I have a new goal for this calendar year: Read 12 books in 12 months!
I’m already off to a great start. I finally finished “Mere Christianity”1 in January when I was in Haiti (although that doesn’t count because I started it in 2009.
When I was in Haiti, I also read:
- 1. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
- 2. The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts
In the last month, I also finished reading:
And now I’m in the middle of:
- 4. Hustling God
- 5. Rework
As long as I can finish by the end of the month, I’ll be on track. Here’s what I think is up next (in no particular order):
- Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
- Outliers: The Story of Success
- Strengths Finder 2.0
- Holy Sweat
- Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
- The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
That still leaves me one book short of the twelve I want to read, which is not for lack of having a list. I want to keep at least one spot deliberately open so I can choose something excellent as I discover new books.
The types of books I’ve listed above are the types of book I generally like to read. Based on that, what books would you recommend I look into?
In the meantime, I’m going to leave you with this excellent bit from Hustling God2 that I’ve been reflecting on lately:
0When I wake up in the morning, I can jump in the shower, grab a cup of coffee, and rush off to work to be productive. Inevitably that will destine me to a day of running. Like Jacob, I will either be running to make something happen, or running away because it didn’t happen as it was supposed to. But if sometime in the morning I become still with prayer and the words of God, then it will occur to me that all of the important things have already been accomplished today. The sun came up and the earth stayed on its axis without any help from me. The Psalms remind me of that. I have awakened to a world I did not create to receive a salvation I did not earn. The Gospels make that clear every time I read them. And I need that reminder, because there are so many temptations in the course of the day to be my own savior, which is always, always, a temptation to hurry in the wrong direction.