Fall Reading List

I get joked on by lots of my friends for reading too much. Or rather, it's probably the massive quantities of books that I'm reading at one time. I don't like to wait to start a new one, so I normally have four or five that I'm reading at any given time. That's just how I roll. Proud to say I finished two of the five that I've been working on today, so I guess that means I need some new ones, haha! Since I know that some of you are book nerds like me (or might just be looking for a good book to read), I thought I'd post what I've been working on and what's next on my list. To make things easier, we're going to narrow things down to this month and we're not going to count books skimmed through for research papers or the Bible. Because obviously this religion major is reading her Bible and because obviously the books I read for research were very boring and I don't want to subject you to that kind of torture.

We'll start with the books I've read first. I'll do a mini-review for each just so you can get an idea of what they're about and all. Then, I'll post about the books on my "still to read" list later this week. :)

1. What Women Fear- Angie Smith
This book is me in purest form. Often while reading it, I made remarks such as "I feel like Angie went and got up in brain and then wrote a book about it." This amazing woman who blogs here is someone that I really look up to and admire. She has been though hard times, and yet she makes the most of it! I got to meet her when my mom and I went to Beth Moore last December, then I got to hear her speak at Women of Faith this past summer. She is just the sweetest person, I'm telling you. I could spend all day with that lady. But, even she struggles with fear and anxiety. These issues are so close to my heard and this book helped me so much. It's how I got to the point of writing my Chicago post. It's how I'm beginning to make small changes in my life and begin to live with faith- and not so much fear.


2. Grace for the Good Girl- Emily Freeman
I've read Emily's blog off and on for the last year or so. I really started getting into right after she announced that she was publishing Grace for the Good Girl. I mean, I'm a good girl. I live a "try hard" life as she calls it. This is me. Come on Emily. Did you team up with Angie to get into my brain? I got my copy of this book on my Kindle, which was a huge mistake. While you can underline in Kindles, it's a little different than hard copies. And I really want to mark this one all up. I want to highlight and post-it note it and tell you all about it. This book...is unbelievable. It is the inspiration for this post and probably many others to come. Letting go of our "try hard" life is...well, hard. But, it's what we need to do. It's only then that we find out what true biblical Faith looks like.

3. Kisses from Katie- Katie Davis
Katie's my hero. I think I've already told you this before. My family went to Birmingham last weekend to visit Church at Brook Hills and listen to Katie as she shared with David Platt during his sermon on Sunday. She is just absolutely adorable. While we were there, we picked up some copies of this book. I laughed. I cried. I bawled. I threw things. Katie is who I want to be. If fear didn't hold me back, I would move to Africa. I wish I had just a snippet of the faith she has. She gets the gospel and goes, even when things are scary and don't make sense. Katie is living a life as Christ- which is something I think we all (if we take the call of the gospel seriously) strive for.
 And she writes like she blogs, so that makes me smile. :)

4. Stuff Christians Like- Jon Acuff

There are no words to describe this book.

It's funny.

So. You should read it. :)


5. The Great Divorce- C.S. Lewis

This book I had to read for my C.S. Lewis class. We actually have a paper that is due on it tomorrow that I still need to finish. My conclusion is just killing me though. A snippit from the paper that describes this book: In C.S Lewis’s The Great Divorce, Lewis tells the story of a journey from Hell to Heaven. The book begins in a grey city that is very unpleasant. There is a bus stop in this city where the residents of Hell can get on a bus and visit Heaven. They can even stay in Heaven if they want to. But, most of them do not want stay. Because of their natures, Heaven is not pleasant to them. Selfish people do not want to live in a Heaven where they must be selfless and worship someone else. Intellectual people question everything. So, since they do not want to stay in Heaven, they get back on the bus and return to Hell. What brings these three characters together is not just the fact that they return to Hell at the end of the story. It is the fact that they could not set aside their selfishness for the sake of their Creator.