Bookstack: What I'm Reading Lately
My Late Summer 2024 Reading List
I’ve picked up a few recent books that are a little different from what I used to read in the past. Some of them are really raw, others are from different perspectives from mine that make me think. I’ve also selected some that come with language disclaimers. There was a time in my life where that would have sent the book right back to the shelf for me.
Why read books I don’t even agree with? I don’t want to live in an echo chamber. It humanizes people’s experiences for me and helps me walk in their shoes. It keeps me from confirmation bias and makes me think.
Driving through my little town recently affirmed how my reading has impacted me. Where I once saw rundown homes, sagging fences, and evidence of troubled lives, now I see humans. People who struggle to make ends meet. Who have heartaches, experience trauma behind closed doors, celebrate births and birthdays, and tuck their children in at night. People who work hard and care for generations of loved ones under their roofs. People who need love and kindness.
Reading awakens us to humanity. Books make us think.
Nonfiction
God calls us to speak truth into our communities and relationships, but we all struggle to know when to speak up. Say Good: Speaking across Hot Topics, Complex Relationships, and Tense Situations is a practical resource to think through when and how to speak up. Sometimes, we’re intimidated and unsure of what to say.
Ashlee Eiland helps readers discover the power of stewarding your unique voice. This book equips you to:
Find your voice in complex conversations
Engage with diverse perspectives and bring about positive change
Embrace authenticity and accountability
Foster meaningful relationships
Woven through the book are parts of the author’s story, but she’s clear it isn’t meant to be a memoir. It’s a practical resource for learning to use words for good.
A Well-Trained Wife popped up as a recommendation for me, and I was intrigued by the storyline of the author’s experience in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist circles and the significant pain she experienced behind closed doors. Tia Leavings is one of the people who was interviewed in the Shiny Happy People series.
This book is raw, painful, and tragic, really. Tia has risen above so much trauma. Trigger warning: the book contains situations that are difficult to process. There are swear words. It is not sanitized.
The book is a wake-up call for how many women might be secretly suffering in stifling marriages, right in the pews with us.
Rigorously reported and deeply personal, The Exvangelicals is the story of the people who make up this generational tipping point, including Sarah McCammon herself. Part memoir, part investigative journalism, this is a book that names and describes the post-evangelical movement: identifying its origins, telling the stories of its members, and examining its vast cultural, social, and political impact.
Sarah tells her story of being sheltered in evangelicalism and then shows how her worldview unraveled. She is not alone.
Whether you agree with where the author landed or not, the process of hearing how she worked through the journey is educational.
Fiction
Something Worth Doing by Jane Kirkpatrick is based on a true story of a pioneer for women’s rights.
Following Abigail as she bears six children, runs a millinery and a private school, helps on the farm, writes novels, gives speeches, and eventually runs a newspaper supporting women's suffrage, Something Worth Doing explores issues that will resonate strongly with modern women: the pull between career and family, finding one's place in the public sphere, and dealing with frustrations and prejudices women encounter when they compete in male-dominated spaces.
I appreciated the story. I struggled a little with how it was told in a way that told more than creatively showed the story. But the history made it interesting.
I just loaded up my TBR pile and my Audible wish list. I can’t wait to share in a few weeks! I have several reads in progress.
What’s on your to-read pile? Comment to share your recommendation.