Summer Reading List

In honor of completing my first reading assignment of the new school year, I thought it would be interesting to post what I read over the summer. As much as I can remember, these are in order of reading.

1. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling – just as good the fourth (fifth? sixth?) time. Perfect for distracting a person from the reality of CPE. Unfortunately I had a 2-hour commute every day, so I blew through this pretty quickly and had to find something else to read.
2. Forgetting Whose We Are: Alzhemiers Disease and the Love of God by David Keck – this was the book that convinced me that I could not do intense ministry all day and read theology at night and be at all functional. Also, I realized that if you agree with the basic premise a theology book is trying to prove before it even starts, it’s kind of a boring read. The book makes a good and important argument about the ability of God’s love to transcend memory loss, but I wanted more about where to go with that.
3. Bech: A Book by John Updike – I know Updike is a famous author and this is supposed to be one of his classic works, but I’m not sure this book had an actual plot.
4. Dreams from my Father by Barak Obama – I like the idea that we have someone who thinks about things like this running our country.
5. Portuguese Irregular Verbs and The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs by Alexander McCall Smith – From the series The 2½ Pillars of Wisdom. Similar to Bech, there wasn’t really a discernible plot to either, but they were funny and not offensive (unlike Bech). I rather enjoyed them.
6. The Shack by William P. Young – I read this because I feel it’s important to be up on the current popular Christian literature. That being said, I really enjoyed it. Gave me a lot to think about.
7. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert – Really liked this one too. I see why it’s been making the circles for a while.
8. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld – Painfully awkward. A good representation of what it feels like to be a fourteen-year-old girl, a part of my life I had no desire to revisit. Oddly enough, I found I couldn’t put it down! Like watching an awkward train wreck, I couldn’t look away.
9. Naked by David Sedaris – I read a lot of books this summer that were awkward and had no discernible plot. I found I wasn’t a fan.
10. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini – And now for something completely different! Amazing, but wow, painful. Really, really good, but a little intense for CPE.
11. The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger – Ah, back to my general level of summer reading preferences. Funny story about this one is I read most of it in one night sitting on the floor in my bathroom because my roommate couldn’t sleep with the light on and I was afraid to go downstairs because of the cat. Yep, I sat on the floor of the bathroom rather than face a 12 pound housecat. It was maybe the most pathetic moment of my summer.
12. Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story about God, Dreams and Talking Vegetables by Phil Vischer – The autobiography of the founder of Veggie Tales. This book was really amazing. A great book about having dreams, doing what you love, and what to do when what you love falls apart. Also just a really good story.
13. Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year by Anne Lamott – I picked up this one sort of on a whim because I like Anne Lamott. It was alright, not much to say really.
14. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides – This book lived up to the hype. Really engaging and well written.
15. The Stranger in Big Sur by Lillian Bos Ross – I found it on my shelf in my parents’ house. Definitely not a classic, sort of a regional read.
16. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy – The book starts at a funeral, and the rest of the story is about learning how the story got to that point. Amazing how drawn in I was to a book where I knew how it ended. Really good.
17. Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver – Always nice to close out the summer with a good Kingsolver novel, and Prodigal Summer delivers. Good characters development, social justice-y plotlines, and a little bit of romance. Perfect.