The Story of Books

I just migrated my book lists from my own personal site over to Lights Like Us.

Yeah, cool, Ryan what’s the point?

Well, for one, there’s lots of great books sorted by category (and chronologically) that you should read and we should talk about! Starting with this one. I’m telling you if you have a family member who is always harping on you to go to church or be more Christian or whatever the language, dare them to read this book and to have a conversation about it. And please tell me what happens.

BUT, also…

Migrating the list meant I had to look at every book - because Squarespace doesn’t have an easy way to migrate from one site to another. I’m not a great journalizer but I have been keeping pretty good records of the books I’ve read over the years and the ones I thought/think were good, impactful books. It was really weird to go through the philosophy books specifically. It was as though I could see my whole progression from a pretty average evangelical to whatever the hell I am now - maybe a Deist (because of the latest book I’ve read).

Looking through the covers brought all kinds of memories back - sitting on beaches, in living rooms, on airplanes, I could see certain pages and remember the “wow” moments from almost every book. The evolution of Ryan was scrolling right in front of me.

Then I had another thought. Seeing all the books I read, how could I ever have stayed where I was? I don’t think it’s possible. Could anyone? Is there anyone who has read all those books and how much like me are they? But what if I had started with some different books and let those lead me down a different path? Would I be where I am today?

So, what if that first book - Soul Survivor - had never happened? What if after finishing that one I hadn’t looked for similar authors? And been able to find them? What if Yancey had never written it?

Then I started to think about the authors represented on that page - many wrote hundreds of years ago and some wrote last year. Many are long gone and some are just starting. Will they ever know their impact from just writing down some thoughts?

And then I realized that there was one for each stage of my journey. They don’t all agree and yet they all led me to where I am today. Do any of them think what they used to think? What books did they read? How much do we need someone to be at every stage of every journey?

I mean this whole book thing is pretty fascinating - the impact writing has had on humanity is pretty hard to even fathom (which I think is obvious but still sometimes the obvious things blow your mind when you really sit on them).

So if you’re a writer, keep writing! If you’re a reader, keep reading! If you’re a thinker, keep thinking. If you’re a human, do all 3. It’s kinda essential for our species.

And also if you’ve got book recs let me know. Or if you’ve read any of them and loved/hated them, I’d love to hear it.