With my daughter home from college and temps rising, I am ready for summer. Maybe you’re getting there, too? There’s nothing like a good book by the pool (or ocean!) to make a perfect summer day.
Spring Reads
Summer Reading Recommendations
Summer is upon us. Our summers are going to look very different this year, but I hope yours includes reading. I’ve included a more serious non-fiction work (Larry Crabb's Shattered Dreams) and a fun fiction series (Andrew Peterson's The Wingfeather Saga) that all ages will enjoy below. If you’ve read either, I would love your feedback. And let me know what you’re reading this summer!
How I Read 102 Books this Year
Last week I shared some of my favorite reads in 2019. There were a lot of books to choose from. This year was my high-water mark for books read. I normally read around 30-50 books a year, so it’s not as though reading is a new passion. This year everything just seemed to line up: I didn’t coach one of my kids’ teams for the first time since they started playing sports and my reading was ramped up because of research for a few writing projects. I hit 85 at Thanksgiving and figured I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to hit triple digits for the first time.
Why Read So Much?
You might have the same reaction I have to ultra-marathoners: but why?! Just because you can doesn’t mean you should! Fair enough. I’m not about to tell you that you should read 100 books in 2020. I understand that not everyone is wired like me, but I believe that most of us would benefit from reading more.
This Week's Recommendations
1. Am I Addicted to My Smartphone? A sobering quiz for a pervasive issue.
2. Death is a Vapor: Brian Sauve begins, "Nearly 60,000,000 people die every year on planet Earth. This is one of the things that makes human beings so bewildering. I'm not talking about the fact that people die, but the fact that they take so little time to consider death."
3. Why Christians Shouldn't Cuss: Ben Archer, considers the reasons "The truth is that a particular word has no inherent sinfulness beyond that which a culture or community assigns to it, nor can it be intrinsically objectionable... This is why Christians don’t cuss: we cherish the purpose for which God gave words."
4. How to Remember What You Read: David Qaoud's recommendations are great. I also would add that writing reviews on books is a huge aid in memory. His second point is: "I read actively, not passively. I have a highlighter and pen in hand. I highlight what sticks out to me. After reading something particularly inspiring, I’ll stop, close my eyes, and repeat what just inspired me."
5. Why is Water Slippery? Kids ask the best questions and in this series scientists take on surprisingly complex answers to questions kids ask. Part of the surprise to this answer is how surprisingly strange water is, "How weird is water? Unlike most liquids, it is densest not at its freezing point, but at just a few degrees warmer... Water is safe for us to drink, but also so chemically reactive that it can’t be used to lubricate things like engines because of the damage it will cause inside the machine... Ball said that it’s even weird that water is liquid at all, considering that when the other elements most similar to oxygen link up with hydrogen what they form is a gas."