Books To Read – August 2011
As the hottest summer ever (OK maybe not, but it sure feels like it) rolls on, here are my must-reads for the month of August. I tend to be reading two books at a time. One is typically something to help me improve my craft or a topic I am wanting to learn about, and the other is purely for pleasure. This month, I actually have had three going at one time as we are reading with our kids every night.
I hope you enjoy the books below as much as I have.
The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry
I love books that talk help me think about how I can do my work and life better. This book was recommended to me a couple of months ago by an author I trust, and it did not disappoint. If you are anything like me, you struggle with setting aside time to let your mind do what it does best. I tend to rush from one thing to the next and see how much I can get done in a given day. There are certainly times for that, but there are also times where you need to let your mind work on solving the problems you face. The myth is that creative people have flashes of lightning and brilliance that come upon them without discipline. Todd Henry argues pretty convincingly that it requires structure and a deliberate, methodical approach to allow your brain to do it’s best work. I took two or three things from this book the first time through and implemented them immediately, and I can already tell a difference in my work. Highly, highly recommend this book to everyone who has to be creative for a living. That’s pretty much everyone now-a-days.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
Last month I wrote about The Fellowship of the Ring, and you can pretty much bet that the Return of the King will be on September’s reading list. As I talked about last month, I had never really given these books a serious read in the past, and I am really enjoying taking my time going through them now. The section of this book where it’s Sam, Frodo and Gollum for about 100 pages gets a bit tedious. I won’t lie. However, by the end of this one I could not put it down and immediately picked up the 3rd book and started reading it. We are about to start watching the movies with our kids, as they have been reading these as well. I can’t wait to see the movies again.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
My wife picked this book up about a month ago and was immediately hooked. The story takes place in the future, after North America has more or less ceased to exist and has been replaced by a country called Panem. It is a highly controlled police state. The Hunger Games are a series of sporting events where contestants are drawn from each of Panem’s twelve districts and are forced to kill each other to survive. The last one standing wins. The main character, Katniss, takes her younger sister Prim’s place in the games after Prim’s name was drawn in a lottery. We are actually reading this book as a family each night, and it is gripping from the first chapter on. It’s an easy read, and very entertaining.