One of the first things you should know about me is that I love books! I fell in love with reading when I was thirteen and read Harry Potter for the first time.
Ever since then, my passion for books has only grown, although my reading was leisure, not disciplined. But things changed when I discovered GoodReads and started tracking my reading habits via the yearly challenge.
I participated in the challenge for the first time in 2017 for fun. Since I never kept track of the books I read in a year, I had no idea what to choose for my reading goal. So, I picked my age, which was 25. I didn’t know if it was too much, too little, or in between, but it seemed an excellent place to start.
That year, I read 23 books and didn’t quite meet my goal. I tried the following year again with a goal of 26 books, but I also failed. Due to some personal challenges in my life, I sank into depression and quit doing things I loved for a while. And even though I managed to read 22 books, I read over half of them towards the end of the year, when I began to pull myself together and furiously tried to meet my goal.
I promised myself never to go through such a bookless year again. So, I lined up all the books I planned on reading in 2019 and determined to succeed. My goal for 2019 was to read 27 books, and I read 31! Yay!
For this new year, I have new reading goals. I want to continue to increase the number of books I read per year. But I also want to diversify my reading list since the vast majority of the books I read are fiction. More specifically, I want to read more Christian books.
Since becoming a Christian almost four years ago, I have only read a handful of Christian books. And to my dismay, I have come to realize that most of these books were from questionable teachers. So, I searched for good, trustworthy recommendations for top Christian books to read and got them in advance. My goal is to read at least one Christian/theology book per month this year. Here are some Christian books on my reading list:
- Knowing God by J.I Packer
- The Holiness of God by R.C Sproul
- The Gospel according to Jesus by John MacArthur
- Desiring God by John Piper
- Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald Whitney
- Women of the Word by the Jenn Wilkin
- Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices
- The Disciplines of Grace by Jerry Bridge
- Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller
- What is Reformed Theology by R.C Sproul
- Unashamed of the Gospel by John MacArthur
- Pleasures of God by John Piper
- The mortification of Sin by John Owen
- Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves
- Everyone is a Theologian by R.C Sprouls
I got some of these books from Tim Challies’ 10 books every Christian should to read. I will review each of these books and post them on the blog since I have always wanted to do book reviews.
This year, I decided to forego my age to get a bit more ambitious, and my new goal is 40. I thought it was pretty good until I learned some people read over a hundred books in a year.
Now, I admit I was tempted to set my reading challenge goal at 100. I reasoned if I read more non-fiction books, which are usually 300 pages or less (compared to fiction books which are generally 600 pages or more), maybe I could do it. But I decided against it because it is not a competition. It is better to read at my preferred pace and gradually increase.
Besides, I am limited by budget since I prefer buying books than renting them.
So, for now, I am going to stick with 40. I am beyond excited to get started on my to-read list. I am also going to implement new reading habits and discipline to read more books.
Anyways, this post was just an intro to my reading project. If you are reading any of these books, let me know! I would love to have a reading buddy!
