Saturday Good Reads: Books

If you’re looking for recommendations for a good book to read, it doesn’t take long to run into a multiplicity of resources on the internet. And I’m not talking about Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com or Good Reads. No, I’m talking about the independent bookstore version of book recommendations – the blogs of people who love books.

I see a lot of these, and it’s hard to resist the recommendation – there are so many good things to read. Here are two:

Sherry at Semicolon Blog reads more than anyone else on the planet, I think. A book review a day is not unusual, and sometimes more than one a day. On Saturdays, she features a link-up – people can post links to reviews they’ve done during the previous week. It’s fascinating to go down the list and see what people (mostly Christians) are reading. You might be surprised.

It was at Semicolon Blog than I kept seeking links posting by Ink Slinger. One day I followed the link back to his blog (I assumed it was a “he,” and I was right) and discovered that he was not only a book reviewer, but he was also a movie reviewer. And a writer. And all of about 17-years-old. In addition to his reviews, he regularly publishes what’s on his bookshelf, and it ranges from C.S. Lewis and Ayn Rand to Homer.

Those are two examples; there are more, but I particularly like these two because what becomes clear as you read their reviews and posts is that they love books.

If you need a good reason to read books, you should take a look at an article posted this past week by Tim Challies in Informing the Reforming: Four Good Reasons to Read Good Books.

If you need a reason to read poetry, you should read Karen Swallow Prior’s article posted this week at Her-Meneutics, published by Christianity Today. Entitled “Have We Forgotten the Power of Poetry,” it tells a story of Afghan women who must speak what’s in their hearts, even at great personal risk. Karen is the author of Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me, which was the book discussed in January over at The High Calling.

I loved Karen’s book. I have to confess that I was asked to read a chapter of the book in early manuscript form, and I told the publisher that “this was the kind of book I would read.” When I read the finished book, I loved it even more.

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.