EDMOND—Want to establish a positive habit of reading every night? Want to add books to your personal library, but don’t know where to start? Want to know a few titles that will improve your education? Just want some good reading ideas?
Herbert W. Armstrong wrote, “Education comes from study—from books—from lectures— from contacts—from travel—from thinking about what you see and hear and read—and from experience.” Pastor General Gerald Flurry, Evangelist Stephen Flurry and other ministers have emphasized the importance of God’s people to read and educate themselves in preparation for becoming teachers. The pastor general has said, “leaders are readers.”
Herbert W. Armstrong College student Seth Malone brought out in a speech that if you read for just 30 minutes per day, you will add dozens of books to your education every year. Reading at 250 words per minute, you will read 27 books averaging 100,000 words each (the length of To Kill a Mockingbird). That’s the equivalent of War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, Moby Dick, A Tale of Two Cities, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography of Herbert W. Armstrong and the complete works of William Shakespeare—all in one year. Or you could read the entire Bible three and a half times.
One great way to get started is to join the book club on theTrumpet.com. The club’s current book is, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years. Looking for something else that might interest you more? Below are links to books the pastor general has recommended over the years.
Non-fiction
- Allan Bloom, Closing of the American Mind
- Thad Carhart, Piano Shop on the Left Bank
- Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
- Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
- George Friedman, The Intelligence Edge
- William Manchester, The Last Lion
- Charlton Ogburn, The Mysterious William Shakespeare
Fiction
- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
- Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain
- Herman Melville, Moby Dick
- George Orwell, Animal Farm
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
- William Shakespeare, Henry V
Have a title you love? Let us know about it at news@pcog.org. And learn more about Joseph Conrad and these other authors, and their works with Dennis Leap at Just the Best Literature.