Have you made your summer reading list? Summer is the best time to knock out books you intend to read. If you need book suggestions, here are three I've read over the past year and highly recommend.
1. Tim Keller "Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work " You can't judge a book by its title. Keller has a habit of titling his books with a cliché message yet writing in a surprisingly philosophical and accessible style. 
Keller is a pastor in New York City of a Presbyterian church. His books are geared towards young professionals that attend his church, which means Keller's books include footnotes and direct quotes as if it were an academic essay. Yet his tone and writing style sounds like he is a journalist looking at how Christianity gives insight into basic questions about work: Why does work seem meaningless? What happens when we center our lives around work (like an idol)? What happens when work becomes selfish? This book helped me think through questions I have about my career as it relates to my life's purpose.
2. Meg Jay "The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them" Jay argues that what a person does in their 20's often shapes the rest of their life. She argues against the recent popular phrase that "the 30's are the new 20's." 
Jay's conclusion about the "defining decade" for this book comes from her experience as a counselor and researcher from interviewing multiple members of Generation X who felt they wasted away their twenties procrastinating large life choices. Instead she argues that people in their twenties should take intentional steps toward marriage, career and community. As an English teacher at DCCC, I have encouraged many of my students to read this to see how the steps they take now will ultimately help them in the future.
3. Bill Bryson: "A Walk in the Woods" This book has been turned into a movie and will be released in the fall with Robert Redford as the lead actor. Anyone who has read Bill Bryson or seen Bill Bryson knows he does not look like Robert Redford. However this book is incredibly entertaining which chronicles Bryson's attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. I've owned the book for 10 years but never read it because I heard he did not hike the full 2,000 mile trail. This is true. 
However Bryson is a writer, not a professional hiker. Bryson carefully crafts every sentence in this book to either be funny or informative along with the natural pull to see all of the struggles he goes through in the day to day life of hiking a long trail. Bryson makes fun of himself so much in this book you don't feel he is attempting to impress anyone with his hike, but inviting the reader along to learn about the long hike.
