A Seminarian's Guide to a Summer Reading List
How do I decide what to read!?
The Spring 2025 semester has come to a close. A few days ago, the 2025 grads walked the stage at Calvin University’s Covenant Fine Arts Center (Congrats!), and summer has officially begun for the seminary. Some who have summer courses go back to the grind, but for many, a summer reading list is at the front of mind.
Throughout the semester, we read a lot. There is precious little time between reading, lectures, homework, and life to read for pleasure. So, when summer comes, a summer reading list is necessary. And it is necessary to organize what to read! Some will want to go back to the world of fiction, some may want to read ahead for the fall semester, some will want to read theology that they didn’t get to during the semester, and some will want to take a break from reading!
However, while we may tire from the unending reading assignments our seminary professors dole out, week after week, the summer should not be siesta from the task. Instead, it should be a season where we read what we like, not what is required. The written word is a powerful medium, the medium God chose to use as his primary means of revelation to his people. It is no surprise that reading and books, even in the advent of various digital technologies, have survived and thrived – the written word is essential to us. As we enjoy the first few weeks of summer, read something you want, rather than what you must.
Last week I set out to compile a list for summer reading. I looked at the stacks of books around my study, some recently purchased from my bi-annual pilgrimage to Baker Book House and Reformation Heritage Books in Grand Rapids, and I quickly realized I cannot read as much as I hope. So, I began to sketch out a list.
Perhaps I should start with Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book; that sounds like a good start to a summer reading list. And, if Peterson is so enjoyable, I’ll just slap his pastoral series on the list as well, which adds five more books. Then, a new book I received about communication from Quentin J. Schultze, Communicating with Grace and Virtue, seems like a practical book, and it came with a high recommendation! Sure, now I’m up to seven books, probably pushing the limits, realistically, of what I will read over the summer.
But, Danny Hyde and Bill Boekestein’s book, A Well-Ordered Church, has been taunting me from my shelf for a few years. I should read that too. Let’s add it to the list. Eight books. A stretch, but a realistic one.
I felt a streak of pride with my reading list. Quality books by quality authors on interesting and applicable topics. I shared the list with some classmates to encourage them in their summer reading plans. There was some encouragement, but one classmate chastised me! “Fiction,” he said, “Fiction!”
He was right. I don’t read enough fiction, as evidenced by my reading list. I almost feel that I am not able to read fiction anymore. I have read so much theology and non-fiction that the idea of pulling themes from a narrative is almost out of reach! Thankfully, I stumbled across Alan Noble’s great article on how to read a novel.
The chastisement from my classmate caused me to rethink my summer reading list. In my reflection, I also noticed that I had abandoned the sage advice from C.S. Lewis in his introduction to On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius. He says, after reflecting on the state of theological reading, that “It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.”
Perhaps I ought to order my reading in such a way that I am reading new, old, and fiction throughout my summer. A wide appetite for reading is sure to serve me better! However, I have found summer reading plans to be an unusual experience. After spending so much time on required reading for coursework, I am excited to read for pleasure, but I continually start new books and never complete them.
I look forward to a summer of reading for pleasure, fiction and non-fiction alike. I just pray I have the discipline to read books to the end, drink deeply, and not get distracted by what else might be contained within another tome. Enough blogging for now, time to pick back up Eat this Book, or The Name of the Wind, or something new and not on the list. Ahh!
This was written for and originally posted at Kerux, the student blog at Calvin Theological Seminary