I have an unusually long list of books I’m in the middle of right now.
Some of that is my usual schizophrenic reading personality (I have to be in the mood for what I’m reading, and I’m a prolific reader, so I am usually in the middle of several books.)
But I’m also dealing with the dilemma of requesting things from the library. And then waiting forever. And requesting other things. And then getting them all at the same time.
I am hoping that sharing what I’m reading online will encourage me to be more of a book finisher, since I’m better at starting things than I am at finishing them.
The Yada Yada Prayer Group is at the top of my stack. I never expected to be reading this book. And I am surprised by how much I am enjoying it, and how thought provoking it has been. Outside of most of Francine Rivers‘ work and the Mitford books, I haven’t read any Christian fiction in – well, as long as I can remember. As a young believer in college, I learned pretty quickly that Christian fiction makes my inner English major cranky.
But a local blogger whom I admire and whose influence I appreciate has been asking great questions about racial reconciliation in the American church on Facebook. Deidra Riggs is hosting a “Continuing the Conversation” online book club. I was super interested to see what books she would pick, expecting memoirs and non-fiction. But her readers voted for this book first, and I went ahead and jumped in because at the time it was only a couple of bucks on Kindle. And I LOVE IT. I have so many thoughts. I am about 80% through, more thoughts coming your way soon.
All the Light We Cannot See I have been reading this book FOREVER. Again because of the requesting-things-from-the-library problem. This is a tremendously popular fiction book, and it is so lovely. But I first checked it out as an audiobook, and I couldn’t listen with the boys around (because of the subject matter, and also because they distract me.) It’s expired on me 3 times, and then by the time my request comes up again, I’m in another book and it takes me a little while to get back into it. I just got it from the library again (this time as a Kindle book), so hopefully I will be able to finish it this time. If you’ve read it, I’d love to hear what you think (and encouragement that it is worth the time to finish!)
I’ve been working through Invitation to the Jesus Life: Experiments in Christlikeness with a groups of girls I meet with every Wednesday night. I picked this up when Matt and I stayed at Glen Eyrie for our anniversary in May. I was drawn to this book because it focuses on different aspects of Jesus’ character than I’d ever seen before (being a listener, speaking the truth in love, we just finished a chapter that focused on Jesus as a teacher.) My favorite thing about this book is at the end of every chapter: “Experiments in Connecting with God”. This includes a variety of activities to both receive the quality focused on in each chapter from God, and to become someone who embodies that quality. So in the chapter on listening, the “practices to consider” include Prayer and silence: “After praying, sit quietly for a few minutes. You’re not doing this to get God to speak to you. You’re doing it to practice being quiet with God so that you will live a listening life all day long.” Secrecy: Instead of expressing your opinion about something just because the topic comes up, inquire further about what the other person thinks.” I LOVE THIS BOOK.
Last month one of my favorite podcasts interviewed Gretchen Rubin. I’ve heard of her Happiness Project, but had never read any of her books. I was intrigued by the concept behind her latest book, Better Than Before. This is a look at the research on habit formation, with a specific focus on using our temperament and personality type to find ways to encourage good habits and break bad ones. Better Than Before and Happiness at Home were both available on e-book from my local library, so I checked out both of them and are a few chapters into Better Than Before. It is pretty interesting, and I think I am going to try some of her techniques (once I decide if I really want to break any of my bad habits, or put in the energy to form new ones!)
What are you reading right now?
Renee Davis Meyer 