I have been reading Is Your Lord Large Enough?  How C. S. Lewis Expands Our View of God by Peter J. Schakel. I recommend this book by my former professor very highly.  There are many topics covered including prayer, love, God’s grace, and there is much discussion on how they relate to C. S. Lewis’s books, which include The Chronicles of Narnia.  I read that Dr. Schakel passed away a few months ago, and I am sure he will be greatly missed as an excellent scholar of Lewis’s writings. His other book The Way Into Narnia, is also a very well written exploration of the Narnia stories. I highly recommend both of the books for thoughtful reading. 🙂

Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

I've read a book called Titus: Comrade of the Cross. It is about the thief on the cross. It's really moving.

Oh, I think I read that one in high school. 

Nonfiction I'm still reading The Case for Christian Nationalism and the Stonewall Jackson biography, I'm about a third of the way through both books. I've been pretty busy lately and hadn't been making much progress on either book, but I've read a fair chunk of each the past week.

Fiction I am bouncing back and forth between rereads and new books. I reread Homer Price, then a western, next was The Shepherd of the Hills. and currently another western. The westerns have just been okay, but I really enjoyed reading both Homer Price and The Shepherd of the Hills again. I'm thinking about reading The Mark of Zorro or Where Eagles Dare next.

SnowAngel

I wondered how bookstores are doing in the locations where people live.  In the next town from where I live there are at least four bookstores and at least one or two that are not far away. I am assuming that they are doing well.  There was even a Christian bookstore which opened in the next town about three years ago. I was kind of surprised that it opened when there was one that closed about fifteen years ago because of a recession.  I thought the new store was quite nice, and I hope they will stay for a long time.  There is another store that survived a couple of recessions which closed stores in nearby malls.  It has been around since 1967, which shows that people like to shop at small businesses in towns of about 30,000 residents. 

@narnian78 honestly I don't think we have a good bookstore population in my city. Both our Christian stores have shut down (we had one chain and one independent one when I was a kid), we have a big chain outlet for secular, and a little used book place, but no independent stores secular or otherwise that aren't used.

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As for what I've been reading lately...

I read a couple of the Castle in the Stars graphic novels by Alex Alice. The art is very pretty, and it's kind of an interesting alternate history timeline.

I just finished The Nightsilver Promise by Annaliese Avery, which is a middle-grade fantasy novel. I'm still parsing what I think of it philosophically but it has an interesting imagined cultural atmosphere and made me sufficiently interested in the characters I suspect I will seek out the sequel.

And on the picture book front I read and enjoyed

Listen: How Evelyn Glennie, A Deaf Girl, Changed Percussion by Shannon Stocker and Devon Holzwarth

and

Knight Owl by Christopher Denise.

@silverlily 

It’s rather sad that you don’t have a really good bookstore near you.  There were two Christian bookstores before the recession of 2008 which shut down, but I’m glad that we have another one to take their place. I am also glad that Barnes & Noble is still in our area, and even though it is not a religious bookstore it has a large selection of excellent books.  I think we are fortunate to have a good choice of stores. 

We've got a major chain bookshop (Waterstones) in the centre of my town, and a couple of other chains that sell books as well as stationery etc. No independent bookshops locally, but I've found quite a lot of good ones in other towns that I've visited, in various parts of the UK, and I do try to buy from them when I can. There are also plenty of second hand bookshops around, including ones run by charities. I just donated a big bagful of books to one of those earlier today!

Christian bookshops aren't a big thing in the UK (or Australia for that matter), other than ones run by specific denominations — independent ones aren't very common. English cathedrals nearly always have lovely gift shops on site, though, and they generally have Christian books. There used to be an excellent independent / general Christian bookshop in a deconsecrated medieval church in Norwich, which I loved visiting, but I haven't been out that way for some years now and I don't know if it's still open.