Saturday, April 16, 2011

Recommended reading

Wow! I didn't realize it had been so long. I thought I'd mention a few books that I thought were worth mentioning from the last few months. (I've gotten a lot pickier about what I spend my time on lately.)

Heather Tomlinson's fairy tales are worth a look. I liked The Swan Maiden and Aurelie better than Toads and Diamonds.

Elizabeth C. Bunce's StarCrossed. What I like about this book is that what Digger believes about herself (callous, uncaring, selfish) is shown to be untrue by her actions.

Donald Miller's Searching for God Knows What. Read this book! He manages to be honest, funny, insightful and wise, sometimes all at once, as he talks about man's relationship with God (using many stories from his own life as illustrations). I want to say this book changed how I see a lot of things, but it's only been a couple months since I've read it and I really ought to give it another read to see what else it shakes up.

Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water. I've only just started reading this but already it's quite good. If you're an artist of any kind I suspect you'll find some wisdom here.

4 comments:

Samantha said...

I'm so glad you left a comment on my blog because it led me to yours. This morning I posted a blog expressing the fact that I read a lot and have decided to devote this summer to reading inspirational books. I didn't know where to start looking so I got ahold of an extensive list of recommended books. This list was intimidating to me so I was asking for suggestions from my readers...However, for whatever reason I deleted the post...never done that before but I did it. But I'm so glad I found this post because Donald Miller's book "Searching for God Knows What" was on this list. I'm going to read this book next. Thanks for unintentionally helping me narrow down an intimidating reading list :)

Please excuse my book of a comment...I'm wordy :)

Joshua said...

I'm glad I could help - I think this is the first time anyone has said this little project has actually helped her.

I'd also recommend Walking on Water as mentioned above -- I think it is really a book for all Christians, not just artists -- and I just read C. S. Lewis's The Four Loves which demands a lot of thought from the reader but is also pretty good (though I find myself disagreeing with parts of it). Of the three, though, I'd say Searching for God Knows What was the one I read in the right place at the right time in my life, and had the largest impact.

Samantha said...

I received the book in the mail today. I've only made it through the intro and first 2 chapters so far but I think I'm really going to like it and hopefully get something out of it :) so thank you again

Joshua said...

Thanks for the update. You'll have to let me know what you think when you finish -- or if you don't. Someone else I recommended it to couldn't really get into it.