What I’ve been reading

I thought I’d drop by just for fun and tell you about some interesting books I’ve been reading / read / just started reading.

One BIG one I just finished was Empire of the Bay, by Peter C. Newman.  This book is all about the Hudson’s Bay Company, especially its history between 1670 and the founding of Canada in 1867.

The Hudson’s Bay Company controlled an area 10x the size of the Holy Roman Empire – 1/12 of the earth’s surface.  It reached from the far north to what is now San Francisco and Hawaii.  Its story really is a key to the story of Canada.  It explains how the Canadian mentality turned out to be so different from their neighbours to the south.  It shows how the company mentality helped avoid the slaughter of native peoples that took place elsewhere in the Americas (but then again this mentality abused natives in other ways).

In a sense, it was one of the largest empires the world has ever known.  It’s believed to be the best documented institution in the world, next to the Vatican.  The paper archives alone weigh in at over 68 tons.

Anyone interested in Canada ought to have this one on their shelf.

The second book is The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict by Ken Sande.  Actually, I already read this one – I’m just reading the new edition.  Everyone in CAM Mexico (ideally?) has been working through this one over the past year.

I’ve written about this one before – read my post about the Peacemaker conference.

I just started reading Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp.  I haven’t read much, so I can’t vouch for it, but this one is all about raising children and helping them to know and love God.  Us parents can use all the help we can get!  🙂

Next, another book I’ve already read.  It was so good that I finally got myself a copy so that I could take a closer look.  Getting Things Done is a best seller by David Allen.  It’s all about … well, getting things done!  But doing it with peace of mind and purpose.  Though everything in the book doesn’t apply to all people, there is certainly some wise advice here that has already been a help to me personally.

If you ever feel like you’ve got too many loose ends in your life and you don’t know what to do next, or you’re starting to feel like you’re always a slave of the urgent, this is a book to take a look at.

I once heard that a book wasn’t worth anything unless it was at least a hundred years old (having stood the test of time).  So that brings me to the last two…

The Resurrection by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Leo Tolstoy).  I listened to this one as an audio book.

Tolstoy is a Christian anarchist.  I am not.  However, he has some great insights in this book, especially regarding human nature.  His thoughts on how people arrange their views of life are chilling:

"Everybody, in order to be able to act, has to consider his occupation important and good.  Therefore, in whatever position a person is, he is certain to form such a view of the life of men in general which will make his occupation seem important and good."

In other words, we all arrange our views of the world so that we appear to be good and noble – true, and terrifying.  There’s been a lot of talk about self-deception lately because of the bestseller Leadership and Self Deception (which I haven’t read).  It’s worth repeating – the heart is deceitful above all things… (Jer 17:9).

Anyway, a fascinating book.  You can get a paper copy of Resurrection here.

Finally, for quite some time I’ve been reading Heather and Snow by George MacDonald.  Unabridged and unedited.  I have to say that, because it’s hard to find an unedited version of MacDonald these days.

As you’ll notice if you click the link, I got this one free online and I put it onto my Franklin dictionary.  This is a novel set in Scotland.  It’s good so far, and it’s quite a mind-stretcher, because some of the language is quite… well, Scottish.  I’m part Scottish, so that’s all cool.  Here’s a sample:
‘He cam to me o’ the Hornside, whaur I sat weyvin my stockin, ower the bog on ‘s powny–a richt bonny thing, and clever–a new are he’s gotten frae ‘s mither.  And it’s no the first time he’s been owre there to see me sin’ he cam hame!’

‘He kenned whaur he was likest to see me: it was me he wantit.’

Right – let’s stretch those linguistic neurons, shall we?  Pick up a copy of Heather and Snow here.

So what have you been reading lately?