Summer Reading
Two months left, still plenty of time to get some reading in. I wanted to be compliant, though late, with Derek's request to report on our summer reading list. And, now that Rodney Trotter's on my trail, I need allies.
Thabiti and Friends, or as it is officially known as: Glory Road: The Journeys of 10 African-Americans into Reformed Christianity, Edited by Anthony J. Carter (Crossway). I have looked through this already in its earlier manuscript form, offering an endorsement (which my good friends at Crossway put inside the book and not on the back cover--Bruce Hornsby lyrics come to mind, "good enough to hire, not good enough to marry." Don't worry, Crossway, I still love you and your Bible.) I'm looking forward to reading it in its finished form.
Douglas Sweeney, Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word: a Model of Faith and Thought (IVP). I have been looking forward to this book ever since I heard that Doug was working on it. Just when you thought they've said all there is to say about Jonathan Edwards, we learn there's more, profoundly more. Doug is a great historian-theologian and this promises to be the best book on Edwards in a long time.
Gregory Wills, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1859-2009 (Oxford). Greg is an extremely careful historian who labors over every word. The result is a fine work. That this book was picked up by Oxford is telling of Greg's ability. Every institution should have such an historian.
Christopher J H Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative (IVP). I've skimmed through this book before, but it's time to read it cover to cover, and there's a lot between those covers.
Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (Pantheon). Here's the line I happened upon while browsing through this book at Barnes & Noble, having read it I bought it immediately: "We are now as imaginatively disconnected from the manufacture and distribution of our goods as we are practically in reach of them, a process of alienation which has stripped us of myriad opportunities for wonder, gratitude, and guilt" (35).
Michael Capuzzo, Close to Shore: The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916 (Broadway Books). This to me is the ultimate anti-beach-book book. Best, from what I've read so far, if read aloud in near proximity to the ocean.
I'm sure some others will sneak in there. Every summer I like to read through The Old Man and The Sea, Pilgrim's Progress, and the Confessions. What they all have in common, I have no idea.
