My summer reading pile is getting smaller. Sortof. I keep adding books to the pile, so it rarely gets smaller than the stack you see above.
The problem is that I have a stack at work, and a stack on the floor next to my night table…and two or three books on my desk at home.
A whole bookshelf at work. And still…I read. And read. And read!
You could say I get paid to read (and you wouldn’t be too terribly off), but I haven’t read everything I want to read. And there’s a whole bunch of stuff that I don’t even know exists and is waiting for me to discover. I know, I’m a nerd that way.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say something a little…well…honest. Interesting people, people that I find interesting, are big readers. I don’t know if that necessarily makes me any more interesting, but there you have it. My friends are big readers. It turns out that some other very interesting people, besides my friends (yes, I think you guys are brilliant) are big readers.
In fact, the Harvard Business Review has an interesting article on the importance of reading to good leadership. I’d venture to say it does more than make good leaders. Reading things that edify us, strengthen our characters, give us vicarious adventures, can make us better people.
I’d say, it can make us better Christians. I’m still working on that.
These are some books that have had a huge impact on me:
In no particular order
1. The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen
2. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
3. A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken
4. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
5. Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain
I’d love to know what books have impacted you! And of course, I’ll take recommendations to add to my pile.
The Return of the Prodigal Son brought me to tears. The book that has made the biggest impact on me, though, is probably “Gift from the Sea” by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. I have to read it every year just as a kind of personal check-in – am I following through on the lessons in the book. It says a lot about women needing to replenish their spiritual jar so it can re-flow onto others. The balancing act, inner peace, turning things over to God. If you have never read it, do – it is a deceptively thin volume that will gives a lot to ponder.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (though I just finished rereading this, and it seems to have lost just a touch of the magic it had for me when I was a teen)