Below is my reading list from the last year according to when I read them. Maybe you'll find something you like.
Spring
The Death of Ivan Ilych - Leo Tolstoy
I almost gave up on Tolstoy after
Anna Karenina but decided to give him another try. Loved this book about a man's journey from a successful but troubled life and how he comes to grips with facing his own death. A powerful story, so of course, I had to write about it:
click here.
Thomas Merton: Essential Writings
"...Our discovery of God is in a way God's discovery of us," writes Merton, who lived as a Trappist Monk. His writings are a breath of fresh air to me and his words seem born out of great personal stillness and at times anguish. For more:
click here.
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Caroll
I generally read myself to sleep every night, and Caroll provided some of the most interesting/disturbing/comical dreams I've ever had (i.e. my dreams: An attack by a killer bullfrog out for revenge when I crushed his fingers in my remote-controlled aquarium; giving birth to twins that looked like Tweedledee and Tweedledum but were the size of my Russian nesting doll; and oh yes, the giant smiling baby chick and the dinosaur the size of elephants that made me scream and flee in terror. I woke up sweating. No joke.) Soooo, read Caroll with caution, I tell you.
The Crucified God - Jurgen Moltmann
Quite a difficult read. Yet, I will say this. Of all books I read during my seminary studies, this one perhaps had the most profound impact on me. Moltmann approaches the theology of the cross through a Trinitarian perspective. What is God's relationship to God during the suffering and death of Christ? How does the death of God relate to the impassibility and immutability of his nature? Unfortunately, Moltmann assumes his readers are well versed in church history, systematic theology, philosophy, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and at times German, making his work a little frustrating for some (not excluding myself). However, I must confess that this is one of my favorite theological books to date.
Mysticism: its Meaning and Message - Georgia Harkness
This book explores key components of ancient Christian mysticism (not to be confused with modern connotations of various cults and eastern religions). Mysticism in this sense seeks intimate experiences of God predominantly through prayer, meditation, and through serving others. I had already been musing on the proper place of doubt in one's spiritual journey. And while this book is not about doubt, there was a segment of this reading about St. Teresa of Avila that caught my eye and provided some food for thought in my own perceptions of truth and illusion, and I wrote the following blog post as a response:
click here.
Enduring Grace: the lives of 6 women mystics from the Age of Faith - by Carol Flinders
When I was enrolled in a church history class, I was fascinated with the Christian mystics who emerged during the Dark Ages. I found their pure devotion, wisdom, and courage quite the contrast to the medieval church's ignorant superstitions and crusader-quests for "holiness" incredibly fascinating. Here Flinders provides concise biographies about six female Christian mystics whose thoughts I may not completely buy into, but I still learn great things from them each.
The Genesee Diary - Henri Nouwen
Nouwen is basically my spiritual Mr. Miagi. He is hands down my favorite author to date. Born in the Netherlands, he served as a Catholic priest, a professor at Yale, Notre Dame, and Harvard and eventually at a community in Canada for the mentally handicapped. This book is a journal Nouwen kept during a year he devoted to living as a Trappist Monk.
The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality & Contemporary Ministry - Henri Nouwen
A short yet profound read about the value of solitude. Who are we when all our compulsive distractions erode? That's what the desert exposes: who we are without our scaffolding of superficial validations and securities. It's the place where lesser things die and callings are reborn. The irony is that people who've spent significant time in the metaphorical desert often emerge with a wholeness that ends up moving them closer to people rather than further away.
Summer:
God in Creation - J. Moltmann
Moltmann examines God's relationship to the universe as his creation and as a venue that both reveals God's nature to us and draws us into deeper communion with God. I read this while on a summer hiking and camping trip. I thought about Moltmann's vision a lot while staring at some rather breathtaking scenery. For more, I wrote a journal entry:
click here.
Night - Ellie Wiesel
What can I say? A detailed and horrific account of one man's true story of living through the Holocaust. Bruce and I listened to this one on audio together during a summer road trip. We had several discussions between the two of us on the nature of suffering, faith, doubt, and several other difficult questions.
The Long Walk - Slavomir Rawicz
An amazing story about prisoners in Siberia during WWII who escaped prison only to face the Siberian wilderness, the Gobi Desert and the Himalayas. A great adventure story! I listened to this one on audio as well.
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Martel, you had me at the segment about being named after a swimming pool. The writing is vivid and at times quite comedic. It's about a boy raised in India as the son of a zoo keeper. While moving and transferring their zoo animals across the ocean, Pi gets stranded on a raft with some of the wild animals (one of which is a tiger). I won't spoil anymore of the story for you. It was a delightful read.
The Gift - Lewis Hyde
A fascinating study about the nature of gifts and gift economies in tribal communities. Hyde writes about the inner life of art. To handle the gift properly is to become a "channel for its current." Stagnation occurs when we horde the gift and dam the river. One critic said that Hyde's book is "a manifesto of sorts for anyone who makes art and cares for it." Although not written as a theological book, I discovered a feast of spiritual implications.
Fall:
The Wisdom of the Desert -Thomas Merton
The desert Fathers were Christian men and women who devoted themselves to a life of solitude and simplicity in the desert in the third and fourth century. Many of them viewed solitude as a means of generating deeper community with others and communion with God during a time of persecution and corruption in the church (as opposed to criticisms of escapism and cowardice). They generally held to the idea that silence teaches us how to speak, and solitude teaches us how to connect with one another not from loneliness but from wholeness (it's the difference between fearful clinging and fearless play, as a separate author once said). I found their simple, stripped down sayings often cut through my stubborn heart and stir me like few things can. No fluff. No superficial wit. No fakery or false flattery. Just simple words born out of deep, still waters.
Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical...and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives - Richard Swenson
How we define progress tells us a great deal about what we actually value. "Hastiness and superficiality -- these are the psychic diseases of the 20th Century," said Solzhenitsyn. How is that we have more conveniences than almost anyone else in the world yet the most common phrase used among people in Western culture is something to the tune of, "I'm too busy. I'm stressed. I don't have time"? I loved the segment where the author examined how various societies experience and value time revealing more often than not the cultures with the least labor-saving machinery often had the most quality leisure time available -- something I witnessed and came to love while living in China and while visiting India.
The Hungering Dark- Fredrick Buechner
I can't remember fully what Buechner wrote about, but I can't forget what I walked away with after reading this book. There was a section where he was exploring the idea that no man is an island. Humanity is a web with so many common denominators (sufferings, dreams, longings, values, etc.). We all affect each other in varying ways. Yet on the other hand, Buechner writes, every man
is an island separated by an abyss formed from distrust and duplicity. What I walked away with was a renewed longing for something real to surface that builds bridges and creates authentic community between people. Sometimes I think I've found it, and when I do I cherish every moment. Other times it seems beyond my reach. I wrote quite a bit in my journal about authenticity and how it has this odd way of both uniting and dividing people in the same way Jesus said he came to bring peace as well as a sword. That's the thing about darkness and light. We're often afraid when we can't see, and then we're afraid when we can. Needless to say, Buechner takes timeless concepts and makes me think about them in new ways. And I enjoy that greatly.
Wishful Thinking - Fredrick Buechner
It's basically a dictionary. Wait. Not "basically". It
is a dictionary. I liked Buechner's definition of Compassion: "the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it's like to live inside somebody else's skin," and Lust: "the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst."
Winter Break:
Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone - Rowling
A surprisingly fun read (even though I already knew the ending and it's rare I enjoy a book of which I already know the ending). Sometimes I forget how fun reading fiction can be.
Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets - Rowling
Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban - Rowling
I have about three more chapters on this one. Professor Trelawney made me laugh out loud.
Lost on Planet China - J. Troost
Don't own. Didn't finish. But this book is my official "I'm-killing-time-book-while-in-Barnes&Noble." It's a rather hilarious memoir of one man's travels in China. Troost, I know how you felt, and you make me laugh. A lot. Period.
In-Progress:
The End of Poverty - by Jeffery Sachs
Sachs is an economist working to analyze and eliminate extreme poverty, which he is defining as people groups unable to obtain for themselves the basics necessary for survival: food, water, shelter, vaccinations, etc.
Reaching Out - Nouwen
This is a re-read. And that's because this is possibly my favorite book to date. It's about three movements of the spiritual life: 1) Reaching out to ourselves: facing our loneliness and allowing God to transform it into a powerful mode for solitude and stillness within. 2) Reaching out to others: transforming our hostility toward others into hospitality. 3) Reaching out to God: making the shift from illusion to honest prayer. Much of what I've become and how I interact with others can in large part be traced back to the vision presented in this book. See? I told you Nouwen was my spiritual Mr. Miagi. Wish I could have met him.
The Road Less Traveled - M. Scott Peck
Love it, love it, love it. The book can be divided into three basic parts. 1) Gaining the courage to own our path and grasp the discipline necessary to keep growing. 2) Examining the love necessary for healthy relationships. 3) Learning to have grace with yourself and others.
And you thought I was only kidding when I said I was a bookaholic. This is by no means an exhaustive list. It's just the books I feel like recommending.
