Summer Reading Challenge 2025
As I mentioned last time, this post from Joel Miller has inspired me to actually plan my summer reading and not run around aimlessly, which is my default setting. I’m not even going to confess how many unread books I own, but it’s a number larger than my age times two or three (or maybe more).
Some of these books have sat on my shelves for years. Some (designated +) are rereads after first encountering them at least two decades ago. Some are classics. Some are theology. Others are just for fun. It’s an ambitious list, and I probably won’t make it each (or maybe any) month, but at least it’s on paper now (or whatever we call this).
I’ll also give a brief reason why I want to read (or reread) each book.
Here we go:
JUNE
Dr. Faustus (1947) Thomas Mann – I tried to read The Magic Mountain years ago and felt like a runner thinking he could run a marathon after having stumbled around the block a couple of times without falling down. Plus, I love Faust stories.
+The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) Agatha Christie – I thought it would be fun to read all of the Hercule Poirot books, starting with the first one.
+The Sound and the Fury (1929) William Faulkner – As a native Mississippian, I’ve read and enjoyed several Faulkner novels and stories (not that I necessarily understand them all), but this one flummoxed me when I first read it decades ago. Let’s give it another go.
The White Album (not pictured, 1979) Joan Didion – I’ve never read anything by Didion and need to correct that, plus, this leads into the next book on my list:
We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine (2025) Alissa Wilkinson – I’ve enjoyed Wilkinson’s other writings online, and this new book has been on my radar since it was announced.
A Heart Aflame for God: A Reformed Approach to Spiritual Formation (2025) Matthew C. Bingham – I’ve been reading a lot of Puritan literature lately, and this book draws heavily on Puritan writing and worldview.
The Courting of Marcus Dupree (1983) Willie Morris – Again, being a Mississippian, I remember all the talk about Marcus Dupree, one of the most celebrated high school running backs of the ‘80s, but never paid that much attention to his story. Okay, to be honest, I started this book a few days ago, and (1) it’s fascinating, and (2) Willie Morris was one of the South’s most gifted writers.
JULY
The Divine Comedy (1320) Dante Alighieri – I seriously need to finish this.
What Is Cinema? Volume I (1967) André Bazin – I’ve never read Bazin’s cornerstone writings on cinema. Why not now?
The Good Soldier (1915) Ford Madox Ford – I keep seeing this book on lists of the best novels of the 20th century, but have never read it.
Breakout (not pictured, Parker #21) Richard Stark – Sure, this is a crime fiction series, but it’s one of my favorites. Soon I’ll be finished with the Parker saga, which means I’ll immediately read the whole thing again.
A Quiet Mind to Suffer With: Mental Illness, Trauma, and the Death of Christ (2023) John Andrew Bryant – Another book I’ve already started, a fascinating look at the struggles of mental illness while trying to cling to Christ.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (translated from the French edition of 1541 by Robert White, 2014) John Calvin – Although this is a one-volume book, it’s still massive, but I need to tackle it.
AUGUST
A History of Western Philosophy and Theology (2015) John M. Frame – Limited as it is (and nowhere near where it should be), my knowledge of theology is far greater than my knowledge of philosophy, but both in one volume? Count me in.
The Aeneid (30-19 BCE, translated by Robert Fagles, 2008) Virgil – Another classic I’ve always wanted to read, and now is the time, since I also want to experience it before I read my friend Richard’s new translation of the work.
Letters and Papers from Prison (1951) Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Another classic I’ve neglected for too many years.
The Chequer Board (1947) Nevil Shute – I’m not even sure where I learned about this book, but I started tracking it down several years ago and recently found a copy in a used bookstore for a buck.
We’ll see how I do. Please share your summer reading plans! The comments are open.
And I promise, next time I’ll come up with a movie-watching plan for the summer. Stay tuned!
Nice to see the Good Soldier. I've never read any Christie. I'll be curious what you think. I've read two Dorthy L Sayers which I enjoyed, but Christie has that connotation of stuffiness I've been hesitant to visit.
Let's see if I finish these this summer. It seems like a summer of classics:
* The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer - I've read a quarter to a third of these in Middle English. I'm going to read the whole set in Modern English.
* The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - related to detective and crime fiction. I'm curious about precursors to 20th century crime.
* Niebla (Mist) (1914) - Miguel de Unamuno - Looking forward to reading another Spanish classic. Will take me a little longer since I'll read it in Spanish.
I'm sure a few other things. The stack is too big to even plan beyond this.
Plan? I choose my books randomly from a list I've created and keep adding to (currently at 369)! My Goodreads.com 'Want to Read' list has 570 books, but there's probably some overlap. Currently about to finish Tales from the New Twilight Zone by JMS, and a couple of hours ago finished The Space-Time Juggler by John Brunner, and am reading Nilsson: The Life of a Singer-Songwriter (excellent!); The Ghost Story Omnibus (Joseph French, ed.); Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories on Kindle; Father of Lies by Bruce Duncan; Enigma From Tantalus, by John Brunner; Future Tense (Isaac Asimov, ed.); Xenocide, by Orson Scott Card on audiobook; and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For graphic novel, the film of which I just watched after randomly choosing the it from my Films-To-See list (223 films on there at the moment). After the movie, I went up to my office, and there it was sitting on my chair, so of course I had to read it.
As to your list, I read The Styles book two years ago – awesome, for a first novel! In high school, I bought Curtain from the Scholastic Book Club, and since it was the last Poirot novel, I decided I had to read all the other Poirot books first, so it's still unread. The Divine Comedy should be good. I enjoyed Inferno (at the same time as The Affair at Styles, actually); cleverly written as political criticism of the author's contemporaries, I learned. That John Andrew Bryant book on your list looks interesting.
So far, my response hasn't fit your motif, so if I had to choose summer books (randomly just chosen from my lists, of course), they would be:
1. The Book of Skaith, by Leigh Brackett
2. The Shack, by William Paul Young
3. The Jewels of Aptor, by Samuel R. Delany
4. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman
5. Imager, by L. E. Modessit, Jr.
6. Men Don’t Read, by Andy Wolverton
7. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
8. My Man Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse
9. Like Family, by Paula McLain
10. The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson
11. Harlan Ellison’s Seven Against Chaos, by Paul Chadwick
12. The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett
13. Shadrach in the Furnace, by Robert Silverberg
14. The Reasonableness of Christianity, by John Locke
15. Canterbury Tales (started it; returned it to the library unfinished)
16. Hell House, by Richard Matheson
17. Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges