Several years ago I read a book by Ken Hughes called Disciplines of a Godly Man. The main theme of the book deals with imitating older, wiser men and their godly habits. One such habit he discusses is reading. Hughes challenged me to think more deeply about what I read, and at the end of the book he listed several well-known leaders in the church, and he included a list of their favorite books. Knowing those particular books had impacted these mature men, I began to read through the list. I have always been interested in what intelligent and godly people are reading.

Therefore, in that same spirit, I polled our current faculty and asked them what books they are planning on reading over the summer. I’ve already read several of these! So, without further adieu, here is the list!

Cindy Lange

• Lila by Marilynne Robinson
• The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon
• An Economist Gets Lunch by Tyler Cowen
• The Cloud of Unknowing (anonymous early English mystical writing)
• A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith and Fiction by Ron Hansen
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaman
• Meditating on Four Quartets by John E. Booty
• After You Believe by N. T. Wright
• Favorite: Perelandra

 Katie Dawson

• Jayber Crow and Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
• Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
• Billy Collins anthologies are also fun!
• Lila by Marilynne Robinson is good…but I would recommend reading Gilead before Lila (and Home before Lila as well).
• Rebel Yell by S.C. Gwynne
• The Locust Effect by Gary Haugen

Joanna Hensley

• The King’s Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy (Mark Logue and Peter Conradi)
• John Milton: Classical Learning and the Progress of Virtue by Grant Horner
• That’s Not English: Britishisms, Americanisms, and What Our English Says About Us by Erin Moore
• Anzac Girls: The Extraordinary Story of our World War I Nurses by Peter Rees
• Favorite: Jane Eyre.

Julie Etter

• Henry VIII: Man and Monarch
• Mornings on Horseback (early life of Theodore Roosevelt)
• The Gilead Trilogy
• Favorite is Jane Eyre.  Jane is a strong example of rising above sadness and difficult circumstances to make the most of the life God has given her. She exemplifies “pulling up your boot straps” and not blaming God for your circumstances. There are so many life lessons wrapped up in this dark, yet beautifully written classic.

Christie Jester

• The Planets by Dava Sobel, (includes poetry, history, music, and more beautiful ways the planets have been described and remembered.)
• The Story of Science by Susan Wise Bauer
• The Conversation by Leigh Bortins (regarding the Rhetoric stage of education
• The Core (Grammar stage)
• The Conversation (Dialectic.)
• Favorite: The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings series, or anything by J.R.R. Tolkien.
• For upper elementary, I love The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (a word-puzzle mystery.)

Todd Lowery

• The Thanatos Syndrome by Walker Percy,
• Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide to Six Shakespeare Plays” by Peter Leithart
• The Creedal Imperative by Carl Trueman
• The Person of Christ by Donald Macleod
• Favorites: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Leslie Smith

• The Chosen  by Chaim Potock
• Davida’s Harp by Chaim Potock
• Anything by Charles Todd that I can find (Ian Rutledge mysteries, set in post-WWI England)
• The Hunger Games trilogy
• Middlemarch by George Eliot

Becky Pliego

• Latin American literature, especially Borges
• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
• The Unprejudiced Palate by Pellegrini
• Food for Thought by Foucachon
• Death by Living and Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, both by N.D.Wilson
• Books on the family by the Wilsons, and some others about counseling.
• The Aeneid. I will be using Roman Roads Media study guide and DVD’s . These guys are trying to challenge parents who are doing Classical Education to prepare themselves more thoroughly to be able to teach (or in my case help!) more effectively their own children.

Josie Lowery

• Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry along with his latest collection of short stories.
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Wilkie Collins novels
• A Shelter in the Time of Storm by Paul David Tripp
• Pilgrim’s Progress
• Cookwise (All about the science behind the cooking)
• Desserts for Two
• Against All Grain

Anne Stublen

• Dreaming Spies by Laurie King.
• Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
• Prayer by Tim Keller
• The Things of Earth by Joe Rigney
• Brave New World, Mein Kampf, and Beowulf (each of my kid’s favorites from their GC classes)

Bart Martin

• Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
• Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry

My Own List

• Re-reading Brothers Karamazov
• Jayber Crow (Wendell Berry)
• Hannah Coulter (Wendell Berry)
• Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics by Mikhail Bakhtin
• Reading Dostoevsky (Terras)
• Agatha Christie (as many as possible)
• The First Circle by Solzhenitsyn
• Favorites: The Aeneid, David Copperfield, The Brothers Karamazov

Bruce Etter, Head of School, Wilson Hill Academy