Unfortunately, since I'll be taking German in July, I won't have the full four months of May through August for reading, but primarily May and June with a bit of August at the end. That's about 8-10 unadorned weeks (not including, of course, "real life" things like being a groomsmen in two out-of-state weddings), without homework or writing assignments, ready and hungry for self-chosen reading.
In light of such freedom so near on the horizon, I've been scouring various blogs and other resources to figure out what books would be best to give myself to. The ideal combination for which I'm searching is smaller size written by an author whom I have yet to read. At the same time, the bigger tomes are the exact books I am never able to read during a normal semester, so those might be preferable, too.
Below, I'm going to share a few generic lists I have going so far of books that seem to meet these or other qualifications. I'm hoping to be reading at least one of these per week on average (if not more), and ideally they will provide excellent blog fodder as well. Please, please, please offer any and all suggestions for other essential theological reading, whether big, small, fiction, poetry, whatever. Calling all readers and commentators! Advise me in such matters.
I should also add: For someone like me, whose "worthiness" and future depend on well-read-ness, this kind of thing is a little bit embarrassing, a kind of literary nakedness for all the world to see. It kills me that I have yet to read these guys, so important in literature and in theology! So be kind to my unlearnedness. I am working on not being overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the task ahead.
One more note: Advise both on any further suggestions as well as what I should prioritize. I only have so much time, and want to knock out as much as possible.
Thank you in advance!
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Smaller
- My People is the Enemy by William Stringfellow (currently reading, almost done)
- Body Politics by John Howard Yoder (also reading, should be done soon)
- Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (read through before, but need to reread)
- The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann (same, but need a second read)
- Dogmatics in Outline by Karl Barth (likely reading in the fall for my Systematic class)
- The Nature of Doctrine by George Lindbeck
- The Humanity of God by Karl Barth
- An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis
- Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
- Love Alone is Credible by Hans Urs von Balthasar
- The Problem of Historicity by Gerhard Ebeling
- How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins
- Yahweh is a Warrior by Millard Lind
- Christ, History, and Apocalyptic by Nathan Kerr
- Systematic Theology by Robert Jenson
- Epistle to the Romans by Karl Barth
- The Doctrine of the Word of God by Karl Barth
- The Crucified God by Jurgen Moltmann
- The One, the Three, and the Many by Colin Gunton
- Violence and the Sacred by Rene Girard
- Jesus -- God and Man by Wolfhart Pannenburg
- Catholicism by Henri de Lubac
- Ethics: Systematic Theology by James McClendon, Jr.
- The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
- The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Leslie Newbigin
- After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre
- Engaging the Powers by Walter Wink
- The Depths of the Riches by S. Mark Heim
- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein
- The Beauty of the Infinite by David Bentley Hart
- Between Cross and Resurrection by Alan Lewis
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
- The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
- Silence by Shusaku Endo
- The Brothers K by David James Duncan
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- The Maytrees by Annie Dillard
- Rabbit, Run by John Updike
- Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
- Runaway by Alice Munro
- What is the What by Dave Eggers
- Rowan Williams
- George Herbert
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
- W.B. Yeats
- Walt Whitman
- Robert Frost
- Gjertrud Schnackenberg
- Emily Dickinson
- Mary Oliver
- John Updike
- R.S. Thomas
- Billy Collins
- W.H. Auden
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