Summer Reading Lists

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bookslover

Puritan Board Doctor
This summer, my main reading project is Winston Churchill's 4 volumes of memoirs of World War I and his 4 volumes of memoirs of World War II (for the latter series, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1953). This is on top of our men's fellowship book, The Theology of B. B. Warfield by Fred Zaspel, which we're already about 200 pages into. Hopefully, I'll get most of this reading done!

Anyone else have their summer reading plans lined up?
 
I'm planning on spending most of my summer reading trying to sort out the different Reformed political theologies, or at least political frameworks that a Reformed believer has confessional room to consider. I studied some political theology at Covenant, but a lot has been written since 2007! Stop writing so much so I can catch up!

So far my list is as follows:

The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology by Oliver O'Donovon
Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship by Eric Gregory
The Republic of Grace: Augustinian Thoughts for Dark Times by Charles Mathewes (maybe also his Theology of Public Life)
Church, State and Public Justice: Five Views edited by Kemeny
God and Politics: Four Views by Gary Scott Smith
Living in God's Two Kingdoms by David Van Drunen
Christianity and Contemporary Politics by Luke Bretherton
Migrations of the Holy by William Cavanaugh
War and the American Difference by Stanley Hauerwas
To Change the World by James Davidson Hunter
Against Christianity by Peter Leithart
The Kuyper Center Review, vol 1: New Essays in Reformed Theology and Public Life by Gordan Graham
 
With three small children I have limited spare time. But aside from my quite intensive Bible-reading plan I am planning on reading The Politics by Aristotle
 
A whole pile of stuff about web site writing, on line newsletters, SOE and web analytics. Boring, boring, boring.
 
I was gifted The Christian Faith by Michael Horton as a graduation gift that I have already started working through and may take me most of the summer to really take in. It is excellent so far!

I would also like to continue working through the Institutes and read some other unread books I have around here. Maybe Communion with the Triune God by John Owen and the Bondage of the Will by Luther.
 
Am I inappropriate for this thread? I don't read much theology (bad Puritan!!). Recently I've enjoyed:

- Time's Arrow. What a thought provoking book. It begins with a man at his death and goes backwards, like film reversed in the loop, until his birth/conception. All sorts of fascinating things (imagine reverse nail clipping, reverse eating. . .) but the way sin is reversed! For example, as a doctor, he is working backwards so an accident victim comes in and he actually injures them, etc. But then sin is reversed, too; for instance, rather than drowning a man, he'd be saving him from drowning. It is really well done, from that point of view, and I'd love to hear others' response to this unique book.

-Suite Francaise, another winner, written by a woman as a five part series about France during the Occupation. Fascinating! The author was a Jew who converted to Catholicism; however, she was murdered in a concentration camp before she could finish her book (published posthumously by her daughter). It's just a tour de force trilogy, none the worse for being unfinished in the sense that her death sort of becomes part of the story. Well worth reading.

- Gilead, 5 stars, a very interesting book for the Christian reader. Here we have three generations of preacher men - one a violent abolitionist, one a pacifist, and one trying to work it out. Long lost and true Christian love in marriage is beautifully portrayed, etc. Highly recommended.

On my current shelf:

A Good and Happy Child (starting out dark, but not TOO dark, I'm sticking with it), Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, A Confederacy of Dunces, Bent Road, and here's a good one for the Puritan reader: Good Wives, Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Puritan New England. A scholarly and dusty little book, but I've gleaned some interesting insights.
 
In no particular order:

God of Promise-Horton
The Thomas Sowell Reader-Sowell
The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology-Waters
The Whimsical Christian-Sayers
The Mystery of Edwin Drood-Dickens
Covenant and Eschatology-Horton
Recovering the Reformed Confession-Clark
The Days are Just Packed: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection-Watterson
 
I put all books aside when I received 'J.C. Ryle, a man of granite with the heart of a child' by Eric Russell. Not only is it a great good bio of him but is full of his theological conclusions and how he eradicated error! I loved reading 'Warnings to the Churches by Ryle and 'Holiness' as well so it has been so illuminating to read this bio! Nothing else till this is finished!
 
I plan on reading the Brothers Karamazov, book 4 of Calvin's institutes, St Anselm's works, and Love, Freedom and Evil
 
Right now, reading "Communion with the Triune God" by John Owen and "Tell the Truth" by Will Metzger.

Next few in line:

"The Bondage and Liberation of the Will" by Calvin
"The Freedom of the Will" by Edwards
Institutes of the Christian Religion
"Prayer and Spiritual Warfare" by Spurgeon
"The Future of Justification" by Piper
 
I put all books aside when I received 'J.C. Ryle, a man of granite with the heart of a child' by Eric Russell...... Nothing else till this is finished!

You've got the secret, Nancy. I've got a terrible habit of starting something fresh before the last book is finished, and eventually a whole pile accumulates beside the bed :eek:. Two of Iain Murray's (The Forgotten Spurgeon and vol 2 of his biography of Lloyd-Jones) are in the pile at the moment, and so is John Piper's Don't Waste your Life. Yesterday the copy I ordered of Did God Really Say arrived, so it gets added too.
 
I put all books aside when I received 'J.C. Ryle, a man of granite with the heart of a child' by Eric Russell...... Nothing else till this is finished!

You've got the secret, Nancy. I've got a terrible habit of starting something fresh before the last book is finished, and eventually a whole pile accumulates beside the bed :eek:. Two of Iain Murray's (The Forgotten Spurgeon and vol 2 of his biography of Lloyd-Jones) are in the pile at the moment, and so is John Piper's Don't Waste your Life. Yesterday the copy I ordered of Did God Really Say arrived, so it gets added too.
If you have a book entitled "Don't waste your life" half read in a large pile - it might be an idea to finish it!
 
For this summer (probably too much!)

Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath (Herbert Hoover)
Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso (Dante)
The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories (Herodotus)
Calvin's Institutes (Calvin)
 
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