Reading

A Summer of Reading Dangerously

By Steve Laubeon June 29, 2026

Be careful what you read. It may change your life!

Franz Kafka wrote that books can “wound and stab us … wake us up with a blow on the head … affect us like a disaster … grieve us deeply.”

As we slide further into Summer, think about the books you plan to read the rest of this year.

What is on your to-read list? Is there a book with which you know you will disagree? Is there one that could rattle your cage a bit more than usual? Could we spend this year reading dangerously?

Tell us your book plans below. It will be “fun” to see what you come up with.

We readers like recommendations!

How to Read More in Less Time

By Steve Laubeon June 22, 2026

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I have the privilege of reading for a living. Someone once asked, “What do you do for a living?” I replied, “I read.” Then they asked what I did for fun. And I replied with a huge smile, “I read.” But not all reading is alike. There is immersive reading of a technical nature. There is escapist reading of a great thriller. And there is cursory reading where you …

Category: Book Business, Book Review, Reading, TrendsTag: Reading

What Did You Read This Summer?

By Steve Laubeon September 9, 2024

In 1957 H. L. Mencken coined a new word to describe a group of people that he called the bibliobibuli, which means “people who read too much.” (From the Greek “biblio,” meaning books, and the Latin “bibulous,” from “bibere,” to drink.) But how much is too much? And who decides that? I happen to believe that there is always room for more. I was once …

Category: Book Review, ReadingTag: Book Review, Reading

21 Influential Books

By Steve Laubeon July 18, 2022

There is a shelf in our living room where I have placed the books that had the most influence on my spiritual growth. I call them my “Punctuation Marks” because in a metaphoric way some books were a comma, some an exclamation point, and some a period or full stop. The beauty of having them all in one place is the visual reminder of those moments when God reached out through the pages of creative …

Category: Personal, Reading, TheologyTag: Books, Reading

What Do You Read to Stay Informed?

By Steve Laubeon June 20, 2022

I am occasionally asked to list the magazines, newsletters, and blogs I read to stay informed about our industry. It is a good question. But when I started compiling the list, I realized how ridiculously long it is. Therefore, I can only list selected highlights by type of media. Lest you get the wrong impression, realize I’m an eclectic reader who skims the surface of the waters gleaning …

Category: Book Business, Reading, TrendsTag: Informed, Reading

Today Is a Good Day to (re)Read

By Steve Laubeon March 28, 2022

by Steve Laube

What was the favorite book you read, cover to cover, in the last year or so? Why is it your favorite? (It can be fiction or non-fiction. Faith-based or not.) Feel free to tell us in the comments about yours.

Read it Again

Now that you’ve identified the book. Read it again. As Vladimir Nabakov wrote:

“Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A …

Category: Art, Craft, Reading, Writing CraftTag: Reading, Writing Craft

How Are You Reading?

By Steve Laubeon April 27, 2020

by Steve Laube

I collect books. I graze through them like I'm at an all-you-can-eat buffet. I sample this tidbit and that. Eventually I get enough to eat or have found the right morsel to consume until it is finished.

It helps make me an eclectic sort. But there are days, even weeks, where I must discipline myself to become immersed in extraordinary writing. It is there where the soul …

Category: Reading, TheologyTag: Reading, Theology

In Praise of Memorable Sentences

By Bob Hostetleron June 27, 2018

In her book, The Writing Life, Annie Dillard tells the story of a well-known writer who was collared by a university student, who asked, “Do you think I could be a writer?” “Well,” the writer said, “I don’t know…. Do you like sentences?” Dillard continues: The writer could see the student’s amazement. Sentences? Do I like sentences? I am twenty years old and do I like sentences? If he had liked …

Category: Language, Reading, The Writing Life, Writing CraftTag: Language, Reading, Writing Craft

Test Your Writing Out Loud

By Dan Balowon June 26, 2018

Once you write something, try reading it out loud. It might change the way you write. I worked with audiobooks for a number of years and few things were more interesting than how something sounded when read aloud by the audiobook performer, whether it was the author or a professional voice talent. There were times, when an author read their own material for the recording, they actually stopped …

Category: Craft, Writing CraftTag: audio, Reading, Writing Craft

Fakespot

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon June 7, 2018

As a reader, I enjoy perusing book reviews. I usually start my assessment of a book by reading one-star reviews to see the worst the reviewers think. One-star reviews will tell me the book’s pitfalls and problems, and are less predictable than glowing reviews. I do read across the star rankings, though. The best reviewers across all the rankings provide lots of good information. I cringe when …

Category: Reading, ReviewsTag: Book reviews, Reading