What's on your summer reading list?

"Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweet fern and the juniper forever and ever, summer without end..." - E. B. White "Once More to the Lake" At this time of year, I begin compiling my summer reading and rereading list.  As an English teacher I don't have time during the school year to do as much pleasure reading as I'd like.  So when summer arrives, I have more books than I can possible read...."summer without end."  As a teacher it's another reason why I like the words June, July and August. 

For your summer reading list I recommend Around The Word.  I just received the summer edition and found the articles interesting and insightful.  Why should you add this to your literary to-read list? I'll let the introduction from the Summer 2013 issue, The Conscience, answer that question:


We are Lutheran, that is, we let the Law and the Gospel echo in the full voice with which God speaks it, and we are on the lookout for error because we love to hear the truth, the life-giving voice of Jesus. So we care about their families and their neighbors and the world, both in this life and in the life to come.  We are working to recover the joy and delight of doctrine, of the Gospel.   - Around the World, Volume I, Number 2





Question:  Students and teachers quit learning during summer vacation.
Answer:    False.  We are always learning.

The journal provides solid instruction, is inexpensive, comes in digital or print versions and will help keep you steadfast in God's Word. 

Martin Luther's explanation to the third commandment is another reason why you should add this to your summer reading list:

For let me tell you this, even though you know it perfectly and be already master in all things, still you are daily in the dominion of the devil, who ceases neither day nor night to steal unawares upon you, to kindle in your heart unbelief and wicked thoughts against the foregoing and all the commandments. Therefore you must always have God's Word in your heart, upon your lips, and in your ears.   But where the heart is idle, and the Word does not sound, he breaks in and has done the damage before we are aware. On the other hand, such is the efficacy of the Word, whenever it is seriously contemplated, heard, and used, that it is bound never to be without fruit, but always awakens new understanding, pleasure, and devoutness, and produces a pure heart and pure thoughts. For these words are not inoperative or dead, but creative, living words. LC - 100, 101.