The 25 Books of Summer

Yesterday on my Shards of Light blog, I shared with the interwebs my plans to survive this summer. One of the six is to catch up on my reading for the year. As you can see to the left, as of today, with the two books I have just finished, I am still behind on my goal of reading 60 books this year.

With what I am calling The 25 Books of Summer, I am a bit closer to my goal. Two down, 23 to go. Here are the first two I have finished...

1. Harvesting Fog, by Luci Shaw
2. Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me, by Ian Morgan Cron

The first, Harvesting Fog is a beautiful book of poetry. Lucy Shaw has a magnificent gift of seeing and expressing life in a way that is healing to the soul. Even though I have turned the last page, I cannot bring myself to put it on the bookshelf yet. There are poems there that I need to go back and read again. Perhaps this is one that will never make it to the bookshelf...

The second I finished only minutes ago. I will be posting a review of Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me, but it is still too fresh, still too close for me to do justice to it at this point. This is one of those rare books that actually make you feel like you are reading on holy ground. Brilliant is not a good enough word as far as I am concerned right now. {As an added bonus, I have a second copy of the book that I will be giving away when I post the review. Stay tuned.}

So here we begin. As far as I am concerned, we couldn't have had a better start to the summer.

What I'm Reading

Believe it or not, I am still on my way to having 60 books read this year.

That being said, I am a bit behind. Even for someone as numerically challenged as it am, i know that sixty books a year means five books a month. Given that we are more than halfway through May, the GoodReads widget to your left should say that I have 23 books read already.

Clearly that is not the case.

But given that summer—that most dreaded of all seasons for someone like myself—is just around the corner, I have a feeling that there will be no shortage of page turning coming my way as I attempt to hide from the heat, humidity and horrible glare from the sun.

One of my biggest struggles in attempting to read as much as humanly possible in a year is that many of the books I choose to read—most of which recommended to me or taken from the reading lists of people I admire—are books that cannot be read quickly. Some cannot be read quickly because they are designed so, such as the Rilke and Nouwen day books, meant to be read a bit every day. Others cannot be read quickly, because I so love the book, the last thing I want to do is read it quickly and have it end before I am ready. That would be tragic.

So here is what I'm reading right now...

The Thank You Economy {Gary Vaynerchuk} Someone in my Church Communications Group Tweeted that he was reading this book and that every Church Communications person out in the Twitterverse should read it. So I exercised my ever-growing Kobo Wi-Fi skills, and in moments, had it in my hot little eReader. I'm almost halfway through, and can tell you it is making me totally rethink how I do my job, and how it can be done so much better.

Walking On Water {Madeleine L'Engle} This one has been on the list for a while. It's one of those that I refuse to read quickly, simply because I don't want this time with Madeleine to end.

Harvesting Fog {Luci Shaw} A poetry book, again, designed to not rush through. I feel the need to go back again and again to each poem to get every drop of life in them.

Everything Belongs {Richard Rohr} Derek and Jennifer, my youngest brother and sister-in-law sent me this book off my Amazon wishlist for my birthday. Another one not meant to be rushed through, there is so much wisdom in the book on contemplative prayer, I can already tell that I will need to read it again!

Emma {Jane Austen} I've begun Emma many, many times in the past, but for some reason, this time I am still going. This may be my favorite of Jane's...

That is all I have for now. I'll have some favorite words to share with you later this week, some from the above books.

hungry?

recently, i've noticed a theme to my reading, one i haven't seen before. usually the 'steaks' in my reading schedule have more to do with genres than topics. for a while i was reading only biographies. sometimes fiction, or even young adult fiction.

but this one is different.

the theme of my reading lately has inadvertently been all about food.

it started with Paris Sweets, a cookbook that Ang got me last year, that is so incredibly perfect, there are hardly words. while it is a cookbook, each recipe is preceded by Dorie Greenspan's thoughts and experiences on the Paris patisserie that inspired the recipe. reading this book is like having Ms. Greenspan take you on the very best kind of tour of the city of lights... one that includes all things baked and buttery.

from there, i picked up Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life, which i have not finished yet, but for the very best of reasons. this book of essays, all accompanied by a recipe, is like a visiting friend, the kind that you just don't want to leave. you don't want the visit to end. and for this very reason, i am purposely reading my way through it very, very slowly.

shortly after i started A Homemade Life, on a recent trip to michigan, i picked up the book I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti at Target. i had heard of the book in a review i read, so knew that it would be enjoyable. Giulia Melucci takes her readers on a memoir of her love life, the men she has loved, lost and cooked for. while i have no intention of emulating Ms. Melucci's love life, i have already used more than one recipe found in her book, and let me say that i am a great fan. it has also put in me the desire to do more cooking for friends.

and lastly, the book i just finished moments ago, The School of Essential Ingredients, by Erica Bauermeister. this one took me by surprise. Ang lent it to me when i was visiting her last month, and i picked it up on Friday night, and was delighted the way only the best fiction can do. it is so good, i even stopped reading at the last chapter last night, simply because i wanted to save some of the magic for today. The School of Essential Ingredients is a beautiful tale of participants in a cooking class, and how their past experiences brought them together to the class, and how the mixing of the ingredients of their own lives ends up creating something beautiful. i can tell that this is one that i will definitely need to get for myself, as i will definitely want to read it again!

well, that brings me up to date. The School of Essential Ingredients is book number 36 for this year, which makes me exactly only one book behind in my plan to read 75 books this year. according to the schedule, today i should have finished book 37, but hey, at one point i was seven books behind, so what difference does one make?!

as usual, i am wondering what you are reading. do you have a recommendation that will surprise me the way this last one did?

reading challenge: day 63

it's been a while since i updated you on all the books in my life...

i'm actually a bit ahead of the game in order to get all 75 books read this year. book number 14, which i finished on wednesday, isn't due until tomorrow, with book number 15 due next wednesday.

book number 14, Thin Places by Mary DeMuth, i won't say much beyond the fact that it is brilliant, as i'm planning to review it next week.

not being one to read one book at a time, i've got a number of them on the go right now, so it's a toss up as to which one will end up being the fifteenth of 75. the big contenders are Flickering Pixels (which i am more than halfway through) and The Liturgical Year.

so that's what's going on in my world of of pages. definitely not as much as the last update, but still ahead of the game.

until next time...

reading challenge: day 45

thanks to a day off on friday, i was able to finish books 9, 10 and 11!

number 9 was Cara Black's Murder in Montmartre, number 10 was Cupidity, which i reviewed yesterday. by friday, i had read much of both of these. which was good, since i think i had a bout of sleeping sickness on friday! i was simply so tired that all the plans i had made had to postponed, but when i was awake, i could read.

after i finished the first two books, then i went to check the mail and behold! there were three more books! so i began Melody Carlson's Anything But Normal, and before i fell back to sleep on friday evening, i had finished that one as well.

so this puts me well ahead of schedule, as book number 12 isn't due to be read until february 24!

i've got a couple that could be next, but the one i REALLY want to be reading is the sequel to Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief, called The Sea of Monsters, which my friend alicia brought over last night for me to borrow. after seeing the movie Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief on saturday afternoon. it's been a while since i saw a movie at the theater, but trust me, this one was well worth the wait!