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Now that the new year is well on its way, hopefully many of you have picked up a book or two and started reading. I’ve made it my goal to finish 24 books this year. Do you have a reading list in place for 2010? If not, do you have a few books that you plan to read or want to read? Here is my tentative list with more to be added later:

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer (Completed)
Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller (Currently Reading)
The Bourne Supremacy by Robert Ludlum (Currently Reading)
The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence (Started Reading…Need to pick it back up)
Forgotten God by Francis Chan
The Gospel-Driven Life by Michael Horton
The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum
SuperFreakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
Batman: Year One by Frank Miller
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
Something by John Grisham

As you can probably see, I’m trying to read different things from different genres. I’m hoping that will open my mind and creativity.

What are you reading?

I love asking this question because I love hearing all of the different answers. It’s encouraging to hear what others are reading, and it also gives me ideas of what to read next. It’s also great to be able to ask someone “What did you think about [insert title]?”

Right now I’m reading 2 books:

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (Don’t worry, I’m not a heretic)
What’s So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D’Souza

I’ll be honest, I tried reading Twilight just so I could have grounds to state my opinion, but I couldn’t make it past the second chapter. It was torture!

Give me some feedback. What are you reading?

Earlier this year, a survey was conducted in Britain to see what books people lie about reading. The results are listed below:

1. 1984, by George Orwell 42%

2. War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy 31%

3. Ulysses, by James Joyce 25%

4. The Bible 24%

5. Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert 16%

6. A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking 15%

7. Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie 14%

8. In Remembrance of Things Past, by Marcel Proust  9%

9. Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama 6%

10. The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins 6%

Jonathon Douglas, the director of England’s National Literacy Trust, had this to say about people who lie about literature:

Research that we have done suggests that the reason people lied was to make themselves appear more sexually attractive.

People like to be seen to be readers. It makes them look good.

They said they were prepared to lie about what they’d read to impress people, particularly when it came to potential partners.

Anyone have something they need to confess?

From www.examiner.com

A couple weeks ago, I posted a blog asking people what books have influenced them in their lives. Over the past couple months, I have been asking that question to many people, including former professors and mentors of mine.

Today, I am posting the responses of President J. Matthew Pinson (President of Free Will Baptist Bible College), Dr. Kevin Hester (Professor at Free Will Baptist Bible College), and Mr. Bert Tippett (former “everything” at Free Will Baptist Bible College). If  get more responses, I hope to post more of these lists:

Mr. Bert Tippett
“It will be hard for me to single out many individual books. One, however, Read more…

I’m sure we can all sing along with the theme: “…take a look, it’s in a book, Reading Rainbow!”

We also remember LeVar Burton encouraging us to read and check out our local library.

Since most of us are not kids anymore (at least in age), I am wondering what books have been the most influential or life-changing for you.

Is there a book that changed your entire worldview? Did a piece of literature completely change the way you live?

I have asked several of my former college professors that very same question. In the next week or so, I will post the responses they gave me concerning the 5-10 books/authors that influenced them most in life.

So here’s the question one more time…short, sweet, and simple:

What book or books have been the most influential in your life?

(Btw…if the Reading Rainbow theme song was a food, it would be a major pixifood! See 2 blogs down for explanation)