Reading

I find it ironic that I was never much of a reader when I was growing up, but I choose a "profession" that requires vast amounts of reading. I have a library that grows faster than I can read. I also find it ironic that we have commercials with good looking celebrities (actors) who claim that if you read to your kids they will be readers. My Mom read to me, yet I did not become a reader until after I was married and started having kids. My wife read to our kids yet they did not develop her voracious appetite for reading.

I read in school because I had to and probably did not develop good reading skills. I did not read anything for pleasure. I started reading for pleasure in 1979 when my wife handed me a book and said, "I think you would enjoy this." The book was The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum. It was HUGE! I think it was over 700 pages. I looked at her and thought, "She really doesn't know me that well." But she was right. I couldn't put the book down. In fact, one night I was close to the end and I stayed up until 2:00 AM to finish the book. A new direction in my life had begun.

In the first year of this new direction I read over 70 novels, including every Ludlum novel and all of Ludlum's novels are HUGE. I had fun going to the library and searching through the fictional section for new authors to read. I found Ed McBain, Lawrence Saunders, and a host of others to read. Lately I have enjoyed Clive Cussler's books. The books I enjoy the most are spy thrillers, police thrillers, and any kind of action oriented books.

I added another dimension to my fictional reading early in the mid 80s. One day on the Phil Donahue show (this was before he became known as an extreme liberal) he was interviewing a psycho-analyst about his new book, Me the Narssictic American. The book's premise was that no nation has ever survived success. The next book I remember reading that was non-fiction was Case Closed by Gerald Posner. His thesis was that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing president Kennedy and that the conspiracy theories that sold lots of books were wrong. It was as HUGE as Ludlum's books, yet I enjoyed reading it.

My reading has slowed down of late. I don't read novels quite as much as I did in that first year. I still don't have my Mom's appetite for reading nor my wife's. Both however have influenced me greatly in my reading. The current novel of my interest is State of Fear by Michael Crichton. I just finished reading Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow. I will say a few things about the book and show what some churches are doing in response to it.

I hope to review in my blog some of the books I read. In the non-fictional category I am currently reading Working the Angles: the Shape of Pastoral Integrity by Eugene Peterson. I really enjoy his books. I'm reading this for my study with a preaching buddy of mine. We meet one day a week and discuss the book. I'm also going to start reading Mapping Postmodernism: A Survey of Christian Options by Robert Greer. This one appears to be pretty heady stuff. I have a great interest in philosophical stuff. I hope to have some interesting things to say about both books.