BreakPoint: Reading Season

If you know me at all, you know I love to work. But even I enjoy a little time off to put my feet up, and plunge myself into a good book. It’s summertime—or as we like to call it around here, reading season. We at BreakPoint have been busy compiling lists of good books to read on your summer vacation, or even just while you’re relaxing at home. I’m going to share my own list with you. First, you’ve heard me speak before about Joker One by Donovan Campbell. It’s worth another mention. This book by a fellow Christian and Marine officer brilliantly captures the bond among men who have trained together and fought together, a bond that makes them willing to die for each other. The parallels with the Gospel are unmistakable. Another military-themed book is The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam. I really enjoyed this. It’s an unforgettable work that encompasses the major figures, decisions, and battles of that war, as well as the perspectives of individual soldiers who were caught up in it. Next is another book I’ve talked about, Glenn Sunshine’s Why You Think the Way You Do. Glenn, a good friend and excellent scholar, gives an overview of history that helps us understand the impact of worldviews on culture, for good and for ill. Then, let me recommend Tim Keller’s book Prodigal God. It’s a book that, when I read it, really changed my whole view of that parable. Keller helps us understand it in a whole new light. He shows how the real target of the tale is the “older sons” who think they have it all together, and how “Jesus challenges what nearly everyone has ever thought about God, sin, and salvation.” I think any parent with a daughter ought to read James Dobson’s Bringing Up Girls. Girls today are under tremendous cultural pressure to grow up too fast and to let themselves be used and devalued. Parents need to equip themselves to fight for their daughters against the lure of this sick culture, and this is a great book to help them do just that. One of my favorite classics is a short novel called The Tenth Man by Graham Greene. This amazing tale of cowardice and courage in a German prison camp during World War II isn’t as well known as some of Greene’s other works, but it deserves to be. It has some profound things to say about sacrifice and second chances. Finally, let me give a brief mention to Mary DeMuth, whose Defiance trilogy I’ve talked about twice before. She’s now wrapped up that trilogy with Life in Defiance, the poignant story of a battered wife who has to learn to understand God’s love for her. Mary also has a stunning new memoir, Thin Places, chronicling how God helped her in her own struggle to overcome the sexual abuse of her past. Now it’s your turn. Come on over to BreakPoint.org. You’ll be able to download my recommended reading list and some of the classics that we recommend on a regular basis, and you can purchase them from our bookstore at ColsonCenter.org or BreakPoint.org.

FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION

07/6/10