Back-to-School Report

My son is furiously attempting to finish Lord of the Flies. His high school requires students to read a book over summer break, and arrive for the start of the fall semester ready to offer a report on the assigned reading. Piggy’s still alive where he’s at, if you were curious,. My son’s got a ways to go before Monday. 

His back-to-school assignment nudged me to offer here a bit of a book(s) report of my own. Over the summer months, as I take time to rest and travel with my family, while the daily schedule has a bit more breathing room, I assemble in my study a stack of books to read. I try to keep company with an assortment of voices: familiar ones and new ones, women and men, varied cultures and backgrounds, the living and the dead. And I try to immerse myself in several genres: theology and spirituality, history and poetry, fiction and memoir and whatever else piques my interest at the moment. 

So, here’s a bit of reporting on the contents of my summer reading, offered in hope that maybe one of these titles may find its way into your to-read pile… 

The Summer Stack

Essential Sermons- Augustine of Hippo: The fourth-century bishop of Hippo is a towering figure in philosophy and theology, but he was also a prolific working preacher. His sermons reverberate with the expected towering intellect and rhetorical prowess, but also a warm pastoral care. 

Becoming By Beholding- Lanta Davis: This book is a guided tour of the riches of the Christian Church’s art, architecture, iconography, literature, and more. Along the way, Davis makes a convincing case for the role of imagination in forming Christians into the image of Christ.

The Wager- David Grann: Happened on this book while nosing through Reader’s World one afternoon. Grann recounts the saga of the HMS Wager, an 18th-century British warship that wrecked off the coast of Patagonia. His thoroughly-researched work narrates what the existence of sailors was like centuries ago. There’s shipwreck, mutiny, murder, betrayal, courage, loyalty, and court-martial; the awful legacy of slavery; the ambitions of empire; and more besides. But what I loved the most about The Wager is that Grann writes history with the storytelling sense of a novelist.

Everyman Pocket Poets Collection- George Herbert: I appreciate George Herbert because, though he’d be recognized as one of the great British metaphysical poets, came from a wealthy family, and was a Cambridge graduate, ultimately he walked away from a prestigious appointment to take holy orders and to pastor a rural church community. This travel-sized compilation of his poems was an excellent curation of his strikingly honest verse.

God of the Woods- Liz Moore: In August of 1979, a precocious teenage girl goes missing in the Adirondacks from a summer camp owned by her wealthy New York parents. Each twist in the story kept me turning the page to the very end. 

By the Word Worked- Fleming Rutledge: This slim volume is the book-version of Rutledge’s Parchman Lectures at Truett Theological Seminary. It’s a tonic for anyone in the preaching vocation who needs to recover a sense of the urgency and gravity of our calling. 

Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck: Every year, I try to read at least one work of long, great fiction. And this summer’s pick was Grapes of Wrath, which I hadn’t read since a high school literature and humanities course (a time in my life when I was, shall we say, not very interested in either literature or humanity). Reading it again a few decades later, I found Steinbeck’s enduring Dust Bowl tale of the Joad family’s desperate journey from their Texas farm to the promise of California a prescient portrait of the plight, courage, and perseverance of those forced to flee from home in hope of a better future.

Music Is History- Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson: The multi-talented musician, filmmaker, and bandleader of the groundbreaking band The Roots writes a year-by-year reflection on songs that tell the story of America’s last few decades, beginning in 1971 (the year he was born). Questlove’s musical knowledge is encyclopedic, and the book is a fascinating exploration of the way that music both narrates and shapes history. And, you can listen along to the songs he discusses here.

We Carry Smoke & Paper- Melody Gee: This one is technically “on-deck,” as it’s the final book in my stack and the only one I haven’t cracked open yet. I heard Melody tell her story at this year’s Festival of Faith and Writing, and can’t wait to read her memoir of a life as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, her eventual embrace of Roman Catholic Christianity, and the losses and joys of her life’s many conversions. 

What’s been on your summer stack? My to-read pile is starting to dwindle…