Winter Reading List?

[H]

I tend to read a lot more once this lovely Pennsylvania weather closes in (bet you didn't know we're known as the Sunshine State of the East - not!) and it's closing in fast this year. Which books (fiction, nonfiction, theology, etc.) are making it onto your Winter List, if you have one? Do you read only theology books or do you mix it up? Any high-ranking recommendations?

[ScottL]

For fiction, if you like fantasy (like Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter), then maybe the Inheritance series.

The Call by Os Guinness - a deep thinker, like a modern-day C.S. Lewis to me.

Becoming a True Spiritual Community by Larry Crabb - about how the church was made to be relational at its core.

The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts by Max Turner - probably the best modern-day, academic work I have found on the Holy Spirit and related topics (from a continuationist-charismatic viewpoint)

Ok, that's good enough.

[Rey Reynoso]

I've been planning to re-read some books on Christian leadership and headship like but I'm not sure. Either way, they've been moved off the shelf to the side here:
Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Strauch's Eldershp book
Getz's Leaders and Elders book.

I've also been planning to finish my Jane Austine and Zombies book as well as a couple of Numbers and Leviticus commentaries that I've been working through.

New reading is a couple of Jim Butcher books that are part of his Wizard for Hire series (which is a whole lot of fun). I also have to go to the library to pick up William Lane Craig's two books on time.

[Marv]

Well, there's nothing I enjoy better than a good meal (esp. breakfast) while reading something intelligent. That pretty much rules out the newspaper. These are past choices, I'm afraid...and, well, I liked them, but I don't know whether you personally will, Holly. These are fiction, action adventure type. More than a little escapist...okay...and maybe specifically male. I checked your profile, and they don't sound stereotypically like books geared for a vegetarian who quotes Francis of Assisi...(nothin' against...these are just a bit carvivorous). On the other hand I'm INFP myself. So maybe there's hope.

Anyway, a couple of years ago I made the "mistake" of reading Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander. I say "mistake" because the series is 20 books long...but I read through them in 6 months or so. Yeah that is approaching a book a week...but made for a very pleasureful half year (starting in winter at least). Okay, it's about war(Napoleonic war mostly, England and France, with a little 1812 thrown in), but on the other hand his style is more than a little reminiscent of Jane Austen, no kidding. And great wit. Love his humor. Also he takes off too fast at the start of the series. Probably had no idea he would write 20 books. So he starts in 1800 but ends up having to make 1813 last for about five years. But great writing, great characters, great plots.

Now, meatier still, I just got finished with Lee Child's Jack Reacher series. He's the guy that makes Jack Bauer look like a sissy. Not nearly the same literary quality. Has a very distinct style. Kind of catching really, because I'm finding myself now wanting to write with sentence fragments.

Sentence fragment paragraphs.

Italics too!

Problem is, after chain smokin' 'em, I ran out after 13. Fortunately, I picked a living author this time, and he's making more... Only I have to wait until March for the next one.

They are thriller/crime genre. Not a whole lot to commend in the theological vein, sorry. Only I was turned on to him by a PCA elder, so there. Child is a former TV writer, so he just doesn't know squat about writing Christianity. Just doesn't get it right. It happened I didn't start with the first book, and I happened on one book where he has a character who is supposed to be a Christian. Makes a muddle of it, of course. But I still managed to down his entire oeuvre to date.

I also recently enjoyed Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, but then I'm just weird enough to do so.

[Ratatösk]

Foucault's Pendulum is great stuff.

[Ratatösk]

O'Brian, too.

Have you ever read C. S. Forester's Hornblower series, Marv?

[Craig Falvo]

I like to mix it up.

Because of my position, I like to read what the youth are reading, so I'm working throught the His Dark Materials trilogy.
I'm also reading unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity ...and Why It Matters.
Flash Forward and Choke are on my list.

[H]

Honestly, you make me laugh out loud - in a good way. :)

OK - I saw the movie "Master and Commander" and I would guess it was based, however loosely, on the series of which you speak? I can handle novels about war - you know, "War and Peace," "The Winds of War," etc., and a rather unfortunate book by Jerzy Kosinski (which I actually didn't like at all) entitled "The Painted Bird." Yech. Read that as a teenager and have regretted it ever since. A friend had given it to me. Didn't handle that one so well.

So I may try some of your more carnivorous fare.

Having re-read all of Austen & Bronte last year and started on Dickens, I had planned to continue with Dickens after finishing Les Mis.

That's just the fiction, though. I have a penchant for a certain type of classic and a weakness for the Byronic hero. Sad, I know.

Making notes of some of the other selections as well - so keep them coming! Thanks!









Marv said:

Well, there's nothing I enjoy better than a good meal (esp. breakfast) while reading something intelligent. That pretty much rules out the newspaper. These are past choices, I'm afraid...and, well, I liked them, but I don't know whether you personally will, Holly. These are fiction, action adventure type. More than a little escapist...okay...and maybe specifically male. I checked your profile, and they don't sound stereotypically like books geared for a vegetarian who quotes Francis of Assisi...(nothin' against...these are just a bit carvivorous). On the other hand I'm INFP myself. So maybe there's hope.
Anyway, a couple of years ago I made the "mistake" of reading Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander. I say "mistake" because the series is 20 books long...but I read through them in 6 months or so. Yeah that is approaching a book a week...but made for a very pleasureful half year (starting in winter at least). Okay, it's about war(Napoleonic war mostly, England and France, with a little 1812 thrown in), but on the other hand his style is more than a little reminiscent of Jane Austen, no kidding. And great wit. Love his humor. Also he takes off too fast at the start of the series. Probably had no idea he would write 20 books. So he starts in 1800 but ends up having to make 1813 last for about five years. But great writing, great characters, great plots.
Now, meatier still, I just got finished with Lee Child's Jack Reacher series. He's the guy that makes Jack Bauer look like a sissy. Not nearly the same literary quality. Has a very distinct style. Kind of catching really, because I'm finding myself now wanting to write with sentence fragments.

Sentence fragment paragraphs.

Italics too!

Problem is, after chain smokin' 'em, I ran out after 13. Fortunately, I picked a living author this time, and he's making more... Only I have to wait until March for the next one.

They are thriller/crime genre. Not a whole lot to commend in the theological vein, sorry. Only I was turned on to him by a PCA elder, so there. Child is a former TV writer, so he just doesn't know squat about writing Christianity. Just doesn't get it right. It happened I didn't start with the first book, and I happened on one book where he has a character who is supposed to be a Christian. Makes a muddle of it, of course. But I still managed to down his entire oeuvre to date.

I also recently enjoyed Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, but then I'm just weird enough to do so.

[Marv]

Man, when the Golden Compas was about to come out it looked cool--(wasn't), and picked up the book. Too boring to finish...I thought.

Craig Falvo said:

I like to mix it up.

Because of my position, I like to read what the youth are reading, so I'm working throught the His Dark Materials trilogy.
I'm also reading unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity ...and Why It Matters.
Flash Forward and Choke are on my list.

[Marv]

Yeah, I thought about that. I was really hep on sailing ships and all. Never got around to Hornblower, though. I guess I was maybe thinking it would be similar in subject, but just not the same thing. I think O'Brian was highly influenced by Forester. I take it you have read them. Good?

Ratatösk said:

O'Brian, too.

Have you ever read C. S. Forester's Hornblower series, Marv?

[Marv]

Okay, so two of us are weird enough....LOL

Ratatösk said:

Foucault's Pendulum is great stuff.

[Craig Falvo]

The first one was ok, the second one was blah and I heard the third one is just bad. The only reason I'm reading it is because I the Director of Child, Youth and Family ministries for a Lutheran church. I'm working through the books that the youth I work with will be reading. Next on the list is the Twilight series. We'll see if I can get past the awful writing.

Marv said:

Man, when the Golden Compas was about to come out it looked cool--(wasn't), and picked up the book. Too boring to finish...I thought.

Craig Falvo said:

I like to mix it up.

Because of my position, I like to read what the youth are reading, so I'm working throught the His Dark Materials trilogy.
I'm also reading unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity ...and Why It Matters.
Flash Forward and Choke are on my list.

[Marv]

Yeah, that sounds like my experience. As I understood it, Pullman was trying to be sort of the anti-Lewis. He was in one way at least: Lewis is an excellent writer. The film was "supposed" to have a Christians-all-fired-up buzz, though this was virtually non-existent. They eviscerated his anti-church stuff. Some say that's what torpedoed the movie. I'd say it was more due to its being lousy. The art direction was cool, as I say, but it went nowhere from there. I didn't really care that much about his anti-religion stand (yawn) so I was ready to read the novels. I think that's what they mean by Pullman Sleeper, as in snoozer...soporific.



Craig Falvo said:

The first one was ok, the second one was blah and I heard the third one is just bad. The only reason I'm reading it is because I the Director of Child, Youth and Family ministries for a Lutheran church. I'm working through the books that the youth I work with will be reading. Next on the list is the Twilight series. We'll see if I can get past the awful writing.

Marv said:

Man, when the Golden Compas was about to come out it looked cool--(wasn't), and picked up the book. Too boring to finish...I thought.

Craig Falvo said:

I like to mix it up.

Because of my position, I like to read what the youth are reading, so I'm working throught the His Dark Materials trilogy.
I'm also reading unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity ...and Why It Matters.
Flash Forward and Choke are on my list.