My aim in this series was to talk about
books, reading, and my own reading habits, but also to have some
application to the reading habits of others. When I read other blogs
of women around my age who discuss books from time to time, it seems
the top three book categories mentioned are fiction, Christian lit,
and “lifestyle” (although probably more family-oriented since I'm
old most people my age seem to have kids.) Hence, I
included today's category, even though I don't read these books very
often, or at least I don't finish them often. (Hmmm, there seems to
be a theme here...)
Nevertheless, I see the value in
reading these kinds of books. Marriage is hard sometimes, and unless
you have really solid, honest friendships and mentors you interact
with regularly, it's difficult to get input and advice that will
strengthen your marriage (rather than just give you an outlet to
complain). On the other hand, reading only this
kind of literature can give you a kind of “information overload”,
where you may feel stressed about which advice to follow or so full
of new information that you can't take it in. Of course, as with
yesterday's category, Christians should carefully examine marriage
(or other lifestyle books) in light of the Bible.
I have a few marriage-related books that I've always intended to read, but honestly the only one that I actually finished was obligatory reading for our pre-marital counseling sessions. I started Love and Respect, but only got a third of the way through, and have high hopes of reading Sacred Marriage and The Five Love Languages one of these days. I think my downfall is that I want to really engage with these books by journalling while reading, but that makes the process fairly slow so it doesn't get done at all.
Whenever we start our family, reading
parenting books will probably come a bit more naturally, since there
are so many decisions and habits to put in place with little ones and
neither Gil, nor I have much experience. Until then, I'd love your
input: Do you read books on marriage, dating, family-raising, etc.?
Which marriage books are the most helpful or insightful? What should we plan on reading when we have children?
When I was single, I read tons of books on singleness, relationships and marriage! Loads and loads and loads of them. I found them amazingly helpful. Yes, no 2 people are the same as the next 2 people, but there were themes that I picked up on and those really have affected my marriage positively.
ReplyDeleteMy favorites are: Love & Respect, Creative Counterpart, Set Apart Femininity, Serious About Getting Married: Rethinking the Gift of Singleness, Every Woman's Marriage.
Now that I'm a parent (although a really new one), I really like Grace Based Parenting, anything by Dr. Dobson, anything by John Rosemond, Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, Never Mind the Joneses.
Thanks for the recommendation. I will definitely check out Every Woman's Marriage and some of the others.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, I think I read more of these kinds of books when I was single. I remember enjoying Passion and Purity as well as some others on dating. Maybe that's because my roommate at the time had a lot of great resources!
I think now, after several years of being married, I would recommend totally different books than when I first was wed. I realize these posts are a bit older, so I'm hoping later posts give your thoughts once you read some of these books :)
ReplyDeleteDefinitely! I would love some newer recommendations. I finally did read Sacred Marriage this year and enjoyed it.
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