On reading books...

For probably many reasons, my passion for reading books-- particularly nonfiction-- has dramatically increased over the past few years. It is simply an incredible way to interact with the world's greatest teachers, and to glean wisdom and understanding from great men of faith.

The only problem is that:

1. I'm a slow reader
2. I read too many books at the same time, thus rarely "finishing" them
3. I have higher priorities that demand time away from reading
4. I don't really have a lot of training in how to really "read" a book, how to interact with it and ultimately be able to reconstruct the main arguments to the satisfaction of the book's author, and I don't know how to make helpful notes for future reference. Things like this...
   

So I have begun a project of sorts to reform my reading habits. I'll have a great opportunity to improve, as I have a lot of reading material to work through. Here is a growing list of books which I plan to read through next year, in no particular order:

1. Peace Like a River; Leif Enger (A fiction book, I'm almost done with this one)
2. God, Marriage, and Family; Andreas J. Kostenberger
3. Christless Christianity; Michael Horton
4. War of Words; Paul Tripp
5. Future Men; Douglas Wilson
6. How to Read a Book; Mortimer Adler. (I'll read this as soon as it's available from the library!)
7. Heaven; Randy Alcorn
8. Worship Matters; Bob Kauflin
9. The Cross Centered Life; C.J. Mahaney
10. Successful Christian Parenting; John MacArthur
11. Grace-Based Parenting; Tim Kimmel
12. Tactics: A game-plan for discussing your Christian convictions; Gregory Koukl
13. Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition through the Lens of Scripture; David Powlison
14. Lectures to my Students; C.H. Spurgeon
15. Speaking the Truth in Love; David Powlison
    
16. The Treasure Principal; Randy Alcorn
17. The Pursuit of Holiness; Jerry Bridges
18. Respectable Sins; Jerry Bridges
19. How People Change; Paul Tripp
20. Desiring God; John Piper
21. The Momentary Marriage; John Piper
    

So here's the plan. For the first time ever, I'm going to read each book, one at a time. And I'm going to make it a goal to read one book every two weeks. This means that with the current list I should be able to finish all of the books by late October of 2010... I've got a good start right now with the first book, Peace Like a River, which should be finished sometime in the next couple of days.

The second part of the plan is that I will write some sort of a review of each book I read and post it on this blog.

I'll end with an encouragement to all of you out there, to look at your own reading habits. Are there any adjustments are resolutions you'd wish to make for the upcoming year?...