What's On Your Summer Reading List?

The best book I've read recently is When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. An emotional and powerful read by a neurosurgeon who is diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. He writes honestly about what happens to your faith and life plans when the unthinkable happens. He made me think about what makes life worth living and the impact we leave on those around us. 

A couple books that I want to read include Born a Crime by Trevor Noah and A Woman's Place: A Christian Vision for Your Calling in the Office, the Home, and the World by Katelyn Beaty. 

The Praying for Renewal in the Christian Reformed Church Facebook page recommended "Dirty Glory" by Pete Greig. So I am going to check that one out this summer!

 The Giveness of things, by Marilynne Robinson; Heaven by Randy Alcorn

I just posted my reading/re-reading list for 2017-18. 

I'm reading "Mentor For Life: Finding Purpose through Intentional Discipleship" by Narasha Sistrunk Robinson and plan to return to "Teaching the Faith, Informing the Faithful: A Biblical Vision For Education In The Church" by Gary A. Parrett and S. Steve Kang. Interspersed will be some light mystery novels on my e-reader.

Just read News of the World  by Paulette Jiles and really enjoyed it. Two on my to be read list: Ruined by Ruth Everhart and La Rose by Louise Erdrich.

Recently I've read Not Sure by John Suk, which articulates a very thoughtful perspective of our faith journeys at multiple levels. 

I'm looking forward to reading Introverts in the Church, by Adam McHugh and Toxic Charity by Robert Lupton (which I understand is a "local missions" version of the fantastic When Helping Hurts).

I am in the middle of "Do Not Say We Have Nothing" by Madeleine Thien. This is what the Man Booker Prize site says about "Do Not Say...": 

In Canada in 1991, ten-year-old Marie and her mother invite a guest into their home: a young woman called Ai-Ming, who has fled China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests. 

Ai-Ming tells Marie the story of her family in Revolutionary China - from the crowded teahouses in the first days of Chairman Mao’s ascent to the Shanghai Conservatory in the 1960s and the events leading to the Beijing demonstrations of 1989.  It is a story of revolutionary idealism, music, and silence, in which three musicians - the shy and brilliant composer Sparrow, the violin prodigy Zhuli, and the enigmatic pianist Kai - struggle during China’s relentless Cultural Revolution to remain loyal to one another and to the music they have devoted their lives to.  Forced to re-imagine their artistic and private selves, their fates reverberate through the years, with deep and lasting consequences for Ai-Ming – and for Marie.

It's a great book!

It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle.  

by Mark Wolynn