What Are You Reading this Summer?

Inside: Reading recommendations, an in person summer book club—and thoughts while planting beans.

A few summers ago, a good friend and I decided that we needed a book club. I honestly have no recollection of the thought process that landed us there, but it was a fantastic decision. We discussed the book and our lives in lawn chairs under my friend’s shade tree and then returned to our fall routines, but because the book was part of a series, we continued reading books 2-4 and met at least one other time to catch up and connect.

Whenever I think about that book series, I remember that group of four or five women. There was nothing magical about the books, but somehow in the process of discussing them, we all connected. That’s one of the reasons I share books here and on my blog—there’s just something special about connecting over a good book!

Summertime is famous for its beach reads, for light fiction with a happy ending or lots of breezy self-help selections. If that’s you, then I’m not judging. Happy summer reading to you!

Sometimes, though, summer is the perfect opportunity to go deep with your reading, to tackle a challenging author, to make time for a series of books that has been calling your name, to explore a tantalizing topic, or to expand your understanding and appreciation of God and his ways.

Here on the hill, there are certain books I keep nearby after reading and reviewing them, knowing that there’s more to them than I have managed to extract with a single reading. And then, there are the books and authors that I keep on perennial repeat, revisiting them on a regular basis just because they are so rich.

From these categories, I’ve compiled a list of ten books, deep and wide. With a balance of fiction and non-fiction, I hope this list will enrich YOUR summer reading!

Fluff-Free Fiction for Summer Reading

Sensible Shoes

That summer book club I mentioned focused on book one from the Sensible Shoes series by Sharon Garlough Brown. By Christmas time, most of us had read the entire series. Conversations about the book, while we sat under a tree in my friend’s yard, were unforgettable as we all became invested in the characters and their growing relationships. The combination of deep spiritual insights with an engaging plot made this a series that I can’t wait to revisit!

Hannah Coulter

Hannah Coulter has stolen first place in my list of favorite Wendell Berry books, for Berry put words into the mouth of a fictional, elderly widow named Hannah Coulter who, in addition to being a crackerjack farmhand when needed and probably making a great pie crust, also had a clear handle on her biblical theology. Her rich interior monologue carries the book which is not so much about plot as it is about the undercurrent of life in Port Royal as seen and understood through Hannah’s eyes. The audiobook is also excellent!

Fahrenheit 451

Somehow, I have managed to miss reading anything by Ray Bradbury until subbing in the public schools introduced me to Fahrenheit 451. I’m no fan of dystopian fiction, but a world in which books have been outlawed and minds are being controlled by continual noise and visual images deserves my attention and my alarm. Bradbury has built a protagonist in Montag who required both my attention and my sympathy. Biblical allusions and quotes from great literature reward the observant reader!

Jack

Jack by Marilynne Robinson is the fourth installment in the Gilead series. The eponymous hero of the story gets my vote for literature’s most frustrating character. He shows up as the troubled (and troubling) fly in the ointment in both Gilead and Home, but my heart softened toward him this time as I read the backstory that connected the dots between the unhappy man and the rascally boy who functioned as a complete mystery to his father, the Reverend Boughton, a Presbyterian clergyman.

Jack is a cautionary tale for Christian families. As tempting as it may be to re-work our theology to accommodate the sins of our children and as slippery the slope into despair over our prodigals may be, God is still in the process of dispensing grace to us and to our children.

Love Big. Be Well

Love Big, Be Well by Winn Collier is a bundle of letters left on the church’s doorstep. Winn Collier is a pastor, but here he’s wearing his fiction writer’s hat. Nonetheless, his heart for ministry comes shining through along with a clear-eyed affection for Christ’s body, communicated through the character of Pastor Jonas McAnn, who wrote letters to his congregation from a desire to pay attention and to help his people do likewise. He wanted to remind his readers that life together is good and it consists of shared stories — shared experiences that call us toward the Light. For anyone who is committed to this calling over the long haul, Love Big, Be Well is a benediction, a reminder that ministry is “shot through with blessing,” and a celebration of the dignity of the slow work of ministry in community.

Go Deep with Your Non-Fiction Reading

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

I read The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer on vacation with my family which made it SO easy for me to nod my head in agreement with everything he wrote about the journey away from a life of hurry and his own movement toward an embrace of Jesus’s easy yoke and light burden. He then goes on to describe and to offer guidelines for adopting a rule of life that makes room for interruptions (which may actually turn out to be the main thing after all) and to leave room for prayer, rest, and healthy community. Spiritual disciplines of silence and solitude, sabbath, simplicity, and slowing sound quaint and even liturgical to modern ears, and yet they are medicine for the continually rushing and anxious soul.

The Problem of Pain

I try to read something by C.S. Lewis every year, and recently it was The Problem of Pain. It was a great choice for a season in which so many were experiencing pain of all sorts, but there were so many surprising insights about life and our expectations that even though I’ve read the book numerous times, it was full of surprises like this quote: “We try, when we wake, to lay the new day at God’s feet; before we have finished shaving it becomes our day and God’s share in it is felt as a tribute which we must pay out of ‘our own’ pocket, a deduction from the time which ought, we feel, to be ‘our own.’”

Becoming Elisabeth Elliot

In Becoming Elisabeth Elliot, Ellen Vaughn wades into the complicated backstory of a woman described by Joni Erickson Tada as “a captain–not a private–in the army of God.” (73) Newcomers to Elliot’s life will receive a crash course in the content from her first five or six books. Those already familiar with the stories about an agonizing and prolonged courtship, fiery young visionaries contacting a dangerous and unreached tribe, five missionaries speared to death, and a widow with a toddler learning the language of her husband’s killers will have the delightful experience of hearing those stories in a different voice.

The bracing lessons that emerged from Elliot’s missionary career resonate today for all of us who embrace a faithful following: “God will not fail to do His part, which is ultimately the only part that matters.” Living this reality, Elisabeth Elliot gained what she could not lose.

Turning of Days

With exquisite prose, Hannah Anderson chronicles her own Turning of Days, one season at a time, taking note of creation and meandering between description and application. This book sits on my nightstand for a leisurely re-read of the essays on summer this month.

Delicate hand drawings and well-chosen scripture verses support each essay, and so does Anderson’s worldview, which has been shaped by eternal truth and by her close association with the land, family, and community. Because I am also a gardener and a woman subject to the variances and vicissitudes of nature, I found myself nodding in agreement, page after page, celebrating the ways and means of God and lamenting the fact that once the harvest begins, the weeding comes to a screeching halt. This collection of essays by Hannah Anderson fulfills the old theater adage: Leave them wanting more!

Prayer in the Night

Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep guides readers through Compline, line by line, acknowledging that nighttime is often the backdrop for suffering, weeping, or affliction. Warren’s offering is far from a pat answer or one more theological textbook on the problem of evil. Written from her own experience of grief and devastating loss, she asks the question: Can we really trust a God who allows bad things to happen to his children? She invites readers to embrace our own vulnerability–which is especially apparent to us in the night-time hours.

That’s it! Five fiction and five non-fiction reads to help you go deep with your reading life this summer. Let me know in the comments what YOU plan to read this summer. Will any of these selections make your Summer TBR?

Happy Reading!

What are YOU reading this summer?

Hey, Midcoast friends!

It’s time for another Summer Book Club, and you're invited!

We'll be reading Jayber Crow, a classic work of fiction by Wendell Berry, one of my favorite authors. Jayber Crow is a book about a man, but it is also a book about a place. Chapter 1 introduces Jayber as the barber in Port William, and then goes on to introduce the reader to the town he called home.

We'll have our first meeting on Thursday, June 27 at 9:00. Meetings will last for one hour, and we'll be very respectful of that time boundary so we don't fall into the trap of chewing up your whole morning. Please come to the first meeting having read Chapters 1-3. We'll discuss the content, and I'll have a reading schedule ready, mapping out our progress through the book.

One more thing: Thursdays at 9:00 are not set in cement. If the group that lands here for the first meeting agrees that a different day and time would work better, we'll adjust.

Here's a link to the book over on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3KQHYxf

Planning on coming? Let me know in the comments!

Thoughts While Planting Beans

Maybe you’ve heard this song by Maine singer/songwriter David Mallett:

“Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow.
All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground.
Inch by inch, row by row, Someone bless these seeds I sow,
Someone warm them from below till the rain comes tumblin’ down.”

If it’s possible to enjoy a song while arguing with it, that’s what I was doing as I bent over, planted a seed, and then repeated the motion up and down the straight rows of our garden. I was willing to overlook the “all it takes” line even though we had just spent over a hundred dollars on seeds, seedlings, and parts for the rototiller.

My argument was directed at the indefinite pronoun someone, because I know very well Who has to bless and warm and water those seeds I’ve planted if there’s going to be a harvest. And isn’t that just the best part of gardening? Perhaps our dependence draws us closer to God through the sweat of our brow than we could ever get by swiping our cards at the grocery store checkout.

Keeping my eyes on the row markers at the far end of the garden while I lay out the rows keeps me mindful that if I “Trust in the Lord with all [my] heart and lean not on [my] own understanding,” if I acknowledge him in all my ways, “he will make my paths straight.” And I DO want straight rows and straight paths.

Bending low in the garden is certainly a mindset, too, but all metaphors aside, quite honestly, at 61 it is first and foremost a posture. I spent some time this gardening year giving thanks that the exercises I’ve been doing to head off the effects of Parkinson’s disease have also made it much easier for me to move well in the garden.

Thanks for visiting with me in the bean patch!

Speaking Schedule

A big welcome to new subscribers who found their way here via my May speaking engagements. This month I’ll be speaking at the third annual Art & Joy of Words weekend near Lincoln, Maine. I’m excited to meet this diverse group of Maine writers.

I’m free to garden and enjoy my family here on the hill in July.
Then on August 10, I’ll be in Casselberry, Florida at Metro Life Church, and on August 17 here in Maine at East Auburn Baptist Church.

Feel free to forward this letter to a friend who might love the conversation and resources!

Holding You in the Light,

P.S. If you received this letter from a friend, be sure to hit the subscribe button so we can continue to stay in touch!