the concept and really impressed with the book (I haven't read the other Austen Project books yet, though).

To play devil's advocate,I am a reader but don't have a bookcase in my house. They are all digital. Even our public library allows you check out books by downloading them. I prefer reading on my tablet to actual books. I only have a few physical books because they have sentimental value.

I don't have a bookcase, either. I actually do have a lot of print books (I have this mental block about buying something wholly digital, so the books on my e-reader are either library books or public domain books), just nowhere to put bookcases, so they're stuffed on shelves, the mantelpiece, piled on the floor, basically wherever they fit. I like to think it looks like an eccentric professor's house. Mr. Alba probably thinks it looks like a pigsty.

[VodouDoll]

Henry Tilney is my favorite Austen hero for sure. He's the only one with a real sense of humor.

[busybee]

I guess I'm a little confused, busybee. If you white out the swearing and sexually explicit parts of your books, then you've read the swear words and sexually explicit passages in order to know where to put the white out. If that's the case, why redact it for yourself? You've already read it!

Very few of the books I read have sex scenes, but if they do, it's usually relatively mild. I just skim and read a few words every few paragraphs to find where the scene ends. If there's much sexual content, then it's just not my type of book. For profanity, I grew up in a relatively mainstream home but profanity wasn't used and it wasn't among my friends either. It's not something that I'm at all tempted to say. So, I'm not worried about occasional exposure, though I prefer not to read it so mark it out for the next time or for my kids to read sometime. Of course, the above assumes I'm keeping a book.

[busybee]

Oh, Northanger Abbey's my *favourite* Austen book. Did you read Val McDermid's modern rendition? I LOVED it. I know some people aren't keen on the idea of "updating" Austen, but I was intrigued by the concept and really impressed with the book (I haven't read the other Austen Project books yet, though).

I'd never heard of it before. I'll take a look at it on Amazon. Thanks.

[FoxyMoxie]

I think it may be more of an ATI/VF divide. The Coghlan kids seem very well-read for instance. The VF crowd also seem fairly relaxed about secular films - lots of them are into old Westerns, 40s/50s movies etc.

[HereticHick]

To play devil's advocate,I am a reader but don't have a bookcase in my house. They are all digital. Even our public library allows you check out books by downloading them. I prefer reading on my tablet to actual books. I only have a few physical books because they have sentimental value.

As a librarian, I am very aware of digital options, but I don't think the Duggars are using them, and as I said, there is no evidence that Duggars use the public library. As far as I know there has never been any references or photo evidence of any Duggar with any type of e-reader device. The only audiotext I've seen Duggars refer to is listening to sermons.

And I am also referring to the early Duggar specials which were filmed before ereaders, like Kindles, became widely available.

[Coco]

Did your mom realize how liberal Grisham's books are as is Grisham himself?

There's a diary on Daily Kos about it that was posted a few days ago.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/1 ... howAll=yes

I can't wait to read Gray Mountain where John takes on mountaintop removal. (FYI, mountain top removal is an absolutely environmentally devastating method of coal mining. It takes strip mining to a whole 'nuther level.)

I think so. The Pelican Brief is one of her favorites. Mine are The Runaway Jury and The Client. My mom is a strange paradox of ideals. :lol: My family's journey into fundie-ism was mostly to protect us kids from over-exposure to what they thought were ungodly things in public school, plus my mom is a minimalist/luddite and loves anything Amish. (and my dad is so easy-going he wanted her to be happy and could see the good in fundie belief) So being a fundie (the headcovering and frumper type) was a perfect fit. But she still loved a good novel. :D She still believes most of the same things, except she has worn pants to go jeeping with my dad a few times. They don't judge us kids for changing, and i really respect that about them.

Anyway, reading books like those made it difficult to relate to the other girls my age who were mostly stuck on wholly approved hobbies and thinking. :lol:

Gray Mountain sounds interesting. I loved A Painted House. I like how he's going in other directions than just the lawyer-suspense fighting the system storyline.

[Coco]

Another really great series for fundie kids to read would be the Little Britches series by Ralph Moody. Anything that helps those kids see that the rules they're bound in are not the only way to live...

[JMarie]

There's My Lady Bibliophile! She read 46 books last year.

ladybibliophile.blogspot.com

She may read (and write), but that doesn't make her smart.

{L_OFFTOPIC} :

As I'm writing my own historical fiction, I'm having my doctors use several medicines that are neither ethical nor safe by today's standards. Since they live in WW1, I can only allow them to know what doctors would have known then. For instance, heroin was often used for different means than it would be used for today. They'd be very bad doctors by 21st century standards; but by 19th century standards they're using the latest and greatest. I'm as yet unpublished, so I don't know if I'll be allowed to keep that through the final draft, but I'm going to try.

WW1 isn't a place. It's, um, a war. She could have said WW1-era United States or WW1-era Britain. And World War I took place between 1914 and 1918, the 20th century.

I couldn't bring myself to read past the first page of her blog.

[alba]

I think it may be more of an ATI/VF divide. The Coghlan kids seem very well-read for instance. The VF crowd also seem fairly relaxed about secular films - lots of them are into old Westerns, 40s/50s movies etc.

Oh, that's a good point. Didn't VF do that whole Titanic centenary back in 2012? I could totally see classics and even some historical fiction being practically required reading by that crowd.

[nellautumngirl]

As a librarian, I am very aware of digital options, but I don't think the Duggars are using them, and as I said, there is no evidence that Duggars use the public library. As far as I know there has never been any references or photo evidence of any Duggar with any type of e-reader device. The only audiotext I've seen Duggars refer to is listening to sermons.

And I am also referring to the early Duggar specials which were filmed before ereaders, like Kindles, became widely available.

The Duggars may not read now, but they had a bookshelf at some point. Maybe gifts from grandparents and friends for the children?

[formergothardite]

My parents always encouraged us to read and let us read things that many other fundie families wouldn't approve of. Of course we weren't supposed to read things with cuss words or sex scenes, but making those things off limits just made us try harder to sneak in non-approved books. With a bunch of kids all with their own library cards and all getting stacks of books my mom was often slack at checking out what we were getting. That is how I managed to sneak Demon Lover by Victoria Holt into the house. :lol: Honestly, if my parents hadn't made such a huge deal about how we couldn't read books with sex scenes and curse words I probably would have never even wanted to check it out. Trashy romance novels really weren't ever my style, but it was just the idea that it was clearly something my parents forbid that made me want to see what the big deal was.

My parents once cut an entire chapter out of a biography I bought because the chapter mentioned having sex before marriage.

[waterandrocks]

I have relatives who probably fall under the fundie lite category. They're also avid readers (and were before they became as conservative as they are now.) They've taught their teenage son how to screen his own reading. He's somewhat allowed to read what he wants (following pre-reading by his mother) but he averts his eyes when the content looks questionable. He showed me how me skips entire paragraphs and sometimes pages so that he only reads appropriate content. As an avid reader myself I have trouble understanding how this works. How does he know when to start reading again? How can he possibly get the whole picture of what he's reading this way? I don't think that this method of screening books would work in a family like the Duggars, though. It involves a level of trust that doesn't include accountability partners, unless someone else it literally reading the book at the same time.

[SamE]

If Sarah Maxwell read a book once in a while, she'd be a better writer. I can't even read their blog because of her writing style. It gives me a headache.

[formergothardite]

I have relatives who probably fall under the fundie lite category. They're also avid readers (and were before they became as conservative as they are now.) They've taught their teenage son how to screen his own reading. He's somewhat allowed to read what he wants (following pre-reading by his mother) but he averts his eyes when the content looks questionable. He showed me how me skips entire paragraphs and sometimes pages so that he only reads appropriate content. As an avid reader myself I have trouble understanding how this works. How does he know when to start reading again? How can he possibly get the whole picture of what he's reading this way? I don't think that this method of screening books would work in a family like the Duggars, though. It involves a level of trust that doesn't include accountability partners, unless someone else it literally reading the book at the same time.

He is reading it. That is how it works. :lol: I can't remember what book it was, but my mom told me to skip a certain chapter. Of course I read the chapter but just made it appear that I didn't. :whistle:

[Rescinded and Mended]

Since the current discussion is about books and e-readers, I wanted to point out that there are a couple of options for gaming systems. Kids (or adults) with Nintendo DS systems can actually purchase game cartridges with books on them.

I have this one, which is 100 classic books:

amazon.com/100-Classic-Books-Nintendo-DS/dp/B003B3V0MA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1421851419&sr=8-3&keywords=nintendo+ds+book+classics

and then there's this one, Junior Classic Books and Fairy Tales:

amazon.com/Junior-Classic-Books-Fairytales-Nintendo-DS/dp/B0042R90QC/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1421851419&sr=8-7&keywords=nintendo+ds+book+classics

Good options for the gamer in your life who also loves to read. :)

[lilwriter85]

Many fundie lite types are readers.

[BornFree]

Have Steve and Teri ever come out and said if there are or any allowed books (other than the bible, text books and Moody books) for their adult children and grandchildren?

[moodygirl86]

I think so. The Pelican Brief is one of her favorites. Mine are The Runaway Jury and The Client. My mom is a strange paradox of ideals. :lol: My family's journey into fundie-ism was mostly to protect us kids from over-exposure to what they thought were ungodly things in public school, plus my mom is a minimalist/luddite and loves anything Amish. (and my dad is so easy-going he wanted her to be happy and could see the good in fundie belief) So being a fundie (the headcovering and frumper type) was a perfect fit. But she still loved a good novel. :D She still believes most of the same things, except she has worn pants to go jeeping with my dad a few times. They don't judge us kids for changing, and i really respect that about them.

Anyway, reading books like those made it difficult to relate to the other girls my age who were mostly stuck on wholly approved hobbies and thinking. :lol:

Gray Mountain sounds interesting. I loved A Painted House. I like how he's going in other directions than just the lawyer-suspense fighting the system storyline.

Meet another John Grisham fan! Pelican Brief is one of my favourites too, as well as A Time To Kill.

[Coco]

The Duggars may not read now, but they had a bookshelf at some point. Maybe gifts from grandparents and friends for the children?

wow and arranged on the top of the shelves like a library. :lol: I can just see Jill or Jana or whoever was in charge of dusting thinking that those VF re-prints (or whatever they are) were too pretty to hide in a stack. Nice ancient computers. I'm guessing this was early 2000's. JB's and Michelle's skills at grifting or somehow providing for their kids are impressive. I honestly don't think they've ever been broke since they've had children. Denying the kids on purpose, eating a metric ton of rice, yeah. But always money for "priorities" - political campaigns, saving for the TTH, and random splurges like computers at a discount. Buy used save the difference :roll:

[stonefruit]

They are a total hate-read, but the family at The Common Room reads a lot. The mom is a smug, nasty piece of work, but she really does seem to educate her kids for real. I will grudgingly give her credit for that, as well as for the fact that her grown children are successfully married or in careers.

[alba]

I've had a chance to check out My Lady Bibliophile now and I'm intruiged, to say the least. In her post on a Botkinette podcast discussing Jane Auten (ladybibliophile.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/jane-austen-and-vampires-review.html), she says:

Jane Austen writes about themes of patriarchy (or the consequences of the lack thereof) male protection, dominion, and many other excellent lessons which are not merely externals.

Guess she hasn't read that passage in Mansfield Park where Sir Thomas Bertram tells Fanny off for being "wilful" because she doesn't want to marry the man he's picked out for her :roll: Or paid attention to the trigger for the entire plot of Pride and Prejudice, in which the Bennett sisters MUST marry or they, and their mother, will be left homeless after their father's death?

It's been a few years since I've read any academic crit of Austen, and I do know there are secular academics who consider her works socially conservative, but generally in the sense that she does not advocate any kind of genuine social or political change, but rather has her heroines finding happiness within the culture in which they live. Still, I've never before seen someone claim that her books promote patriarchy and male protection.

This helps answer my earlier question, at any rate. Fundies apparently manage to read books that don't fit into their worldview by interpreting them as doing so :lol:

[goldbu]

The Common Room was one of my first fundie blogs. I just can't stop reading it. Every time she posts something ridiculous that gets me riled up I say I'm done, but then I end up going back. They are big readers though - I think they pride themselves on that.

They are a total hate-read, but the family at The Common Room reads a lot. The mom is a smug, nasty piece of work, but she really does seem to educate her kids for real. I will grudgingly give her credit for that, as well as for the fact that her grown children are successfully married or in careers.

[lexiloumarie]

LL of Vitafam and her gang seem to be big readers. Her boys have a kindle or kindles of their own to read on and she mentions books she's reading fairly often. The one area of homeschooling that most likely doesn't completely kill her to do.

[warriorblade8857]

Fundies apparently manage to read books that don't fit into their worldview by interpreting them as doing so.

Ha! Funny!

Seriously, though, unquestioning obedience is required in so many facets of their lives. I think they often end up unable to take what they read at anything other than face value. Lady Bibliophile usually misses the point in what she reads. Her analytical skills are definitely lacking.