Doug’s Book List: Exercises for Your Head
1st February 2010Books, FeatureNo Comments
Doug Serven, one of viaRenovo’s contributor’s is a campus pastor, one of the world’s only “hair artists” and a prolific reader. Here he shares his reading list from 2009 with brief comments and rankings (10 being high). Time to start reloading that nightstand…
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, L See –
A melancholy book about 1840s China featuring footbinding. (8)
Buffalo for the Broken Heart, D O’Brien –
A rancher switches to buffalo. (6)
Outliers, M Gladwell –
Success = fortuitous circumstances and lots of work. (9)
Lonesome Dove, L McMurtry
I love this novel. (10)
The Extra Mile, P Reed –
A boring but short running book (3)
The 19th Wife, D Ebershoff –
Polygamy is bad. (5)
Crazy for God, F Schaeffer –
Frank Schaeffer is not happy with his parents. This book scares me. (7)
The Blind Side, M Lewis –
One of the best sports books I’ve read – about football, recruiting, economics and a love for the game. (10)
Blink, M Gladwell –
The power of a thin-slicing microdecision for good and ill. (9)
The Appeal, J Grisham –
Another Grisham courtroom thriller about pegging the bad guys (7)
One Fearful Yellow Eye, J Macdonald – <
MacDonald is the best with pace and description (7)
Pale Gray for Guilt, J MacDonald –
This Travis McGee novel was economically complicated (5)
Moneyball, M Lewis –
If you love baseball, you MUST read this book. Wonderful and inspiring for the small market guys. (10)
50/50, D Karnezas –
Karnezas ran 50 marathons in 50 straight days in all 50 states! (8)
The Dawkins Letters, D Robertson –
The author challenges atheist myths by responding to Richard Dawkins’ book. Helpful, short and easy to read. (8)
Lone Survivor, M Luttrell –
A Navy Seal gets out of Afghanistan. (4)
Concise Theology, JI Packer –
A nice little theology book (7)
Samson and the Pirate Monks, N Larkin –
True brotherhood and honesty. (10)
My Beautiful Idol, P Gall –
A novel about idolatry. Sometimes good. Sometimes boring. (7)
The Call of the Wild, J London –
Eh. (5)
Darkness at Noon, A Koestler –
From Steven R. A novel about how Stalinist Russia stinks. (6)
The Broken Window, J Deaver –
A great thriller with twits and turns. (8)
Holding Hands, Holding Hearts, R Phillips –
One of the better dating books out there. (7)
Boundaries in Dating, H Cloud –
Filled with pretty good advice. (7)
Just Do Something: How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, etc.
Subtitle says it all. (8)
October 1964, D Halbertsam –
I love it when the Cards win the WS. (10)
True Spirituality, F Schaeffer –
True Spirituality is inward and goes outward. (7)
Summer of ’49, D Halberstam –
Yankees win which is bad but the story and writing is so good (8)
Rise to Rebellion, J Shaara –
Nothing better than to be reading this historical novel about the American Revolutionary War in Boston (10)
The Glorious Cause, J Shaara –
Part Two in such an amazing, well-told story. (10)
Devil in the Details, J Traig –
Traig’s girlhood OCD is hilarious, sad and very interesting. (9)
The Prodigal God, T Keller –
Read it to the family this time. (10)
Born On A Blue Day, D Temmet –
Autistic savant memorizes 22,500 digits of pi. His boyfriend/partner helps out. (5)
Swimming to Antarctica, L Cox –
Girl swims English channel in record time when she’s 14. Later swims the Bering Strait and a mile to Antarctica. Crazy. (8)
The Intimate Mystery, D Allender –
The best book I’ve read on marriage. (10)
Sex and the Soul, D Frietas –
Sexuality and Spirituality on college campuses. (8)
Sleep, C Schenk –
A decent read about weird sleep stuff. (5)
Born to Run, C McDougall
Wow. This was my favorite book of the year. Informative and riveting. (10)
~ Doug Serven
