"Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life."

My favourite recent read plus all the books I finished lately and Kindle deals for you

Hi friends,

As I write to you, I’m in the Minneapolis airport. I’ve just bade goodbye to some good friends who graciously met me for an hours long nonstop chat over pastries and tea, just before I had to head to the airport for this late flight. I really love Minneapolis, it’s such a quietly wonderful city. Good food, good people, gorgeous green spaces, lovely neighbourhoods. I think you Minnesotans must talk about the winter as a strategy to dissuade all of America from moving there? Who knows. I do not find it that cold (said the Canadian, who is rarely the best gauge for anyone’s temperature).

But why am I in Minneapolis, you may ask? Well, let’s just say it has to do with Evolving Faith’s upcoming 2023 gathering but I can’t say much more than that just yet….

But! But I can tell you that me and our executive director Ashleigh Nelson were very busy planning, plotting, scheming, and dreaming for the 2023 Evolving Faith year. Oh, we are cooking up some fun stuff ….. incredible speakers including Danté Stewart, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Dr. Wil Gafney, and Krista Tippett are all already confirmed, we’re embracing a simpler format, spiritual formation opportunities, lots of community connection all year round, AND the return of an in person component!

(But don’t worry: the online conference and community will remain the central focus to ensure accessibility for all.) I can’t wait to share it all soon: watch this space in a couple of weeks as announcements begin.

If you are interested in joining us at Evolving Faith this year, I’ll also give you a little head’s up that the folks who are already 2023 online digital access conference ticket holders will be hearing any news first and getting first dibs on any in-person stuff so if you want to get early access, grab that digital access pass now here (you’ll need to be a member of the free online community, if you aren’t already, since that’s where the conference is live-streamed). After that early-access, we’ll share those tickets with the Evolving Faith Online Community before it goes to the general public, so if you’re not already a member there, just make sure you’re signed up.

Okay! I can tell I’m excited. Without meaning to, I just finished three paragraphs about this LOL.

The real purpose of today’s Field Notes is to talk about one of our favourite subjects…books! For the newer subscribers, every 6 weeks or so, I share what I’ve been reading lately, a recent favourite from that stack, and even comb through Amazon¹ Kindle deals to find a few reads worth your time.

Me, at the library

So let’s open up that library online catalogue so we can request all the books to our heart’s content, shall we?

I had a really hard time choosing my favourite recent read as at least EIGHT of the books I read since we last did this qualify, but here we go…