I’m always interested to read what people are suggesting as core texts for courses (I really wish more professors would post their reading lists from seminary and college classes…. I wonder if anyone has asked them to?) and I also want to be able to find them quickly if I need them, so what better way than to post them on the web?
- Christian Spirituality, Alister E. McGrath, Blackwell Publishing 1999.
- 224 pages. $47 for the paperback at Amazon.com. I’ll save you the effort of looking around for a better price — unless you want a used copy, they start at $37.00 but you’ll also pay for shipping. For me it was easier to just roll them all into one order from Amazon.com and get their free shipping. One of the other sites said that the book was “Imported from the UK” which led me to wonder “Did it need its own flight?” Seriously, $47 for a paperback? Also available in hardcover for $110 for those of you who recently hit the lottery.
- Restless Souls - The Making of American Spirituality, Leigh Eric Schmidt, Harper Collins Publishing 2005.
- $11.66 at Amazon for the paperback which came out right around the same time I received the reading list. 336 pages.
- The Best American Spiritual Writing, Edited by Philip Zaleski, Introduction by Peter F. Gomes, Houghton Mifflin Company 2006.
- $11.20 at Amazon. 336 pages. Published, unsurprisingly, in 2006. Unfortunately I overlooked this one when I placed my Amazon.com order. If I spend $13.80 more I’ll get free shipping…. Or spend $4 and have it shipped by itself. Almost seems like a waste of $4 though… (I ordered Growing In The Life Of Faith, Second Edition: Education And Christian Practices by Craig R. Dykstra from my wishlist.)
- Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine, Dorothy L. Sayers, W Publishing Group 2004.
- $10.19 at Amazon. 288 pages. Read the book description on the Amazon page, which includes this excerpt: “Somehow or other, and with the best intentions, we have shown the world the typical Christian in the likeness of a crashing and rather ill-natured bore—and this in the Name of One who assuredly never bored a soul in those thirty-three years during which He passed through this world like a flame.” Now that sounds interesting.
- Spiritus - A Journal of Christian Spirituality, Volume 7 Number 1 Spring 2007
- This is a journal I had not heard of before. It is “sort of” available online but only if you have access to something like Project Muse. I discovered that fair Allegheny on the hill is a subscriber, and the library there is already working on getting alumni remote access to it, which is very cool.
- Hustling God - Why We Work So Hard for What God Wants to Give, Craig Barnes, Zondervan 1999.
- $11.89 at Amazon. 208 pages. By far the most interesting book title I’ve come across in awhile. Looking forward to this one.
Hrm. I just thought about the page counts:
336 Restless Souls
336 Best American Spiritual Writing 2006
288 Letters to a Diminished Church
224 Christian Spirituality
208 Hustling God
025 pages from Spiritus
Total page count: 1,417
Days left before class starts: 50
Pages I need to read each day to finish on time: 28.34
Add to that the “Bible in 90 Days” that our church is currently doing (through Sept 27th) which includes about 45-60 minutes of Bible reading per day (approx 12 pages).
Biggest problem? The books I ordered last week haven’t arrived yet. With the long weekend, I probably won’t get them until at least Tuesday, if not later.
I knew I should have paid for two-day shipping.
I think I need to spend Labor Day reading ahead in the Bible, since I already have that in my possession!