📚TGB Reading Stack

Stacks on stacks on stacks (of books)

This is an entry for The Good Books, where I write about books I’m reading or listening to. Links to books are in fact Bookshop.org affiliate links; I may receive a commission if you make a purchase.

I’m not sure where each of you fall on the spectrum between the extremes of “read one thing at a time” and “read multiple books simultaneously,” but I am firmly in the “read all the things all the time” camp.

So I thought I’d share what books I’m reading & listening to right now, and what I’m looking forward to reading soon.

Books

First - I don’t distinguish between ebooks & paper books. I love the affordances both formats have - printed books help you focus & the physicality of them is satisfying, while ebooks let you highlight, share, and access data in different methods…but that is for some future Shaped by Tools post.

Here’s what I’m reading right now.

Just Finished

I just recently finished How To Have An An Enemy: Righteous Anger and The Work of Peace by Melissa Florer-Bixler. It’s a wonderful book that takes seriously the relationship between anger & injustice and challenges false notions of “unity in Christ” that are used in bad faith. I recommend it for anyone still engaged in Christian community or conversation as well as anyone else who comes from a Christian background.

Last week I also had an opportunity to join Melissa, along with Courtney Napier, on Instagram to talk about a few chapters of the book. It was a really great conversation, go check it out!

I also just finished Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting.¹

This book is a fascinating exploration of the complex moral dimensions foisted on us by rapid social change. It isn’t techno-pessimist like Jaron Lanier or techno-optimist like Kevin Kelly; rather, it assumes that technological acceleration will continue apace, and in order to compensate we should develop explicitly technomoral virtues. The author starts by looking at the contributions of Aristotelian, Confucian, and Buddhist virtue ethics traditions as a starting point for us to build a robust ethical framework that is flexible enough to guide us through more technological leaps.

I highly recommend this book. Just as with How to Have An Enemy, it is the sort of frank ethical wrestling we need.