Lift Up Your Hearts!

Resolution #1, Read More Books, was by far the most successful of the dozen I developed throughout 2010.  I read 65 books in the year:  fiction and non-fiction, from children's lit to an 800-page survey of ancient history.  This is a marked improvement over recent years, and I attribute it to (1) recognizing that I had let other activities replace the habit of reading, (2) deciding to make the change, and (3) setting up a system of measurement (a simple, but public, list) whereby I could see my progress or lack thereof.  This resolution is a keeper.

What did I learn most from this experience?  The realization that we can probably no longer call ourselves a literate nation.  Is there really much difference between someone who can't read and someone who doesn't?  I'm a fast reader and a good one; I love to read books and I watch television only rarely; I'm a homemaker whose children are grown.  What's more, few of the books I read were difficult, and I counted audio books as well.  In short, I have everything going for me when it comes to reading, and I made the goal as easy as possible to reach.  Yet it took a deliberate, sustained effort to read at a rate of just over one book per week.  It is now clear to me that if we want to recover literacy, it's not going to happen without serious, determined work.  Nor can we leave the effort to our schools, which to give them credit have been trying every trick in the book and then some to get kids to read, but which cannot seem to produce many graduates who read without coercion.  Literacy, like charity and world peace, must begin at home.  How can kids learn the importance of books if they never see their parents reading?

Or ... wait.  Kindles.  iPads.  Could it be that Books + Electronic Devices = Literacy for the Next Generation?  Stranger things have happened.

For the curious, here is my list for 2010, sorted alphabetically.  A chronological listing, with links, is here.

1. The Abernathy Boys  by L. J. Hunt
2. Between Heaven and Hell  by Peter Kreeft 
3. Born to Run  by Christopher McDougall  
4. The Brain that Changes Itself  by Norman Doidge  
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (audio book, abridged)    
6. Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites ...and Other Lies You've Been Told  by Bradley R. E. Wright 
7. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe  by C. S. Lewis
8. The Chronicles of Narnia:  Prince Caspian  by C. S. Lewis
9. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis
10. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair  by C. S. Lewis
11. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis
12. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew  by C. S. Lewis
13. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle  by C. S. Lewis
14. The Chronological Guide to the Bible, published  by Thomas Nelson
15. Common Sense 101: Lessons from G. K. Chesterton  by Dale Ahlquist 
16. Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI  by Scott W. Hahn 
17. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time  by Mark Haddon  
18. Ender's Game  by Orson Scott Card  
19. Eugenics and Other Evils  by G. K. Chesterton 
20. Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal  by Joel Salatin 
21. Food Rules  by Michael Pollan
22. Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit  by Francis Chan (audio book)
23. The Four-Story Mistake  by Elizabeth Enright
24. Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)  by Lenore Skenazy 
25. Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis  by Rowan Jacobsen  
26. Getting Things Done  by David Allen
27. The Gobblestone School  by Jacob Schriftman 
28. Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection  by Isaac Asimov 
29. Healing Through Exercise  by Jörg Blech.
30. The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome  by Susan Wise Bauer 
31. The Hobbit  by J.R.R. Tolkien
32. Homeschooling for the Rest of Us  by Sonya Haskins 
33. Inconstant Moon  by Larry Niven
34. In Defense of Food  by Michael Pollan 
35. In Tune with the World  by Josef Pieper 
36. Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation  by Martin Laird 
37. It Happened in Italy  by Elizabeth Bettina 
38. A Journal of the Plague Year  by Daniel Defoe 
39. Just Courage  by Gary Haugen (audio book) 
40. A Little Princess  by Frances Hodgson Burnett
41. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring  by J. R. R. Tolkien
42. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers  by J. R. R. Tolkien
43. Magic: The Final Fantasy Collection  by Isaac Asimov 
44. Martin Luther: In His Own Words (audio book, includes The Small Catechism, 95 Theses, On Faith and Coming to Christ, On Confession and the Lord's Supper, Of the Office of Preaching, Excerpt from Luther's Tower Experience, and The Last Written Words of Luther)
45. Mayflower  by Nathaniel Philbrick 
46. Murder Must Advertise  by Dorothy Sayers 
47. No More Christian Nice Girl  by Paul Coughlin and Jennifer D. Degler
48. Non Campus Mentis  by Anders Henricksson 
49. The Omnivore's Dilemma  by Michael Pollan 
50. The Philosophy of Tolkien  by Peter Kreeft
51. The Pursuit of God  by A. W. Tozer (audio book)
52. Rabbit Hill  by Robert Lawson
53. Ready for Anything  by David Allen 
54. Saint Patrick  by Jonathan Rogers 
55. The Saturdays  by Elizabeth Enright 
56. The Selfless Gene  by Charles Foster 
57. Speaker for the Dead  by Orson Scott Card 
58. Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze  by Elizabeth Enright 
59. Stained Glass Elegies  by Shusaku Endo 
60. Stones into Schools  by Greg Mortenson
61. Theatre Shoes  by Noel Streatfeild 
62. Then There Were Five  by Elizabeth Enright 
63. Thinking in Pictures:  My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin
64. Three Cups of Tea  by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin 
65. Weapons of Mass Instruction  by John Taylor Gatto