Summer Reading 2009

Now that summer is here, what are you planning on doing with your time? Is there a book that's been sitting on your shelf that needs the dust blown off? I certainly have more than a few books that I'd like to get through while enjoying a glass of sweet tea on the back patio.

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Theology: Truly the Community - Marva Dawn
Dawn has written many scholarly yet accessible works on the church as a worshiping community. This volume tackles Romans 12, systematically applying its principles to modern communities. I have already read the first few chapters and have found her insights to be both challenging and creative.

Non-Fiction (Science): Musicophilia - Don Sacks
Okay, so I'm already about 200 pages into this one, but I'll be finishing it in summer, so it counts, right? Sacks is the neurologist/psychologist who wrote the book Awakenings, which had a film based upon it. This time he writes about his studies of the brain and music. A fascinating read so far, his work is full of compassionate case studies into the lives of people who suffer from maladies that effect their ability to process sounds, specifically music.

Non-Fiction (Cultural): The Great-Good Place - Ray Oldenburg
I bought this in hopes of it being my summer 2008 reading, but I ended up doing other things. I figure that if I put it on this list for all to see, I'll have to read it. Oldenburg presents the case for Third Places, those places in a culture that are outside of the home and workplace where people go to find a sense of place and community. In Europe, it's street cafés and public houses. In America, we've separated ourselves so much from the world outside that we've lost our sense of third place, and Oldenburg argues for a reclamation of this important type of institution. A highly influential book, it has already inspired the establishment of coffee shops and book stores around the country (one of which is in Seattle, called Third Place Books).

Fiction: ??
I have a long list of books that I've been collecting on my shelf to read. I'm sure I'll get around to finishing a Dashiell Hammett mystery or two (The Thin Man, Red Harvest), some Cormac McCarthy (Sunset Limited, No Country For Old Men), and hopefully a classic (Brothers Karamazov has been staring at me for a while).

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So now it's your turn to join the conversation. What books are you planning on reading? Please post at least one book in the comment section below, and maybe even include a short description.

Happy Reading!!!

photo courtesy bookmonger on Flickr.