Borrowing the idea from Georgiana and sharing my reading shelf today.

I read in a way that would have made me crazy ten years ago. And, you can see for yourself, I am woefully short on fiction. As in, none. I think this explains why my mind more naturally gravitates to blogging than to fiction-writing these days. It’s the stuff I’m spending all my print-time with.

Non-fiction.

You see, as “gifted” and articulate and meaningful as any of this content may be, I have not yet found any of it so magical that it is hard to set down or pick up in any given chunk. Yes, it benefits from continuity, but I benefit (more ?) from training my brain to make sense of the new bits, whatever order they come in.

It frequently causes me to see things in a new way because of the new context, and that is exciting to me.

My reading shelf currently consists of books that I have started, and have read enough of to know I want to keep reading. Probably to finish.

I’ve been feeling more of a desire to add to my toolbox, and time interacting with my children. That has started:

• Sheparding a Child’s Heart (I hear there’s controversy around this one)
• Say Goodbye to whining… (“In you and your kids”)
• Mommy Teach me
• The Busy Book

The desire to build my interactive life with God has started:

• Devotional Classics (one of my top ten on my 100-things about me list)
• Intercessory Prayer (Fascinating first couple of chapters! I’m so glad I was driving with Jay as I read them. *Had* to talk about what I was reading.)
• Mark for Everyone (A book the men have been using in Sunday school– The women just rejoined for the first time in a year) A commentary that is only the *starting* place for discussion in class. I am very impressed by the amount of thought and planning Nate is putting into the class. He is doing a fabulous job leading.

Mark‘s taken over Nehemiah for now. At least until I’ve caught-up in the book to where the men are. It’s good reading. Aptly titled, For Everyone.

Then there’s just the stuff that’s just for my own absorption and personal edification:

• The Angel and the Ants (The only thing on this table I’ve actually finished, but I’m wanting to revisit several parts).
• Orthodoxy (a lower priority, but intriguing enough to keep me going)
• Life Management (ETA: swapped this out for the one on the bottom)
• The Read-Aloud Handbook (from 1995. He sites stats in here that really make me want the current edition. Can’t it be better by now?! But what has changed in ten years? I have to say I don’t know one way or the other.) This is on my personal list because I’m trying to train myself that this sort of thing is about me and my habits.
• Becoming a Writer (Written in 1934, this is one of those serendipitous finds I’ve absolutely loved.) In contrast to another book I have, this one very plainly says if you find yourself unable to do the {two main recommended/suggested} exercises, or that they are too hard, you are probably not a writer. Give up quietly and go enjoy your life.

I love that. A practical litmus test.

So, there, the third reading list I’ve mentioned on this blog. Not that I ever finished the first two– my needs and priorities shifted. I can’t help that. I probably write them more as my own milestones or because of what they reveal about me at this point in time.

I’m not the sort of person who will stick with a book when it has lost its usefulness. After all (to coin another paraphrase):

Books were created for man, not man for books.

ETA:

This will replace Life Management on my shelf.

I mention this for two reasons (neither of which that you need to care):

• It’s an intriguing book I hadn’t heard of before I saw it on the “used” shelf, which may be the case for others.
• I’m making a real effort this list to read quality, useful stuff, and limiting myself to what will fit on my narrow shelf-top, so if I wanted to add this one, I had to ditch another. There was only one I was currently waffling on, so there ya go.