Summer Reading.

The last few months of traveling and summertime heat waves, have given me the chance to read some new books. Some were fiction, which I haven't read for a while, so they were super fun to read. I would recommend any and all of them.

First, A Thousand Splendid Suns -by Khaled Hosseini; this was a book I have wanted to read since it came out, after I had read the Kite Runner. It was incredibly sad and amazing at the same time. I always enjoy reading books like this, because they can challenge me to live life differently. Some authors can capture real life situations in a way that, despite the sadness, leave me affected, and changed, because of it. Namely, I want to be better after I finish reading them. I like that, its probably what they might be going for. I never want to be content with who I am, I want to be challenged to keep growing, and some books really do that to me. I think because they express things in ways that I can not, but its as if I might have thought it myself.


Next I read two classic novels while I was in Santa Barbara for two weeks. Greg was working with his brother Chris, there. One was by Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey and the other by Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Anne Bronte was my favorite of the two, it was a much more developed story, so maybe that's why it was a little more exciting to read.

Then I read a true story about a man raised in the South, who moved to Texas, but lived there homeless. This book was recommended by my brother and his wife, and Greg and I both read it. It was called Same Kind of Different as Me, by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. I really enjoyed this book. It gave me a greater desire to serve in new ways, not just everyday, but to give my life to something. I know that is what Christianity is, giving your life to follow Christ. This book just helped me think more about what that means for the whole context of my life. What are the circumstances I feel God has called me to be a part of in my life, that call for a greater sacrifice of myself?

The more recent book I read was a novel called, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It was a story about a writer just following WWII, who discovers a literary society in the Channel Islands. It was a creative story that was both sad and really joyful for me.
I have been thinking about starting a little book club here, and after I read this last book I decided I really wanted to after all. The club in this book involves ordinary people who get caught up in the society in a unique way, and they are not all avid readers, but become engrossed in authors who define who they are in a way, and get them through an aweful time of life to be alive in. I kept thinking that starting a book club would be a way to connect with others and share part of who we are and what we are made up of, through reading books together. I am really excited about it, so I hope I can find some people who are equally excited as well, and I think I just might. :)