My 2018 Holiday Book List
May I suggest reading from all genres all the time?
If you're the non-fiction type who only wants to read business, leadership, productivity, and the like, it's time to pick up a novel.
Why “waste" the time?
Reading great stories (e.g., fiction classics), among other things, tunes our emotional intelligence. Like travelling to a foreign country for the first time, your worldview opens up. A good writer allows you to crawl into the minds and emotions of people you may never interact with. Reading great fiction makes us more—in one word—empathetic. (Couldn't the world use more empathy?)
If you're a novel buff, the person who can't stand a title that begins with something like “The 5 Laws of...", then it's time to expand your Amazon wish list. Add a good productivity or money management book.
Why would you punish yourself with the boredom?
Because these books work. When you apply a good productivity or management book, you actually find yourself becoming more productive and better at managing (shocking, right?!).
We could keep going. Histories and biographies provide extraordinary perspective on your place in time and history. Philosophy books offer razor-sharp clarity on the source of your beliefs and assumptions. Strong and tested theologies help us think coherently (and curb the cherry-picking hotchpotch that often marks sloppy postmodern minds).
If you're interested, here's what I put in my bag as we headed off to see family this Christmas:
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
Our Times: The Age of Elizabeth II by A. N. Wilson
God Has a Name by John Mark Comer