I'm not a fantasy enthusiast, and outside of Tolkien, I can't name much other fantasy That I've read. But I'd had The Name of the Wind, which is part one of f this series, recommended to me quite a few times, so I read it a few years ago.

I liked it well enough, but I held off from continuing in the series for two key reasons:
– Book two, The Wise Man's Fear was a whole lotta longer and a big investment.
– Book three is apparently nowhere in sight and people who've read the first two are beyond impatient waiting for it.

So, here I sit unfinished like so many others. But no regrets for the time invested. Rothfuss is a good world builder (which I understand to be an Important thing in fantasy writing), and there is enough intrigue to keep me interested in part three. Probably. Someday.

Everyone once in a while, I hear another bibliophile mention that they find a certain book so meaningful that they re-read it every year. And when I hear that, I'm confident they are either lying or they are a way better person than I am. See, there are so so many books I want to read, and to devote the time to read a book again? Impressive.

But I understand the sentiment…there are some books that deserve to be re-read. Sometimes, it's because you know you want to understand their content more fully. Other times, it's because you know that what they say is so important that you want to not let any of it pass you by. Enter Sacred Fire.

I'm aware that I'm getting more "seasoned" in life. Sacred Fire is a book that offers a vision for who I might hope to become, and how I might hope to spend my later years in life. It's a book that celebrates life experience and offers a sacred view of maturity.

So, yeah, I'd like to read it again. And I'm serious enough about it that I just added a reminder to do so in early 2020. That's just about the most intentional step I've ever taken to read a book a second time.

When I saw the release of Free to Focus last spring, it made it into that back of my mind list of books I’d like to get around to reading. But shortly after, I heard Michael Hyatt talking about the book on Mac Power Users. That interview flipped the book over to that ‘read soon’ list of books closer to the front of my mind.

What intrigued me in the interview was Hyatt describing some of the high level concepts he talks about in the book. The first section, Stop, is about taking time out to focus on what your overall priorities are. As someone who’s spent the last year in transition that was appealing and helpful, and it’s what makes the book worthwhile.

The rest of the book is fine, as the content narrows down to lower level day to day stuff. Truthfully, I was concerned it would be a sales pitch for the Full Focus Planner, but didn’t really turn out to be that. There were helpful ideas for whatever system you use.

But, it’s the first quarter of the book, and the extra resources made available online, that’s worth the while.

I’ve read most of Eggers stuff. With his fiction, there is usually some kind of underlying social commentary. In The Parade, that commentary is subtle until it isn’t at all. This one is a fast moving read carried along both by characters and tension that show Eggers’ experience…and also because it’s short.

Considering the apparent popularity of this book, I'm not sure how it escaped my attention or my “to read” list until last year. I wasn't even familiar with Backman until I read Beartown a year ago, but sheesh now I feel like I see this book everywhere. (An upcoming moving with Tom Hanks might be a factor…)

We are offered Ove. He is a character who we probably wouldn't like, and likely would avoid, if we met him in real life. But over the course of a story, Backman gives us sympathy for him, and we find ourselves rooting for him. This is good fiction, doing one of the things I think literature should do best — invite us to be aware of the experience and humanity of others.

I'm not sure how many “Best of 2018” book lists I looked at, but I am sure that this was on all of them. It was recommended by Bill Gates and Barack Obama, among many others, and I'll join them in that recommendation.

Often times, the most painful stories to read are also the most hopeful. This memoir might have been too hard to read in the earlier chapters, though knowing she got to the place of being able to write it offered hope enough to keep going.

One of the earlier entries in the ongoing fascination we have as a culture with post-apocalyptic fiction. This one dates all the way back to 1993 with a strong young female character. (Literature has had room for a strong female lead long before the recent celebration of these kind of roles in film & TV. )

It wasn't a a page turner for me. But it was an interesting look at how a young woman forms a belief system and invites others into it, as a way of making meaning and hope when there isn't much to be found.

I’ve done enough reading about Christian history that there wasn’t much new in this book for me. And yet, I appreciate what Taylor did here, offering some of the buried gems in the troubled rubble of Christianity past and present.

It’s one I’ll have my kids read as they mature into independence, with hopes that it will give them a wider framework of what Christianity has looked like throughout the centuries. All this, with much hope that it will give them some pride around the term Christian as they consider making this faith their own.

Most of my reading during the week is either practical growth type stuff, or broad ideas around theology or philosophy. And, I still read fiction in the evenings in bed.

But there have always been other categories I’ve wanted to fit in my routine and not had space to read as much — generally memoirs, history, or some collections of essays have sat on my wish list for months and even years. Recently, I’ve been taking a break from other reading (besides fiction) on the weekend to read in these categories. It’s been good to broaden my reading, but also to help my mindset shift into weekend mode, and even give me something to look forward to returning to during the week.

Our family has admired Marcus Samuelsson mostly from seeing him on Chopped. But we also saw and met him at the Texas Book Festival a few years ago, hearing more of the depth of his story. All of that depth was present in his memoir, and it served the purpose that I most hope for in this kind of writing — it gave me new understanding into the experiences of a life very different from mine. And in that, it gave my new understanding of my own self as well.

Before reading this, I wasn’t a Trevor Noah fan. It’s not that I disliked him, I was just…neutral. Now, after finishing his book, it would seem trite to say I’m a fan. It would be true to say, though, that I respect him quite a lot.

He’s a comedian, so I expected a funny book. It’s not. It’s a thoughtful reflection of a young man trying to find his way forward through multiple levels of familial and cultural brokenness. And above all, it’s a lovely homage to a mother who guided him along that way even as she was broken herself.

It’s become easier and easier to mention the enneagram in a conversation without expecting a blank stare in return. And while I’m far from an expert on it, I’ve hoarded more than my fair share of reading about it. It’s also been a helpful tool, as I believe it was designed to be, for understanding my inner motivations that shape so many of my patterns and behaviors.

Chris Heuretz’ book is a unique and helpful take in the growing, and perhaps overcrowded, market of Enneagram books. He offers the obligatory summary of types, as you’d expect. But he goes beyond, getting into some core spiritual practices, from a Christian perspective, that will be beneficial for each type.

This is the kind of writing that is needed in the chatter around the Enneagram. Rather than something that helps us wedge ourselves into a type that matches our behaviors, he drives us deeper into how the number we identify with reveals our core longings. And once there, the practices he offers reveal not just a path to self identity, but to maturity and growth.

I don’t recall any of the Apollo missions though they were happening in my earliest years. But I still remember our family watching a TV show about Apollo 11 on the tenth anniversary of the first moon landing. My imagination was captured, and it is still held. Rocket Men is, of course, about an earlier mission, but holds the same sense of wonder for me. I’m thankful for stories like these being captured and told while there is the distance of history alongside the perspective of those who actually experienced it.

I’m not one to wait in long lines at a book festival to chat with an author and get some sharpie scribbles on a cover page. (Not for me anyway…done it many times with my kids and thankful for how the authors always take time to engage them!) But, when Leif Enger was at the Tucson Festival of Books, it seemed important to have him sign a copy of one of my favorite books ever: Peace Like a River. That doesn’t say much of anything about Virgil Wander, but offers helpful context for me to say that it held up to my high expectations.

I suppose I could argue that Brené Brown seems to keep writing the same stuff, and just framing it through different topics or perspectives. But when the things she has to say are so meaningful, seeing them through different frames is helpful and interesting. I’ll keep reading with the hope that someday, I’ll make personal progress in some of these ideas.

I have less space for reading theology in this season, but my interest level is still sustained by ideas about how God engages in the day to day. And any time a work of theology is intersecting language and culture, that interest level increases. In our search for language that helps communicate the work of God today, Randy Woodley offers some indigenous language about the “Community of Creation” that I’ve found myself referring back to many time since reading a few months ago.