7 good reads for your winter lockdown
[books Hello, I’m reviewing 7 books which I read in the last few months. Hope you find one for your hygge read this winter.
1. A Life for Christ: What the Normal Christian Life Should Look Like
Author: D.L. Moody
- My second book from this author. A medium sized book.
- A collection of things that every christian ought to have is put down in this book.
- D.L. Moody tells numerous stories of encounters in his life which rejuvenates any distressed soul.
- The english is simple and the pages turn very quickly.
- I recommend this for a lazy vacation read.
Favourite quote:
When queen victoria wants men to volunteer for her army in India you freely give your sons. You don’t talk about them getting sick or about the demanding climate. But when the Lord Jesus calls for laborers, Scotland is saying, ‘We have no more sons to give’
– John Knox delivering a speech in Scotland (quoted in the book)
2. World War 1: A History From Beginning to End
Author: Henry Freeman
- Free book for kindle users. A short book.
- The book starts with a brief summary of the events that led to the first world war. It then moves on the detailed explanation on the battles that happened during the 4 years and 3 months.
- I found the book to be a information overload and not well structured. But so was the war.
- I watched this video below from oversimplified to get a quick summary of the war and that really helped in my reading.
Favourite quote:
Didn’t have one.
3. Blink
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
- A #1 bestseller. A long book.
- To put it simply, the book explains why the human brain makes a decision in 1 or 2 seconds on any matter and how it arrives on the decision in just the 2 seconds.
- Now if you’re saying that’s not possible you should read the book.
- Lots of real life incidents where people made blink decisions are discussed. The author also does a post mortem of each decisions and it’s consequences.
- Page turner. Lots of insight.
Favourite Quote:
We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We’re a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don’t really have an explanation for.
4. To Kill a Mockingbird
Author: Harper Lee
- A pulitzer prize winner. Medium sized book.
- A ten year old girl, Jean Finch tells us the events happening in her small town in the 1930s southern United States.
- It’s about racism, law and order, families and growing up in the countryside.
- I would rather not spoil the suspense and leave it to the reader. I have to commend Miss Harper Lee for her great sense of humour.
- A must read classic.
Favourite Quote:
Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.
5. To Be A Man
Author: Robert Augustus Masters PhD
- A very long book.
- Everything a man deals and needs in his life is explained carefully.
- It starts with exploring shame and makes the reader understand how certain events that took place in a boy’s life in his early years can define what kind of a man he turns out to be.
- The book is an eye-opener for me to understand why I have certain personality traits (mostly bad ones) which traces it’s root back to events that took place when I was a child.
- Topics dealt in the book include anger, pain, shame, sex, love, relationships, pride, gay, rape, and not to forget penises and breasts.
- I recommended every man to read this book once.
Favourite Quotes:
God gave man a penis and a brain, but only enough blood to run at a time
Shame is probably our most hidden and misunderstood emotion. It’s also the one most likely to motivate men to stay away from the help they need- and need to admit they need. Performance anxiety is driven by shame, so is the desire to overachieve; so is the pressure to man up. Shame is behind the scenes much more often than you think.
6. Humility
Author: Andrew Murray
- A short book
- Before i purchased, I went through the reviews for this book and it was all hoo-hah. Now that I finished the book I understood why. It’s just simply worth it. The book is worth its weight in Gold.
- They say big things come in small packages and this book is a testimony for that.
- The author simply breaks down what humility means to a Christian and why humility and faith are tied together. I understood that without humility, it is difficult to retain faith in God.
- He is good in breaking down complex parts into simple explanations and denounces all the fake associations the current generations had tied to humility.
- Just read it.
Favourite Quotes:
It is not something that we bring to God, or that He bestows; it is simply the sense of entire nothingness that comes when we see how truly God is everything.
7. The Little Prince
Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- A very short book. Can be read within an hour.
- A simple philosophical fantasy story.
- A little alien drops into earth in the middle of a desert and finds the earth and its contents including humans strange.
- In his planet, things are way simple and easy but emotions are still the same. It’s a book which I smiled with every page turn. Oh how we have made the earth so complicated.
- Fun read
Favourite Quotes:
“It is the time you have spent with your rose that makes your rose so important”