WUFU3



I get inspired to write from a lot of places, but one frequent one is the books I read. It was reading that inspired me to start writing. I once realized that I read 50 to 75 books a year, but wasn’t writing anything. After all, that’s why we have a thumb- to hold a pen and write. So, I decide to take the year off and not read any books. I used the time to write and have been writing ever since.

I’m back to reading again, but at a slower pace. I only read twenty-six books in 2020. It was a year when a lot of our lives went at a slower pace. A lot of my reading is from gifts people have given to me. Some years ago, I told my friends that if they wanted to give a gift to me, don’t go out and buy one that will end up in my white elephant box. They should go to their book shelf and pull off a book they want me to have. I get a menagerie of book, which keeps my reading diverse.

The past two years my reading was been guided by the PBS poll of America’s 100 Favorite Books. I was surprised at how few I had read, so I decided to read them all, even the ones I had already read. I’m so glad I did. Some of them I couldn’t even remember the ending and all of them gave new insights on the second read. I’m only on number seventy-four now, so you will be seeing some of them on future editions of Books I’m Reading.

This month I’ve been reading…

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (1985)

This is one of the selections that came from my wife, Claudia’s, Normandy Book Club. The main character lives in Baltimore and is a travel writer who hates to travel. As he accidentally travels through this novel of his life, we experience many of his accidents- loss of a child, separation from wife, broken leg, moving in with sister and brothers, and living with an unlikely love interest. After reading about thirty pages, I told Claudia, “I hope this guy doesn’t remind you me.” Like many of us, he finally gets himself back on track, quirks and all.

The Rooster Bar by John Grisham (1985)

This is one of two birthday books given to me by my friend, Randy Deering. Like others, I’m guessing he was cleaning off his book shelves. It’s a Grisham book. You know lawyer character type. You know the rescue the downtrodden story line. You know the lawyer wins ending. You know you will enjoy every page of it. Here’s the story anyway. Three last semester law students attending a for profit lawyer mill school realize they are buried with two hundred thousand in student loans that they will never be able to repay, so they drop out and go after the guy at the top who got all of their money.

 Book of the Month

Poirot Investigates (1924)

This was a birthday book from my daughter, Whitney, who didn’t pull it off her bookshelf, but actually went out (to Amazon) and bought it. She knew I had enjoyed my Sunday mornings watching Poirot on PBS. I don’t think I had ever read an Agatha Christie novel. I’m one of those who usually waits for the movie version. I had to wait a long time for PBS to produce the Poirot series. When I started reading this book, I couldn’t  imagine they had based the series on these eleven chapters which ranged from five to nine pages each, but they did. Mon ami, you won’t get The Orient Express, but you will be able to envision our little French speaking Belgian detective on every page.

Rooster – The Life and Times of Rooster Cogburn by Brett Cogburn (2012)

This is my second birthday book from Randy Deering in his rooster series. I can’t wait until next year to what series he chooses. If it’s from his shelf, it will probably be something like the theology of Wolfhart Pannenburg. Since He knows I already have all of them, that’s out. This is a collection of the history the author has collected about his great grandfather, the inspiration for John Wayne’s True Grit character. If you are searching for details of Arkansas moonshiners, this is your book.

With Love and Prayers by F. Washington Jarvis (2000)

Having spent half of my working life in campus ministry, I was absorbed by this collection of assembly addresses given to students at Roxbury Latin school in Baltimore, where the author was headmaster for a quarter century. I suspect they were like daily chapel addresses my daughter, Whitney, heard in her six years at The Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. Every address is chocked full of quotes from the world’s greatest minds, but also quotes this man’s mind and heart. One my favorites on happiness from him is: “If you want to be happy, you begin by accepting reality-and the reality is that you don’t deserve anything in life. Life doesn’t owe you a damned thing; and you don’t always get what you want.”The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.