Caught between a Kindle and a Hardcover

Christ Church, Exeter

August 8, 2013

Summer Reading: Caught between a Kindle and a Hardcover

I am really trying to like my Kindle. Actually it is an older model that I gave to my wife some years ago. (She's moved on to an I-Pad). I want to like it, and I do, but I am having a hard time giving up THE BOOK.  An actual book.

For me part of the joy of reading is the process of selecting a book. I rarely like a book purchased for me at the holidays because I have been denied the all-important browsing stage part of the process. I need to browse. Read the back jacket. Or at the very least, go online and read the reviews. Plus I like feeling the paper, turning the page, and holding the book in my hand. Dinosaur I am.

So what am I reading this summer? As one always thinking about the next potential church discussion book group, I am half-way through James E. Atwood's America and Its Guns: A Theological Expose ..  30,000 people die a year from guns in America and Atwood, a Presbyterian pastor, tries to get at the why. Sobering read.

Knowing that I would be traveling this fall for a Cross of Nails conference in Germany, a parishioner recommended to me to read Stark Decency: German Prisoners of War in a New England Village by Allen V. Koop.   Stark, New Hampshire is a small town that learned a great deal about war, hospitality and humanity during the cold years near the end of World War II.  I could not help but read it in light of Guantanamo and the challenges we face as a nation today with regard to the treatment of so-called "enemy combatants."

I know I am over ambitious for my week of vacation at the end of August, but I hope to finish at least one of the three real hardcover books I just purchased. Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick (heard the author on public radio and the books sounds interesting for a history lover). Hope to get my political fix with This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral-Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!-in America's Gilded Capital by Mark Leibovich who spills all the inside info in Washington DC. I am also eager to see what the fuss is all about with Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan.  Aslan, a Muslim, who hit the jackpot after an overly contentious interview on Fox recently takes another look at the historical Jesus, which has always fascinated me.  Who would like to read Zealot during August and pitch a book group?

Happy reading.