Library Loot 22.1

It’s been several months since I participated in a Library Loot linkup! Like, since Christmas. With the semester wrapping up, I am excited to have more time for reading and blogging again. So, of course I needed to check out a large stack of library books to kick off the summer! Today I’m going to share about the books I recently checked out as well as the books I used this semester that I’m getting ready to return. Even though they are text books they were interesting enough to mention.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week.

Library Books

Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart by J.D. Greear Nonfiction – Theology

Greear unpacks the doctrine of assurance, showing that salvation is a posture we take to the promise of God in Christ, a posture that begins at a certain point and is maintained for the rest of our lives. He also answers the tough questions about assurance: What exactly is faith? What is repentance? Why are there so many warnings that seem to imply we can lose our salvation?

Such issues are handled with respect to the theological rigors they require, but Greear never loses his pastoral sensitivity or a communication technique that makes this message teachable to a wide audience from teens to adults.

The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas Classic/Historical Fiction

A Roman soldier, Marcellus, wins Christ’s robe as a gambling prize. He then sets forth on a quest to find the truth about the Nazarene’s robe – a quest that reaches to the very roots and heart of Christianity and is set against the vividly limned background of ancient Rome. Here is a timeless story of adventure, faith, and romance, a tale of spiritual longing and ultimate redemption.

Youngbloods (Impostors #4) by Scott Westerfeld YA Dystopian Fiction

Frey has spent her life in a family of deceivers, a stand-in for her sister, manipulated at her father’s command. Free from them at last, she is finding her own voice — and using it to question everything her family stood for.

Tally was once the most famous rebel in the world. But for over a decade, she’s kept to the shadows, allowing her myth to grow even as she receded. Now she sees that the revolution she led has not created a stable world. Freedom, she observes, has a way of destroying things.

As the world is propelled further into conflict and conspiracy, Frey and Tally join forces to put a check on the people in power, while still trying to understand their own power and where it belongs.

You Are Not Your Own by Alan Noble Nonfiction – Theology/Christian Living

“You are your own, and you belong to yourself.” This is the fundamental assumption of modern life. And if we are our own, then it’s up to us to forge our own identities and to make our lives significant. But while that may sound empowering, it turns out to be a crushing responsibility – one that never actually delivers on its promise of a free and fulfilled life, but instead leaves us burned out, depressed, anxious, and alone. This phenomenon is mapped out onto the very structures of our society, and helps explain our society’s underlying disorder. But the Christian gospel offers a strikingly different vision. As the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, “I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.” In You Are Not Your Own, Alan Noble explores how this simple truth reframes the way we understand ourselves, our families, our society, and God. Contrasting these two visions of life, he invites us past the sickness of contemporary life into a better understanding of who we are and to whom we belong. 

The Reason for My Hope by Billy Graham Nonfiction – Theology

The saving message of the Gospel is the heartbeat of this preacher and evangelist. Millions around the world have heard Billy Graham proclaim this unchanging truth. He has never forgotten the transformation of his own life, when he first said yes to God’s gift of salvation, and he has witnessed multitudes turn their hearts to the God of Hope.

The Reason for My Hope: Salvation presents the essence of that transformative message. It is biblical and timeless, and though simple and direct, it is far from easy. There are hard words, prophetic words, directed toward a culture that denies the reality of sin and distracts us from the veracity of Hell. But through its ominous warnings shines a light that cannot be extinguished—a beacon of hope that Jesus came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

100 Little Knitted Projects by Sarah Keen Nonfiction – Crafting

Go from leftover yarn to 100 Little Knitted Projects. It’s everywhere–balled-up remnants of yarn from the sweater you knitted, random scraps left languishing in a cupboard. Now you can recycle these yarn leftovers into 100 fun, fabulous, and frivolous projects to choose from in 100 Little Knitted Projects.

School Books

Visual Literacy for Librarians by Nicole E. Brown

Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management, 4th ed. by Peggy Johnson

Rethinking Collection Development and Management by Becky Albitz

Metaliteracy by Thomas Mackey

TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson

How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler

Not quite as many books as I had checked out at the end of last May, but plenty to keep my occupied while adjusting to summer! I have appreciated every class and often enjoyed studying for this degree, but I am greatly looking forward to this season. More sunlight means that either before or after work there will be time to spend outside, at the piano, or enjoying a book. And I intend to enjoy as much as possible.

Do you have any library materials checked out? If you haven’t visited your library in a while, this is a good time to stop by and see what they are getting ready for the summer.

Until the next chapter,

Jana