Are there any fundies who actually read?

[Palimpsest]

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.

Busybee, you would absolutely love My Lady Bibliophile who was already mentioned above. ladybibliophile.blogspot.com. You sound so very like her -- you could almost be her?

My Lady Bibliophile's faith is so strong that she can read quite widely and withstand the evil in secular novels. Her ministry is to read books, review and rate them so that other young ladies are not corrupted by sex, violence, feminism, or any un-biblical and ungodly ideas. She also skips whole sections that might be too challenging for her nice mind and redacts as she reads if she comes across what she calls "language" -- just like you. She even needed to edit Dickens books for naughty words.

I adore Lady Bibliophile because she rarely fails to make me laugh my socks off with her book reviews. It's rather sad because she isn't stupid, but her narrow outlook, refusal to stretch her boundaries and utter sanctimoniousness make her seem a complete dolt. I really want to send her to college and shock her out of her pious little rut. She is wasting quite a good book-loving mind -- and that frustrates me.

[polecat]

Good question. I was thinking predominantly fundie bloggers/public fundies, because the ones I follow and read about here both seem to not read much and to lack the skills developed by reading, but honestly I'm interested in hearing about any fundies who read. I'm curious about things like where the line is drawn about what is/isn't appropriate (speaking of which, there are naughty words in Agatha Christie?) by individuals and organisations. I'm also interested in the effects of reading non-fundie books, like if it makes fundies more accepting of non-fundies or makes them question their beliefs.

Reading books has broadened my mind so much that I'm just incredibly curious about people with a strict worldview like fundamentalism who are also avid readers.

lol, yes. There were occasional "hells" and "damns," and then the "Mon dieus!" from Poirot. There were even occasional hells and damns in L. M. Montgomery books (like her short story collections, including one about a "scarlet woman," but my mom never pre-read those and didn't know, so I was all, "YES! I'm getting away with something!!!" about it.)

[alba]

lol, yes. There were occasional "hells" and "damns," and then the "Mon dieus!" from Poirot. There were even occasional hells and damns in L. M. Montgomery books (like her short story collections, including one about a "scarlet woman," but my mom never pre-read those and didn't know, so I was all, "YES! I'm getting away with something!!!" about it.)

Are hell and damn considered swearing in the US, or is it only to fundies? Here they're very mild (I mean, "damn" appears in the Harry Potter books, so that gives you an idea of the kind of audience that term's considered appropriate for).

[polecat]

Are hell and damn considered swearing in the US, or is it only to fundies? Here they're very mild (I mean, "damn" appears in the Harry Potter books, so that gives you an idea of the kind of audience that term's considered appropriate for).

It's a fundy thing. We weren't even allowed to say "darn" or "golly" because they were euphemisms.

[Palimpsest]

Oh, joy! Oh, rapture! I just found this in My Lady Bibliophile's review of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford:

Language is minimal, and almost nonexistent--only a couple of instances at best. This is a clean story, and I can't think of any themes to be aware of before reading. The most graphic elements are old ladies telling stories about how to get lace out of pussy's insides, and flannel drawers for hairless cows. :)

Old ladies wore thongs in 1851! Who knew?

Sorry to drift so far off topic.

[alba]

polecat: golly is a euphemism? For what?

Oh, joy! Oh, rapture! I just found this in My Lady Bibliophile's review of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford:

Old ladies wore thongs in 1851! Who knew?

Sorry to drift so far off topic.

To me the bolded bit makes it sound like the prose is sparse :P