30 Books in 30 Days: Day 1

I finished reading "Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship and Life Together" by Mark and Grace Driscoll. I was nearly done with this book anyway, but I had one chapter to read and two chapters to re-read since I had merely skimmed them previously. I liked this book. I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads. It has been challenging for me in a good way to work on being what the Driscolls call a "Servant Lover" rather than a selfish one.

I also learned something really interesting about some birth control methods. Quite a few of the more recent and convenient ones for women don't inhibit fertilization but do stop implantation from happening. The Driscolls likened this to abortion, since a fertilized egg (zygote? embryo?) is knowingly stopped from implanting in the uterus and growing. How sad is that? I bet there are tons of women out there who have no idea about this and are just going off an OB's recommendation. So, look into what your birth control method is really doing!

Obviously this was not the main point of the book, at all. It is one of the main takeaways for me though.

And that not-being-so-selfish thing.

(This book isn't on my List, but I borrowed it from my brother last summer and I really wanted to finish it and get it back to him.)

New Challenge: 30 Books in 30 Days

The title says it all. Read 30 Books in 30 Days. Can it be done? So far, I'm on track. I have so many books that are half-read or almost finished right now that I don't think it will be too hard to complete this goal. (Finishing a book counts... as long as it can be placed in the "read" column, it counts.)

List Update

1. God is the Gospel
2. American Gods
3. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
4. Atlas Shrugged
5. Life of Pi
6. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
7. Confessions from an Honest Wife
8. Telegraph Days
9. The Courage to Start
10. Mirror Mirror
11. The Sirens of Titan
12. Gates of Fire
13. Something Happened
14. A Thousand Acres
15. Good Faith
16. Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel
17. No Need for Speed
18. Anna Karenina
19. Get Out of That Pit
20. Jesus, the one and only
21. The Bluest Eye
22. Prodigal Summer
23. The Know-It-All
24. The Witches
25. Fantastic Mr. Fox
26. The Myth of a Christian Nation
27. For Whom the Bell Tolls
28. Out of the Silent Planet
29. The Four Loves
30. The Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde
31. Unspoken
32. Unafraid
33. Finding Stefanie
34. Lies My Teacher Told Me
35. The Executioner's Song
36. Love Beyond Reason
37. Middlesex
38. The Shack
39. The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier and Clay
40. The Joy Luck Club
41. Hinds' Feet on High Places (re-read)
42. Mountains of Spices
43. A Walk in the Woods
44. Fast Food Nation
45. The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing
46. The Maltese Falcon
47. How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
48. The Poisonwood Bible (re-read)
49. Two Rivers
50. It's Not News, It's Fark
51. The Road
52. Persuasion (re-read)
53. The Silver Chair (re-read)
54. Lucky Man
55. Matilda
56. The Adventures of Augie March
57. Possession
58. Everything's Eventual
59. Written By Herself
60. Perelandra
61. That Hideous Strength
62. Memoirs of a Geisha
63. The Time Machine
64. Peculiar Treasures (re-read)
65. On a Whim (re-read)
66. Coming Attractions
67. Last Light
68. Night Light
69. True Light
70. Your Money or Your Life
71. The Perfect Thing
72. Moneyball
73. The Fifth Book of Peace
74. Early Bird
75. An Anthropologist on Mars
76. Exclusion & Embrace
77. A Short History of Nearly Everything
78. Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs
79. Predictably Irrational
80. Finding Battlestar Gallactica
81. Hopes and Impediments
82. The Love Dare
83. Redeeming Love
84. Sappho's Leap
85. High Fidelity
86. Pilgrim's Progress
87. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (re-read)
88. The Pillars of the Earth
89. The Confessions of Nat Turner
90. A Christmas Carol
91. Gulliver's Travels and Other Writings
92. The 158-Pound Marriage
93. The Winged Seed
94. Driving Mr. Albert
95. Notes to Myself (re-read)
96. The Emotions
97. Mel Gibson's Passion and Philosophy
98. How to Win Every Argument
99. The World As I See It
100. Twelve Steps for the Recovering Pharisee

44 Read, 56 Unread (or not yet Re-read)