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Books Christianity Personal

Reading Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, SpyAfter 119 pages (of 608), I’m absolutely enthralled with Eric Metaxas’ biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The life of Bonhoeffer is amazing to me (even after only 20% of the book), and Mextaxas is opening my eyes to a world that I just didn’t know about before. One thing that I just can’t get out of mind is the perspective Bonhoeffer has on the world around him as his extensive travels take him literally every where, including the USA in 1930 (post World War I). As a German national, he provides a very unique perspective our this side of the Atlantic, and it has challenged me to think about what it means to be a Christian and live in a specific country at any point in history. It’s a challenging thought as I think about how much living in America shapes my view of the world around me. Even though I strive to see it through a Biblical lens, I often see it through my American one, and that is sometimes hard to swallow. All that to say, I’m excited about the remainder of this story and this man. I hope to learn from his experiences, his insight, and maybe even his death.

If you’re interested in following my progress, I post regular updates on GoodReads.

Categories
Books Personal

Goodreads

Goodreads

One of my favorites sites right now is Goodreads. Their “About Us” page describes the service this way:

Goodreads is the largest social network for readers in the world. We have more than 5,200,000 members who have added more than 160,000,000 books to their shelves. A place for casual readers and bona-fide bookworms alike, Goodreads members recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they’ve read and would like to read, form book clubs and much more. Goodreads was launched in December 2006.

I’ve been using it for about a year now and I’m really starting to understand why I like it so much. The above image is data that Goodreads provides me about the books I’ve read over the past few years, with specifics to the amount of pages. In 2010 I read 1047 pages. So far this year I’ve read 861 pages. I can set goals on the number of books I want to read in a year (I’m hoping for 12 this year), and I can update my “current page” any time I want to see progress percentages and other info. You might be thinking this is pretty nerdy, and yes, it is. But the fun part about Goodreads is you can keep track of the books you own, get recommendations on books from friends, and kind of keep yourself accountable to a good reading schedule. I normally use their iPhone app to update my pages when I finish reading for the day and it’s quick and easy. Also, if you’ve never seen my “Bookshelf”, it’s a complete list of my books embedded in to my website that is automatically generated from Goodreads. Go see for yourself. So if you’re a reader (and I hope you are), then definitely check out Goodreads.

Categories
Books Christianity Inspiration Personal Photography

Input

Literally every book I got for Christmas (2010). 2011 is shaping up to be the year of “input” (and if you don’t get that reference, go watch Short Circuit). I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to try and read all of them this year. That would basically be one book a month and a few them are in the 500 page range. If I can resolve to read twenty minutes a day, I think I could it — the real question is do I want to? The verdict is still out on that. Either way you can expect reviews on everything I read.

All the books listed from the top of the stack to the bottom (in the above photo):

1. Worldliness by C.J. Mahaney
2. Whatever Happened to Worship by A.W. Tozer
3. Dedication and Leadership by Douglas Hyde
4. Letters From a Father to His Sons in College by Samuel Miller
5. The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein
6. Why We Love The Church by Kevin Deyoung and Ted Kluck
7. How Should We Then Live? by Francis Schaeffer
8. Gospel-Powered Parenting by William P. Farley
9. The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
10. Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky
11. The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement by George Smeaton
*12. Style and the Man by Alan Flusser

*not pictured

Categories
Books Inspiration Personal

Ask For Books

Ask for Books

“Ask for books.” Maybe not the most exciting advice to give a bunch of college students who were drowning in a sea of reading in the middle of the semester, but that’s what my professor commanded in class one afternoon. He continued, “For every Christmas, birthday, anniversary, Father’s Day, or whatever…I ask for books.” I remember thinking that seemed pretty boring and lame. “Ask for books for Christmas?! Yeah, right!” was my first thought, followed by, “he must be joking.” But he wasn’t, and I knew it. Why? Because we knew he wasn’t talking about text books for class. He was talking about the books that would further our education and growth beyond the walls of the class — the books that would shape our lives and learning for the years beyond college. And it wasn’t until I was ripping the snowflake patterned paper from my Christmas presents this year that I realized how important that advice was, and how in many ways I’ve wasted valuable time and resources.

For Christmas this year I got books. My family usually asks me for my “Christmas list” so they can go out and purchase the things that I really want — at least what I think I want, and even though I provided a small list of things it wasn’t like past years. For the past few years I’ve asked for electronics, gadgets, and games, but this year I referred them to my Amazon.com Wish List which is appropriately titled “Books, Among Other Things”. That wish list has become a collection of books (among other things) that I would one day desire to own and obviously read. Anytime my pastor or a speaker I hear mentions a book he’s read, I add it to my list. Any time my wife says she “heard about this book,” we add it to the list. Any time I read about a book or a friend mentions a book, I usually add it to the list. Sometimes I just purchase the book right on the spot because I don’t want to forget it. This practice, combined with generous friends and family, has allowed my wife and me to receive at least a dozen or more books in the past year alone. These are the books that are continuing to teach, grow, and shape us by great thinkers and minds that we would otherwise be unable to communicate with.

Books are tools in an ever growing toolbox of literary helps and guides for the growth of our hearts and minds in a world that would just rather sit back and lazily learn about the world passively on a television screen. It’s because reading is hard — it’s not an easy task. It takes patience and practice, and in world that wants everything NOW, it just doesn’t have the right marketing “buy in.” When was the last time you saw a commercial about a book? Probably not that recently unless you were watching the “Oprah book club channel” (doesn’t exist), and even then I wouldn’t recommend them. That same professor who advised us to build our personal libraries would often boldly exclaim that “the world belongs to those who read!” It’s 100% true — no doubt about it. The world will never belong to Suresh Joachim and Claudia Wavra who “achieved” a Guinness World Record for the most time watching movies, unless of course they can learn to spend their time a little more wisely — like reading maybe? Books will take you beyond the limits of a ninety minute film and give you a breadth of information to which you can actually use your mind to work through. If it’s a good book, it will take you to places you’ve never been, meet people you’ve never met, and introduce to a world that is definitely bigger than the planet that your probably living on now if you aren’t making a regular practice of reading.

Don’t sell yourself too short because life is already short enough. Find something your interested in and read about it. Set a goal or two, make a schedule, and be a little disciplined in your reading in 2010. A great way to start and finish books is to simply read twenty minutes a day. In the grand scheme of the day that’s a very small percentage of time. I’ve read enough to know that I need to be doing the same thing, and the more I read the more I realize that I don’t read enough. Had I actually taken to heart what my college professor was urging us to do that day, I probably could have read a hundred more books between then and now. I could have learned any number of a million subjects, but I have only just begun to apply this simple advice. But you gotta start somewhere, so why not start today? As usual, I’m writing this for myself than anyone else, so if you need someone to join you at the library (yes, they still exist) then I’ll be ready with my library card and a good book in hand.

P.S. I’ve mentioned this topic before, so if you’re looking for “further reading” (hint, hint) then my post titled “The Way I See It #111” might interest you.