So, what have I been up to reading-wise? I don’t know that any of you were actually asking yourselves that, but I’m going to answer anyway.

  • I really enjoyed Richard Beck’s Unclean.
  • I read the first chapter of Vanauken’s A Severe Mercy and found it slow-going stylistically. I’ve heard so many folks say so much good about it I’ll keep at it and see if it gets better, though.
  • I started O’Donavan’s Resurrection and Moral Order and wow, it’s dense. That’s not necessarily bad, but wow. Of course, maybe I should’ve taken the hint when Alistair Roberts told me that you had best read it slowly.
  • I read a quick WEB Griffin novel and a short popular history.

Business trip again next week so maybe I’ll get some more substantive reading done.

As an aside: I mentioned a discussion this week with a couple of co-workers that I’ve logged and rated every book I’ve read over the past 8 years. They looked at me like I was nuts. I trust you, dear reader, won’t judge me near so harshly.

The book pile:

  • Surprised by Scripture, NT Wright
  • Merton: A Biography, Monica Furlong
  • Meditative Prayer, Thomas Merton
  • Resurrection and Moral Order, Oliver O’Donavan
  • Paul and the Faithfulness of God, NT Wright
  • A Severe Mercy, Shelden Vanauken
  • From Bible Belt to Sun Belt, Darren Dochuk
  • Parables of Judgment, Robert Capon
  • Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris
  • Evangelical Theology, Karl Barth
  • Confessions of a Guilty Bystander, Thomas Merton
  • The Wounded Healer, Henri J. M. Nouwen
  • The Monster in the Hollows, Andrew Peterson

Books I’ve started but not yet finished:

  • The Kingdom of Christ, Russell Moore
  • Jesus Manifesto, Frank Viola & Leonard Sweet
  • The Fiddler’s Green, A. S. Peterson

Books I wanna re-read:

  • The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, David Dark
  • When I Was a Child I Read Books, Marilynne Robinson
  • Between Noon and Three, Robert Capon

Unread on my Kindle:

  • Barefoot Church: Serving the Least in a Consumer Culture, Brandon Hatmaker
  • Center Church, Tim Keller
  • The Pastor: A Memoir, Eugene Peterson
  • Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity, Frank Viola
  • Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation’s Treasures from the Nazis, Robert Edsel
  • Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality, Richard Beck
  • Why Holiness Matters: We’ve Lost Our Way–But We Can Find it Again, Tyler Braun