My Summer 2022 Reading List!
I enjoy reading widely, interdisciplinarily, or across the disciplines. People read for different reasons and reading coincides with the reader’s interest and disposition. My reasons for reading also vary. I read because I am intellectually curious and take pleasure in reading. As an intellectual adventure, I read to learn so I can teach others and write with authority and rhetorical clarity and precision. Along this line of thought, I read to explore different worlds; to be exposed to different epistemologies and worldviews; to learn different perspectives about human ideas and actions; and to understand and know how people live, think, and interact with each other in the world. Reading allows me to travel intellectually and mentally to various places or locations where my body cannot go or where I cannot reach physically. Reading teaches me (and even forces me) how to have a disciplined life and to organize the life of the mind.
Usually, my book selection is from the Humanities (i.e., history, literature, religion, theology, anthropology). For summer 2022, I would like to improve my knowledge and understanding of the field of the natural sciences, which is divided into two distinct branches: life science and physical science, including biology, astronomy, chemistry, earth sciences, and physics. It is my pleasure to share with you my summer 2022 reading list; it includes eleven books this year: two books on human biology and chemistry; three books on physics and astronomy; one book on gender and religion (i.e., Biblical and Theological Studies); two books on literature/fiction (i.e., novels); one book on the history of the Bible in the United States; one book on (Evangelical) Christianity and the American culture; and one book on the relationship between Christianity and African-based religions in the Diaspora (i.e. the Caribbean Region).
- “Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries” by Neil deGrasse Tyson
- “The Body: A Guide for Occupants” by Bill Bryson
- “The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred” by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
- “Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe” by Robert Lanza with Bob Berman
- “The World According to Physics” by Jim Al-Khalili
- “Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth: A Novel” by Wole Soyinka
- “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois” by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
- “The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth” by Beth Allison Barr
- “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation” by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
- “Les religions afro-caribéennes à la lumière de la foi chrétienne : Similitudes et différences ” by Dieumeme Noelliste and Mirlenda Noelliste
- “America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911” by Mark A. Noll
I usually begin my summer reading in the first week of May. Suppose I do not complete my reading list in the summer season, I would attempt to finish reading the books in the fall semester.
I want to close this post with a question: Have you created your summer reading list yet?
*** Next week, I will share my recommended reading list for young people so they can enjoy some good books during this summer. Let us travel the world together through books and reading!
drcelucienjoseph, "Thinking and Meditating" 