What I'm Reading

Reading for pleasure really is a marvelous thing! I just finished read the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. I'd be a liar if I said that I picked up the book sheerly for enjoyment. I have to teach it at Boys Town High School this summer, but, regardless, it's a fiction book that I was not struggling to stay at least a chapter ahead of my students (as was often the case in student teaching), so I count it as "for pleasure" reading.


The book is about the meat-packing industry in Chicago at the begin of the 20th century. It centers on the ficticious (but based on facts) story of a Lithuanian immigrant family who comes to American seeking the good life and finds it to be absolutely everything but. This is not a book for the faint at heart. Sinclair does not spare the reader gross descriptions of the meat-packing industry. Almost makes this country-lovin', raised on red meat girl want to be a vegetarian. Even worse, though, is the tragic story of this family. I won't give details in case you want to read it, but be prepared to be depressed.


It's a good kind of depressed (if there is such a thing) because it's the kind of depressed that makes you think: what kind of world do we live in, what will be my response, how will I live? I couldn't help but compare stories in the book with the experiences I had while in Peru with Word Made Flesh. It stirred up the fire in me that's been on a slow burn since my return.


Stirring that fire, though, is dangerous for the soul, I sometimes think, because it makes me feel so inadequate and helpless to the world around me. Definately a deep-thinking, "read at your own intellectual and emotional risk" kind of book. If you get the itch to read it, let me know what you think of it.


I also just finished The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. Since Matthew mentions Tozer fairly often in his messages, I've been wanting to read him. Scott has a whole set of his books, which are all short and to the point (a reading bonus). Don't let Tozer fool you, though. The book packs a punch. It's a wake-up call for the ho-hum Christian life. I'm still mulling it over a bunch, so I don't really know that I have much more to say than that, but I highly recommend the book. I just started another one, Faith Beyond Reason, that promises to be equally good after just reading the first chapter.


Next on the reading list is The Oath by Frank Peretti or Showdown by Ted Dekker, courtesy of Mrs. Koenig, and Writing Alone and With Others, courtesy of my good friend Monica in Peru. If you have any book recommendations (any genre) let me know.


What are you reading right now?