Soulfood

I made it through another 23 books in Q2 (of which 18 were first-time reads for me), adding ~4000 pages of printed reading and 50 hours of audiobook listening. This does not include finishing Gospels-Acts and OT History (Joshua-Job) in my Bible readthrough. In Q3 I’ll finish OT wisdom literature and get into the major prophets, and read through the Pauline epistles.

Highlights of the quarter included Malcom Guite’s Galahad and the Grail group read-aloud sessions; a new-to-me novel that swept through our family called Theo of Golden; In Suspect Terrain by John McPhee (suggested by Andrew Peterson in his 2025 reading summary); The Desecration of Man by Carl Trueman; and Endurance by Alfred Lansing.

The family reading challenge reached 300 books by June 30th putting us on track to hit 600 for the year. Personally, I’m at 53 books towards my goal of 100 for 2026. To the details!

Non-fiction/history (3): Endurance by Alfred Lansing; The Courtier and the Heretic by Matthew Stewart; and Agent Josephine by Damian Lewis (all first-time reads)

Non-fiction/other (5): Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni; In Suspect Terrain by John McPhee; The Desecration of Man by Carl Trueman; Good to Great by Jim Collins; and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (all first-time reads)

Non-fiction/devotional (3): The Final Days of Jesus by Andreas Koestenburger and Justin Taylor; The Word in the Wilderness by Malcolm Guite; The Frustrating Book by Mo Williams (2 first-time reads)

(I’m also reading through The Heidelberg Catechism for Devotional Reading, ed. by Tim Challies; Daily Doctrine by Kevin DeYoung; Sounding the Seasons by Malcolm Guite; and Take Heart by David Powlison, in all of which I am on track to finish by Dec. 31st.)

Fiction/poetry new-to-me (8): Smith of Wootton Major by J.R.R. Tolkien; Andy Catlett (Early Travels), Remembering, and A Place in Time by Wendell Berry; Galahad and the Grail by Malcolm Guite; The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad ed. by Jennifer Traston; East of Eden by John Steinbeck; and Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

Fiction re-reads (4): The Silver Chair, The Magician’s Nephew, Prince Caspian, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis (all audiobooks)

I’m currently listening to A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell with That Distant Land by Wendell Berry in the audiobook queue. I’m variously reading Which Is the Apostolic Church? by Thomas Witherow, The Scandal of the Incarnation (Irenaus of Lyons, ed. by Hans Urs von Balthasar), Our Bodies Tell God’s Story by Christopher West, Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, and The Martian by Andy Weir.