My Reading Plans for the Summer
June 3rd, 2008
Well before the second semester ends I begin making up a list of books I want to read during the summer, Lord willing.
I know that I am still in the opening chapter of what the digital revolution will produce in the next few years and its impact on my writing and reading. As a general rule, the Internet appeals to a different kind of reader. When I wrote my book I envisioned the majority of my readers purchasing it, sitting back in their favorite La-Z-Boy chair, adjusting the light, pen and paper in hand, and spending several hours devouring its contents by looking up the hundreds of Scriptures I cite. But I also wanted to reach those readers who would read it on the laptop computers; hence the book was published in electronic form by Logos Research Systems out of Bellingham, Washington.
And yet I confess that I am a voracious reader of books and magazines. I also confess that I spend time trolling the blogosphere, checking out a few sites each day (the news sites, www.expectingrain.com–the best site on Bob Dylan, and others. Someday I will share a list of my bookmarked items and why I read what I read). I try to spend no more than an hour a day, although there are items of interest that take longer. I am not one of the trollers who must know the latest thing, who is saying what about what and whom. I am not being critical of such individuals. Surfing can be a relatively innocent and informative activity, if you avoid the flood of pornography and YouTube narcissism.
And yet most of what I plan on reading this summer will be done in the old fashioned formats–reading books that I hold in my hand along with my magazines like Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, Christianity Today, Leadership, Rolling Stone, First Things . . How’s that for variety?
And what will I be reading simply for pleasure? The newest thrillers by David Baldacci (The Whole Truth), Daniel Silva (Moscow Rules) and Dean Koontz (Odd Hours) are on the list as are some old works that I have not gotten around to (Stephen King’s Needful Things or William Manchester’s narrative history of America, The Glory and the Dream, America 1932-1942). I want to re-read one of my favorite novels, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I am going to try to get through Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, but my guess is I will fail once again.
And what will I be reading for professional growth? Books on preaching and hermeneutics. But especially I want to work through Stephen Smalley’s newest work, The Revelation to John and a fascinating book entitled A History of the End of the World by Jonathan Kirsch.
What will you be reading? Please feel free to share with me what you accomplished by Labor Day weekend.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Bob,
Read the Lord of the Rings!! You CAN DO IT (a la Bela Karolyi). C’mon, i read it in 6th Grade.
I will admit: the first 60 or so pages are VERY VERY VERY tedious. After that, you are in like Flynn. Or is it Flint? Or Clint?
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Oh, my list: just starting it:
The Shack, The God who Risks, The Divine Embrace, Cladis’ “Leading the Teambased Church”, Unchristian, and Cassian’s Conferences, for starters. To add more soon. Hope to get some good books on the Holy Spirit (and also narrowly, gifts.) Anybody have recommendations? I am looking for non-cessationist, credible, treatments.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:58 am
My reading pile looks a little whacko
The Measure of a Man - Sidney Poitier
A Room of One’s Own - Virginia Woolf
Making Women’s History - Mary Ritter Beard
The Art of the Commonplace - Wendell Berry
A Secular Age - Charles Taylor
The Gadamer Reader - Richard Palmer
An assortment of mindless fiction books, I read on the treadmill.
I tend to like to read on a variety of topics and from a many points of view. I love the internal sorting and differentiation process that occurs while considering - what is this author saying? How does this fit with my prior thinking? What do I need to reconsider? What is bunk and why?
This is a great idea by the way…I’m getting ideas for other books I’d like to check out.
A.
June 4th, 2008 at 11:14 am
More than just my summer reading, here’s my list for the next year:
http://michaelgowin.com/blog/50-books-project/
I’ve completed Nouwen’s “In the Name of Jesus” and JK Jones’ “What the Monks Can Teach Us.” Currently in Seth Godin’s “Permission Marketing.”
June 4th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Great list, Dr. Lowery. So far, I’ve already read 4 and a half books, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins by Theodore Bernstein, Spunk and Bite by Arthur Plontik, The Nixie’s Song by Holly Black and Tony Ditrizzeli, and over half of Eragon by Christopher Paolini. I started on Tuesday I do believe. Good luck in your reading.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Thanks for sharing, Bob. I’ve just finished Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace, and am beginning Vanhoozer’s The Drama of Doctrine. I’m going through Reggie McNeal’s Practicing Greatness with a friend. For July I have my eyes on Wright’s Surprised by Hope and Newbigin’s Proper Confidence. We’ll see how far this gets me. Thanks for your posts and insights.
June 6th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I read William Young’s The Shack and Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord Out of Egypt while traveling in May. Now I am reading The Mission of God by Christopher Wright. For the rest of the summer, I am not really sure which books I will read as my Amazon wishlist is way too long, but here are a few possibilities:
Philip Jenkins - God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe’s Religious Crisis
Charles Mann - 1491: New Revelations of the America’s Before Columbus
Rodney Stark - Discovering God
Dave Armstrong - A Biblical Defense of Catholicism
Yeah, we’ll see what else comes up…
June 6th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
First off, yet again - you should read Graham Greene’s “The Power and the Glory.” You can borrow my copy. We’re family. I know you won’t lose it.
Anyway. Here’s my hopeful list…which is an awfully weird one and someone is going to judge me:
A Burnt-out Case, Graham Greene
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
What Is the What, Dave Eggers
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis
The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis
Lake Wobegon Days, Garrison Keillor
Grace Eventually, Anne Lamott
June 18th, 2008 at 9:01 am
I’ve completed John Le Carre’s
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The Honourable Schoolboy
and I am almost through Smiley’s People.
Others include:
Dante - The Inferno
Chiasson, Paul - The Island of Seven Cities
Milton, John - Paradise Lost
The real challenge will be the many used bookstores between PEI and Illinois. Who knows what will come to hand.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
My reading, by necessity, has been limited to Dietrich Bonhoeffer - his life and his times
Eberhard Bethge DB: A Biography Fortress 2000
Renate Bethge DB: A Brief Life Fortress 2004
Martin Gilbert Kristallnacht: Prelude To Destruction Harper/Collins 2006
DB Discipleship Fortress 2003 (That would be Nachfolge to Dan DeVilder!)
I have also read a magnificent address delivered by Paul Tillich (through the Voice of America) from February 1943 on “The 10th Anniversary of Hitler’s Regime.” Compare this prophetic word with DB’s “After Ten Years” - both are challenging, if not, a chilling and compelling read.
On a more positive note Calvin Miller’s The Sermon Maker is a delightful interlude from reading in the Third Reich…
In a discussion of what makes a “great” preacher, Miller, through the voice of Sermoniel, the Angel of Homiletics, writes …”great preaching grows only from the soil of great lives.”
O, that we would have “great lives!”
Last (well, almost), while flying to and from Indianapolis I read Tim Russert’s Big Russ & Me. I loved what he wrote about his “first big test in childhood” It was “getting to school.”
He wrote about the hardships of the grown-ups who reported about their trips to school. “Yes, sir, it was eleventy thousand miles, and it was uphill, both ways. It took us two weeks to get to school in the morning, and another two to get home - and that’s when the weather was nice.”
I, too, heard those stories from my father who was born in 1919!
Last, from the pen of Anna Quindlen A Short Guide To A Happy Life (2000)…her last story about “the view” is incredible…
After reading Bethge - all books seem short!