Books, Books, and More Books

My book stack is becoming ridiculous. You would laugh to see my nightstand. Between the Regent library, the Vancouver public library, and Amazon orders, I am overwhelmed with volumes that are already begun or anxiously anticipating being cracked. Browsing the stack and choosing which to read for a half-hour coffee break during Cora's nap or the reading hour before bed is pure delight. Not much could be better than a stack of great books waiting to be read, except perhaps the satisfaction of completing them one by one...which takes a long time when you keep starting new ones before finishing the old. There is quite a disparity between David's and my reading methods. He is systematic, never having 2 "pleasure" books, meaning non-school although they tend to bring a lot of pleasure as well, going at the same time, while I obviously am a willy-nilly, pick up anything that strikes my fancy reader. So, onto my book list, which I have failed to keep updated on the sidebar because it would take a lot of time to list the books that come and go off my nightstand.

Books I am in the middle of:

• The Genesee Diary, Henri Nouwen--Highly recommended.
  
• Dakota, Kathleen Norris
  
• Stalking the Divine, Kristin Ohlson
  
• Gilead, Marilynne Robinson--Highly recommended.
  
• The Philosophy of Tokien: The Worldview Behind The Lord of the Rings, Peter Kreeft--Highly recommended...also doubles as an intro to philosophy textbook.
  
• Men and Women in the Church, Sarah Sumner
  
• Creative, Confident Children: Making the Most of the Preschool Years, Maxine Hancock (a Regent prof)
  
• Happiest Toddler on the Block, Harvey Karp
  
• My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers (daily devotional reading)
  
• The Message of Ephesians, John Stott--Highly recommended.

Then there are the books I'm reading aloud with David:

• Pilgrim's Inn, Elizabeth Goudge (This we started during our time at home in May and should have been long finished by now except that we started listening to Atlas Shrugged during the car trip, which obviously took a monumental amount of time to get through.
• Life as a Vapor, John Piper (devotional reading on most nights)

Then there is the awaiting pile of books on the bottom shelf of my nightstand, but I am trying to be disciplined (ha!) and keep my nose out of them.

David is plowing through a 600-page Jonathan Edwards biography and loving The Ragamuffin Gospel, although he spends about 8 hours a day on Greek these days, so they are both going quite slowly.

Usually I am not quite this bad at being in the middle of so many books. Really. I just happened to get a bit carried away at the libraries. This infatuation with books perhaps accounts for my frustration and restlessness with mundane household duties that I blogged about a few days ago. It is truly a big lesson for God to get through to me that the holiness and sanctity of physical work actually can exceed that of the intellectual. Nouwen's question keeps echoing in my head when I am frustrated with a too long to do list: "Why do I always want to read about the spiritual life and not really live it?"