Chesterton for Easter

My days go more smoothly when they include the reading of Sacred Scripture... and a little Chesterton. Professor recently purchased a copy of Dale Ahlquist's new Chesterton compilation, In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G. K. Chesterton  and I have been enjoying it in bits and pieces over the past week. Really good stuff. If he didn't already have it, I'd buy it for his Easter basket. I dare say that many of my readers would love to find it in their own baskets. Wonderful bite-sized Chesterton. The essays are easily read in one sitting (or nursing session) which means that it is self-limiting for undisciplined readers like yours truly. The selected topics are also surprisingly relevant to modern culture... and this election cycle.

One of my favorite Chesterton essays ("On Lying in Bed") is included and opens with the line: "Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."

I feel both smarter and stupider while reading Chesterton; smarter because he pulls me to it and stupider because I lag behind so often. I feel both younger and older; humbled, challenged, motivated, happy, alive.

And for those of you who just can't get enough Chesterton (or need to fill the Easter basket of some such person), you'll likely find this magnet set charming...

... perfect for the Catholic fridge, no? Melissa (the lovely and talented artist at Magnetic Catholic) also sells a number of magnet sets of the saints and other Catholic themes. Very fun and edifying. And highly useful if you are having trouble keeping your spoon out of the ice cream beyond the freezer door. Can you imagine sneaking anything from under the fervent gaze of St. Faustina? Or Mother Teresa?

Finally, if you are one of those fortunate people who own a Kindle, I have noticed that there are many works by Chesterton available on Amazon for free (or very, very little). These include the complete Father Brown Mysteries for only a buck. I am not one of those happy people who possess an eReader of any kind although I'm sure that my life would be greatly enhanced by having one. For example, I recently re-read David Copperfield and did so in snatches while simultaneously nursing Little Cub. It is a rather large and heavy volume (almost 900 pages) and I'm relatively certain that I sustained a minor wrist injury as a result of one-handed reading. Real books are lovely but I do have to say that the eBook version of David Copperfield is currently free... and about 7 ounces.