The Summer Reading List

School is done, what a sigh of relief! No assigned reading, night classes or assignment deadlines for at least the next four months. I intend to spend the summer, which is currently being held at bay by May flurries, with work, gardening, reading and trips to the mountains. Ahhh!
As such I have composed for myself a summer reading list. I realized a while back, the complete lack of fictional reading in my diet. My non-school books still tend to focus on theology, spiritual formation and discipline and world issues. None of that creative stuff. So I am making an attempt at even list for the summer, 4 parts fiction and 4 parts not. The list:

1. Passage to Juneau - Jonathan Raban - This travel book, is actually falling into my fiction category. It follows the authors' sail from Seattle to Juneau via the Inside Passage. And all the while telling stories of the explorers, natives and contemporaries who have lived their lives on it.
2. Surprised by Hope - NT Wright - It's NT. And he's addressing our theology of death, resurrection and what the Christian hope truly is and isn't. I'm excited.
   
3. Hey Nostradamus! - Douglas Coupland - This will be my first Coupland read. From a school shooting in Vancouver a story is told through two students, twisting into their religion and life a dozen years later, all told supposedly with dry humor.
4. Freedom of Simplicity (Foster) / The Wounded Healer (Nouwen) - I am giving the two of these only one spot. Because I've actually already read half of each. And they're incredible, and they just need to be read to completion.
5. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - I picked up a copy at a used book sale this weekend, and can't wait to give it a try!
6. Colossians Remixed - Walsh & Keesmaat - One half biblical commentary on the book, and one half what do we do with it. The subtitle has me hooked: subverting the empire.
   
7. Book of Negroes - Lawrence Hill - Follows one child forced from Africa into slavery, and her life long journey out of slavery and eventually back home. I will read it with a box Kleenex.
8. The Original Jesus - NT Wright - NT again. I found this at the used book sale on the weekend, and it must be read. As you can probably imagine, it looks at the historical Jesus.

There it is. Written in stone. The must reads. I'm excited to soak up all the ideas and stories and for all the new things to think about. And if this snow ever melts I'm looking forward to days spent sitting outdoors with one of the above.