So…I’m behind on posting again!  So far behind, in fact, that I’ve just combined What I Read in August and September into one post.  Which is probably fine, because I’ve been busy with renovations of the building that I purchased to move my office into, moving offices, work, and travelling.  So my reading was a little lighter than usual.

Every month I try to read at least one book from the following categories: nonfiction, devotional, and fiction. Non-fiction ensures that I’m always learning something new. Devotionals ensure that I’m keying into my faith. And fiction books are just so enjoyable to read! This is What I Read in August and September 2015.

August:
Kilimanjaro Diaries: Or, How I Spent a Week Dreaming of Toilets, Drinking Crappy Water, and Making Bad Jokes While Having the Time of My Life by Eva Melusine Thieme

This book falls into the travel memoir category. A homemaker and mother tells of her preparations for and hike of Kilimanjaro. The author is German by birth, and American by naturalization, and is an expat in South Africa. Her perspective on Africa and the experience are unique and fun. An enjoyable read, to be sure.

Praying for Your Elephant: Boldly Approaching Jesus with Radical and Audacious Prayer by Adam Stadtmiller

This book is about how we need to approach God honestly and without censoring our prayers. We need to pray for those big, unrealistic things that we desire for our lives, our elephants, without having guilt. We can pray both for those things that our hearts desire, as well as hunger, poverty, and illness, as God is big enough to hear all of these prayers. Thought provoking.

Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception by Pamela Meyer

I chose this book after watching Pamela Meyer’s TED talk. If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it.  It was fascinating, and I hoped that this book would be equally so. The book started out strong, but focused too much on the benefits of being able to spot those who are being deceptive, the benefits of which are pretty clear, I think. I would have liked more on the mechanics of how to actually spot liars, as this portion of the books was very informative and interesting.

The Last Survivors by Bobby Adair and T.W. Piperbrook

This book is a dystopian novel, and is an interesting take on the genre. Essentially, society has started over, and modern knowledge, skills, and technology have all been lost. This book is the first in the series, and I’ll probably continue reading, because it was a quick read that drew me in and I’m interested to see where the plot lines go.

Blogging For Profit by James Darren Scott

This book, in hindsight, is a bit non-memorable. At the time that I read it, it seemed like an interesting read, at least good enough to get through with the text-to-speech feature while I was driving. But I quite honestly don’t remember a single tip from it. 

Strangeville by Kenneth Tingle 

This was a fun little novel! It follows the story of a man truly unhappy with his life, so unhappy that he wants to attempt suicide.  He stumbles across a town called Strangeville. Strangeville is cut off from the outside world and a little backwards, to say the least. The book is a quick and easy read, and quite enjoyable. I recommend it.

The 9 Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs by Ryan Battles

This book was short and to the point, which I appreciated. It had a couple of new tips that I hadn’t heard about before, and didn’t have much fluff. Not bad.

September:
A Scattered Life by Karen McQuestion

 This book was August’s book from the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library for me. I just didn’t realize that I hadn’t read it until I tried to borrow a book for September. It was a pretty quick read, though, so I didn’t miss out on a free book in September. 😉

The story follows a few main characters, normal people in a small Wisconsin town. The people initially don’t seem very appealing, but as the story goes on, they grow on you, and ultimately redeem themselves in the end.  The most compelling portion of the story seemed to end much too quickly, while the set up seemed to take a very long time. I enjoyed the book, but it won’t go down as one of my very favorite books.

The Lazarus Life: Spiritual Transformation for Ordinary People by Stephen W. Smith

This book uses the story of Lazarus to help describe how we’re all dead without Jesus resurrecting us from our own personal tombs. The symbolism from Lazarus’s story and its application to our own lives is profound. I really loved this book!

How To Learn A Language In 90 Days by Adam Muller 

This book had some useful tips and information for learning a language quickly, and actually learning language for speaking while traveling. It put in perspective that we don’t have to have complete language mastery in order to be able to communicate and carry on conversations in other languages, which is encouraging. But I would have appreciated a bit more practical information. It was a quick read, but could have been longer to incorporate this.

One Night with a Rock Star by Chana Keefer

The title of this book makes it seem like it would be a dirty romance, but it is actually Christian fiction. I really enjoyed that it wasn’t “goody two shoes” Christian fiction, but dealt with real world issues in a way that felt genuine and authentic. The characters were relatable. I really enjoyed it, and had to read the sequel right away…

One Night With a Rock Star: part deux by Chana Keefer

But I liked the first book better. The characters were still relatable, but the story just seemed less realistic. I liked it, but it didn’t quite live up to the first book.

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

I have heard about Gladwell for several years, but am finally reading my first of his books. And it definitely does not disappoint. Much in the same way as Freakonomics looks at the world in a fresh way, Gladwell has a knack for providing new explanations for phenomena in a way that makes sense to the average person. He teaches by providing examples and stories, making the book easy to read and follow. I recommend it.