Most people think about “summer reading.” I do my fair share in the summer months, but thanks to my mother, who enjoys getting up early in the
morning with our children, I read three books over the course of the past two
weeks. I always read before bed, but Mom’s devotion means I really can turn the
page and read another chapter. For me, that type of reading is an indulgence
akin to a large slice of chocolate cake (actually, in my case, a large bowl of bread pudding because I don’t love chocolate cake, but it just didn’t sound as good) or a hearty glass of red wine. I just
love it.

So I pass along four books (I finished one between
Thanksgiving and Christmas) worth reading:

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: by Eric Metaxas. I don’t read many biographies,
but this one came highly recommended and it was worth the effort. Dietrich
Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian living in Germany in the first half of
the twentieth century. His personal spiritual life grew in conjunction with his
theological commitments as Hitler took power and Bonhoeffer recognized the evil
inherent in Nazi ideology. He chose to remain in Germany as a way to encourage
Christians, defend the Jews, and ultimately attempt to overturn the Nazi
regime. He was executed as a result.

The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr. I heard Mary Karr speak last year. She’s become a person of faith through AA, which makes her “god-awful” (in the words of one endorser) childhood all the more interesting to me. In the Q &A when I heard her speak, someone asked her about her past and whether it still haunts her. She said, “It’s like a trick ankle. Most of the time, you’re walking along without even thinking about it and then–wham–you stumbled over something minor and you can’t even move because it hurts so much all of a sudden.” Best analogy I’ve ever heard for how we can heal and yet return to the source of our pain all at the same time. The Liar’s Club is the first of a trilogy of memoirs (I liked it enough that I just bought Cherry and Lit, the second and third). It only begins to hint at the redemption that comes in time. Karr had a pretty horrible childhood. Alcoholism. Abuse. Divorce. Mental Illness. The works. But the writing is vivid and unpretentious. So far, she’s told me how she broke her ankle. I’m eager to understand how it healed.

Remembering, by Wendell Berry. (Berry is a prolific writer. If you haven’t heard of him, I’d start with Jayber Crow. All of his novels center around the town of Port William and the families therein, but Jayber Crow is my favorite of the bunch so far.) The action within this slim novel (only 100 pages) occurs entirely within the memory of Andy Catlett as he reflects on his life as a farmer and the struggles to maintain a small family farm instead of supporting agri-business. Sometimes I think Berry’s fiction borders on polemical–as if I’m reading an essay in novel form. But this book strikes the right balance of advocating for a particular worldview without forcing that view upon the reader.

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro. Munro is considered by many to be the greatest living fiction writer, at least in North America. Her stories are simple. Most center around women living rather ordinary lives. But the writing always captivates and the stories stay with me. I recommend this collection, along with every other Munro collection, although I would advise skipping the first story (It’s about a woman who loses her children, and, having read it when it was originally published in the New Yorker, I couldn’t bear to read it again). Come to think of it, there is a hint of melancholy  throughout. It’s just that the characters seem so normal and yet so interesting at the same time.