Remember the goal?  50 books in 52 weeks.  Well last week was week number 26 – that would be the half-way point.  The plan was roughly a book a week, with two free weeks.

Depending on how you look at it, I’m actually pretty close to being on schedule.  I’ve finished 23 books so far.  So technically I’ve taken my two free weeks already but I can always try to reclaim those.

Here’s how I’ve done it up to this point: 1 book on personal finance, 2 books of fiction, 3 E-Books, 3 history books, 4 books on politics or current events, 6 audio books, and 11 books church/Kingdom/or theological in nature.

My favorites so far, not necessarily in order, are Father/Land: A Personal Search for the New Germany by Frederick Kempe, Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren, and A Hundred and One Days by Asne Seierstad.

Father/Land is a combination of historical account, personal memior, and current German issues written by Kempe as he discovers and comes to grip with his families’ heritage and the positive and negative of contemporary Germany society.  It provides, I think, the accessible account I’ve come across laying out the historical and cultural undercurrents of modern Germany.  Very insightful.

In Everything Must Change, McLaren asks and struggles through two questions: 1) What are the world’s greatest problems?  and 2) What does the life and message of Jesus have to say about them?  He offers an interesting critique of contemporary society (dubbing it a suicide machine).  The greatest problems picture is bleak (you knew that if you’ve been paying attention didn’t you), but he comes at it from a disticntly hopeful perspective – namely that Jesus has addressed these problems and can (will?) redeem them.

Asne Seierstad is a Norwegian journalist who spent 101 days in Bahgdad before, during, and after the attacks in 2003.  A Hundred and One Days is her fascinating account of her time there during the war and her relationships with many different Iraquis.  A unique perspective and really interesting writing.

I was hoping to be a little ahead at this point, instead of slightly behind, because the second half of the year is shaping up to be busier.  But hey, I can’t complain about 23 books.  That is as many or more than I read all of last year.

The next books on my list include several on new expressions of church, a book on Eastern Orthodoxy, and my Grandfather’s political doom and gloom recommendation The Late Great USA.

I’ll keep you updated…