"Readers Are Leaders"

As I've gotten older, I've had a harder time finishing books. I'm not sure if my attention span is dwindling, or if maybe it's due to my habit of starting a dozen projects at once and finishing hardly any of them.

But this weekend, I finished two books.

Friday night, I wrapped up Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. This is a short little book that packed a punch. It's a difficult book to summarize, but I guess the easiest way to describe it is that it's a book about the journey into manhood and the battles that accompany it. As far as nonficition Christian books go, I found this one especially impactful. I've heard that some guys love it and some guys think it's the dumbest book ever. I think it depends on your history. I safely fall into the former category.

Yesterday, I finished Daniel DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe. I've wanted to read this book since I was a kid. I've wondered over it since the moment I heard Thomas Hill's Koreander mention the title in his bookshop in "The Neverending Story." I picked it up on the bargain classics stand at B&N and started reading it a few months ago when I heard about the TV series on NBC. I really enjoyed this book. It's been a long time since I've read a book written in another century. The world may shrink and technologies change, but men (and women) remain the same. I also watched the first episode of the series last night. It was fairly annoying in all the predictable TV ways.

Books I'm still "reading":

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - If I'm gonna do it, I'll probably need to hit the reset button. It's been a while.
The Blue Latitudes - There's still hope here of finishing. It's light, undemanding reading that occasionally I can pick up and not feel like I'm utterly lost.
unChristian - I've enjoyed this book, and I'm not far from finishing. I need to pick it back up.
The Irresistible Revolution - I'm not sure I can honestly say I started this one, not with any real commitment anyway. I do want to pick it back up.
The Audacity of Hope - I read the intro a while back, but didn't make an attempt beyond that. I might give it another shot before January 20th.
Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft - Collection of short stories that I don't feel guilty about at all by not reading cover to cover in a short frame.