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Nan and Pop are pleased to announce the arrival of Claudia Ruth.

Congratulations to Emma and Ben and the rest of the team.

Thank you Lord!

Total pages read for October was 1,295.

I finished Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Thankfully I don’t feel the need to ever read it again!

I started and finished H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines and Franklin Dixon’s Hardy Boys Great Airport Mystery. Interestingly Haggard wrote KSM seeking to write something as enjoyable as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. He pulled it off.

I started reading George MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermon’s but stopped after about 30 pages. I may come back to it some day.

Total pages read for September was a slight improvement on August’s 329 at 376.

I read Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilyich and Three Deaths in one small volume.

Continuing with the Russian authorsip, I contemplated starting either War and Peace or Anna Karenina but instead opted for Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Total pages read for August was a somewhat paltry 329.

I finished Nabeel Quereshi’s Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.

And that’s about it! I didn’t start anything new.

Total pages read for July 2026 was 849.

I finished Neil Anderson’s Rough Road to Freedom.

I started and finished Anderson’s Victory Over the Darkness which is concerned primarily with knowing who a believer is in Christ; and Walking in the Light about divine guidance, recognising truth and avoiding false teaching. I also read Bob Yandian’s The Grace of Healing.

I started reading Nabeel Quereshi’s Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.

Total pages read for June 2026 was 465.

I finished Sid Eavis’ A Healing Ministry.

I started and finished Edgar Harrell’s Out of the Depths - a somewhat harrowing account of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis during WWII and the survival after 4 or 5 nights at sea of a small number of sailors. I also read Greenhill’s Stop Loving the World which is part of the Puritan Treasures for Today series.

Total pages read for May 2026 was 511.

I finished rereading Dan Stone’s The Rest of the Gospel.

I started and finished rereading Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction which is a book about discipleship based on the Psalm Songs of Ascent (120 through 134), and Norman Grubb’s The Key to Everything

I read the first chapter-or-so of Townsend and Cloud’s How People Grow. It wasn’t really where I’m at, but I may come back to it someday.

Total pages read for April 2026 was 494.

I finished Hari’s Stolen Focus. I found some of his theses helpful, but others were more of a stretch. The book could have been half the length to good effect.

I started and finished rereading Jim Glennon’s Your Healing is Within You. I read the introductory chapters to Introducing the New Testament by Achtemeier, Green and Thompson. I stopped when I got to Matthew because I didn’t see much value in reading further about a New Testament book when I wasn’t reading those Bible books. It may be helpful to read selective chapters to accompany reading the books of the Bible.

Total pages read for March 2026 was 1,050.

Firstly, I finished Simon Singh’s The Code Book.

I started and finished rereading James Sire’s How to Read Slowly. I first read it around 30 years ago. I also read Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. I enjoyed this book and have implemented a range of measures to reduce screen distraction. I also reread C S Lewis’ The Weight of Glory. When I first read Weight of Glory in 2017 I was looking for connections between the essays/talks - but there aren’t any. Their only common feature was that most were delivered against the backdrop of WWII. Some are excellent, others have perhaps lost their relevance¹.

Total pages read for February 2026 was 1,002.

Firstly, I finished Tony Abbott’s Australia which I commenced in January. Some parts were quite interesting - the early days of the colony, the gold rush, our involvement in WWI and WWII and events that I could recall. Parts that weren’t so interesting were the politics of the 1920s and 1930s.

I started and finished Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club. It was a very slow, tedious start but did improve.