summer reading.

I have really fallen off the book bandwagon this past year. And in the last few years, I've found I've hopped from the fiction cart to the non-fiction cart--which is funny, because R now is the one with the fiction bug, mostly reading classics to catch up on good ole literature and culture. (I still haven't read Catcher in the Rye or Crime and Punishment. I know, I know.)

I fired up my library queue again last week, renting 500 Days of Summer...cute....I snagged that and the Potting Shed Papers, by Charles Elliott. I don't really know why I like this book so much... it's been a few years since I first read it, and the writing style is a little pretentious and uppity. But I think I like it because I remember reading it in our little apartment when we were first married, and I was trying to grow a million of the wrong things on our west-facing deck, thinking I knew something about gardening. So maybe I was feeling a little pretentious and understanding of Mr. Elliott... until all of my plants (yes, all) fried one nice summer day. To a crisp. R was actually able to revive one, and it now sits on the coffee table in our living room.

Reading this book now, humbled and tepidly starting my gardening adventures over in our raised beds, I don't relate at all. But it's been a nice memory to thumb through the chapters when I can't sleep. I wish I had a green thumb!

Now I'm reading Radical, by David Platt. I'm only on the third chapter, and already it's been super thought-provoking.  I tend to shy away from the plasticity of Christianity (WWJD bracelets and the like--no offense if you wear them, of course), and reading Platt's thoughts on the differences between the American church and the underground church around the world is fascinating. We are indeed cushioned here--so how do we peel ourselves away from what's purely comfortable and familiar, and do what's Biblical? I'm excited to read more about how he is incorporating Biblical truths into his multi-thousand-member church (can't be easy), and already I'm feeling challenged. Very easy-to-read writing style as well.

I have a few fiction titles on my side table too, but I'm going to get through these first... hopefully soon. What are you reading lately? Any recommendations?