What I'm Reading

I read. A lot. As in 250-300 books a year. I don't read this much because I'm smarter than you are, or a speed reader, or some kind of pompous snob (at least I hope not!). From my earliest infancy, I spent the half hour before bed reading. Obviously, my mother read to me during those early years. But even long after I could read to myself, my mother read to me each night before bed. Those evenings remain some of my favorite times of childhood. And because of them, the habit was built into my marrow that I can't go to bed without reading first. On top of that, I'm not one of those people who falls asleep when reading (except for a few rather dense textbooks in college and grad school). So I often look up from the page to realize five hours has passed instead of a more reasonable half hour.

I love to read. I choose reading over a social life frequently. I choose it over sleep far too often. I have even chosen it over my job--I took a day off of work when the seventh Harry Potter book came out and delighted in it. I worked in a library for a year, which proved a blessing to my finances but something of a detriment to my studies (fiction, let's face it, is more fun than theological treatises).

So what do I read? Well, some unusual things, I guess. I don't much like American writers. I rarely read anything (for adults) published later than 1939, though I make exceptions for modern works set before 1939. Since I've been in seminary, I've read a lot of juvenile fiction to balance out the rigors of theology textbooks with some imaginative prose. And, of course, I read a lot of books on adoption and foster care.

But what am I reading right now?

Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Commentary. This is for my current (and final!) seminary class: Ruth, Psalms, Jonah, and Selected Epistles (otherwise known as the class for people who didn't take Hebrew 3 or Greek 4).

And I Will Praise Him: A Guide to Worship in the Psalms. Another textbook for my class. My professor is the author, and he's amazing. (I'm reading this on my Kindle, so it's not in the picture)

The Connected Child. I am rereading this, because the Empowered to Connect conference this past weekend reminded me how phenomenal it is.

Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States. I adore Bill Bryson's writing, and this subject matter is the stuff English nerd dreams are made of. If you know me, be prepared to be bored to tears by an endless recital of the fascinating facts this book contains.

A Damsel in Distress. P.G. Wodehouse is one of my favorite authors, and I always turn to his writing (he wrote 93 books!) in times of stress. The world just doesn't seem as daunting when you dream of a village named Market Snodsbury.

So that's a snapshot of the current occupants of my bedside table, purse, computer, and briefcase.

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” - Emilie Buchwald