💬 Crowdsourcing: Life-Changing Books for Summer Reading
What book nudged your life in a new direction?
I’m sitting in a lecture hall my senior spring of college, staring out the window, ignoring the lecture, and writing poetry in my head for the first time in my life.
Why?
Because a week earlier, on spring break, I’d read these words by Stephen King in a novella that was eventually turned into the movie Stand by Me:
The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them—words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.
It was a wake-up call to my soul. I’d buried my secret heart, not because it was bad, but because it had been met with blank stare after blank stare.
A year later that poetry would endear me to my future wife. Ten years after that, I’d start blogging my words. Five years after that, I’d put my secret heart on the page and call it Loveable.
Some books arrive at just the right moment to make a real difference in our life. Perhaps they awaken our creativity, like Different Seasons did for me. Or they provide solace during a time of great mourning. Or they hold up a mirror to you, showing you how beautiful you really are. Or they save your faith. Or they deliver just the right bit of relationship wisdom at just the right moment to eventually reshape the landscape of your belonging.
Or…or…or…
There are countless ways a book can make a difference in our life.
So, today, on the cusp of summer reading season, with this Crowdsourcing post, let’s curate a list of books that have changed our lives.
What book nudged your life in a blessed new direction?
This is how Crowdsourcing posts work:
In the comments, in all caps write the title of your LIFE-CHANGING BOOK, then share why it mattered so much to you. (If you have more than one, leave two or more comments rather than putting them all in one.)
Choose one other commenter whose book mattered to you too—or whose book you’d like to read based on their recommendation—and let them know by responding to their comment.
To get us started, I’m going to put a second book of mine in the first comment. It may be the first time Stephen King and Richard Rohr have ever been recommended right next to each other! 😂
Looking forward to hearing from you all. This is going to be an amazing list of curated summer reads!
FALLING UPWARD: SPIRITUALITY FOR THE TWO HALVES OF LIFE by Richard Rohr.
In 2008, on a Marine base in Virginia, I experienced myself for the first time as the me inside of this matrix of identity and personas I'd built up around me to protect me. For three years, I didn't really have a language to describe the experience. Then, in 2011, Richard Rohr published Falling Upward and called these two versions of us the soul and the ego, and everything made sense.
Since then, much of my life and writing has been about how to love both of those versions of us, and live from both of them too.
Co Dependents Guide to the 12 Steps, by Melodie Beattie. This book rescued me from an unsatisfying life by helping me to understand that I do not have to fix everything, nor make things more comfortable for others at my expense. I grew up with a mother who taught us girls how to treat a man (alcoholic). She sacrificed, took care of things, excused or father and his behavior, told us he loved us, etc. I married two alcoholics in a row. My third marriage is where all of my healing happened. I met a man who was capable, in and of himself.
It's really one of the many books that I love.