John Van Hecke

John Van Hecke

John Van Hecke, Alicia's husband, is a graduate of a college-prep high school with an excellent academic reputation and also received his B.A. in Liberal Arts from Thomas Aquinas College. His parents are involved in Catholic radio and his brother Michael is president of the Catholic Textbook Project. John went on to receive a degree in Electrical Engineering, from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. He works as an electrical engineer, designing touch screen monitors.

The Joy of Mathematics

Book cover: The Joy of Mathematics
Author(s): 
Theoni Pappas

This book is very good at what it does. However, you have to read the introduction to find out what it does. It is NOT a math textbook. And it is NOT a math program. You'd have to be a real geek to read it cover to cover. This is full of 1 (sometimes 2) page math things of all sorts. Little vignettes into the world of math. As such it introduces the reader to a number of things that he might not otherwise encounter. In fact, I am an engineer (lots'o'math) and I saw new and interesting things in here! Some of these are little games (answers in the back).

St. Thomas Aquinas

Book cover: 'St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox'
Author(s): 
G.K. Chesterton
This little book is interesting. It is NOT the definitive work on St. Thomas. It is NOT a primer on his philosophy. It is an interesting mix of: a story of his life (or rather stories from his life), a little taste of his genius, another taste of what his ideas mean to the world (including how relevant they are today) and ideas about why he was the way he was.

It does not seem adequate to compare it to a TV show but it reminds me of one of those really good PBS documentaries that gets you totally involved in something you didn't ever think was that big a deal.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Book cover: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Author(s): 
Harriet Beecher Stowe

There are a plethora of resources for you to find out the plot of this book out on the web and in the bookstores (eg. Cliffs Notes!!). Many contain "spoilers". And this is OK — after all it's a classic. Moreover, the book is good even if you know what is going to happen. I had the enjoyable luxury of reading this book without having run across the spoilers and with no real knowledge of the plot. I was not required to read it in school — oh happy fault.

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

Book cover: 'The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien'
Author(s): 
Humphrey Carpenter (ed.)
This book is not a "must read", but it is an enlightening read (best for high school and up). I have not read any other compilation of letters like this, so even the concept was new to me. There isn't a format, a thesis or an argument to unify the book. Rather, it is the life, work and times of Tolkien which generate the letters. He writes to his wife, his children, fans of his work, his publishers and various friends. The book is a subset of his letters (edited with the help of his son Christopher).

Byrd of the 95th

Book cover: Byrd of the 95th
Author(s): 
Showell Styles

This book is now included in the Bethlehem Budget Book The Flying Ensign, also reviewed on this site.

I really liked this book. I can vouch for my wife's statement that this is a great read aloud. I read it to my children at bedtime (ages 3 through 9) – they were engaged... though the younger ones usually fell asleep. The older two LOVED it.

Brave New World

Author(s): 
Aldous Huxley
Free love, birth control, test tube baby factories, cloning, mutants, and sex, sex, sex. There are good reasons to have your mature students read this book, but you must do YOUR homework and read it first. Huxley, writing during the giddy early days of the eugenics movement, has written a remarkable novel. His story portrays that movement's ideas taken to their logical consequences. There is a complete disconnect between sex and procreation. Sex is STRICTLY for pleasure (not even for unity).

Out of the Silent Planet

Book cover: 'Out of the Silent Planet'
Author(s): 
Clive Staples Lewis
The first story in the "Space Trilogy", Out of the Silent Planet begins with a man of such littleness that he is only known, for now, as the pedestrian. He is taking a summer holiday - trying to 'get lost' - from his philology professorship. This is NOT a nailbiter yet. By accident Ransom (Lewis himself was a Cambridge professor keen on words - so you know you have been given his name for a reason) stumbles onto an old schoolmate, Divine, and another professor, Weston, in a strange house.

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