A digital commonplace for a Regular Guy called Charlie Pharis

Category: Books (page 3 of 4)

New Reading Goodies…

The lovely and gracious “Mrs. Just Charlie” was on a quest today to find some books for her class at school. So I got to tag along. And while I was tagging along, I also came away with some goodies of my own to add to the reading shelf!

From the local library

From the local Wal-Mart (Books from Wal-Mart?!?!?)…

  • The Appeal by John Grisham. The newest legal thriller from the master of the genre. I’m trying to read more fiction along with everything else these days.

From one of our almost-local Barnes & Noble stores…

Holy Man or Hollow Man?

From Keillor’s The Book of Guys

In America, you don’t have to know what you’re doing in order to do what you’re doing. You become a holy man by learning to act holy. The furrowed brow, the shambling gait, the vacuous modesty, the weird verbless speech, and Abbot Bob has mastered the act beautifully, but one look in his eyes tells you that nobody is home, he is a vacant shrine. (p.11)

Analog Hyperlinks…

You regular readers of this little attempt at a blog – all two of you – will know that I fancy myself an avid reader. I love books! Always have. Right now I’m working through Garrison Keillor’s The Book of Guys, just for fun. I never would have picked up the book except for a couple of mentions in John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart.

What I love about books, about reading, is that there are often analog hyperlinks to other things. Call it serendipity. Call it synchronicity. Call it whatever you want. But there is a world of links outside cyberspace. Go figure…

Reading Help…

OK, here’s the deal…I’m in the mood for a little reading. Some theological reading. Some books that will challenge and stretch me right now. Some books that take more than a couple of days to digest. Some books that are classics in the field. Some books that “every pastor ought to have read.” You get the idea.

What are your recommendations?

A Pretty Good Way to Turn 47…


It’s been a pretty good couple of days – that pesky “another year older” thing notwithstanding! Here’s kind of what’s happened thus far to make the beginning of my 47th year pretty good…

  • Cryptic phone and email messages all week from the best big brother I ever had, culminating today with a long, long list of “Happy Birthday” songs done by every kind of artist you can imagine – and some you can’t, and don’t want to imagine!
  • Spent the day with the lovely and gracious “Mrs. Just Charlie” in Dahlonega, Georgia on Saturday – and then she treated me to a couple of new shirts!
  • Yesterday “The Boy” drove 240+ miles just to surprise me for my birthday! Cool surprise, no doubt! You just can’t beat lunch with the family at LongHorn – love that marinated salmon and steamed veggies! Oh, and then he turned around and drove back to school.
  • Oh, I almost forgot…the very-much-appreciated Starbucks gift card from the world’s best youth pastor and his wife! Thanks, guys!
  • Nifty little one-of-a-kind bookmark from the only real! live! newspaper columnist I know!
  • Facebook birthday wishes from all over! Thanks, gang!
  • Calls from Martha and Howard!
  • See those three books above this post? Yeah, those! Pretty sweet and different additions to the ol’ library, courtesy of some birthday gift cards! Oh, I’ve already started on all three of ’em!
  • A brand-new notebook and new pens…just waiting to be used! Yes!
  • A little plumbing job in the kitchen.
  • A little medical records errand for “The Boy.”
  • FREE! birthday dinner at my favorite little Eye-talian place. ($14, including tip, for both of us to eat – A LOT! Plus, the company of the lovely and gracious “Mrs. Just Charlie,” and the great, great sounds of Ol’ Blue Eyes, Lady Ella, Louis Prima, and the Velvet Fog, just to name a few!)
  • Now, a little Chris Tomlin Radio on Pandora, and a little Sumatra from my French press are making for a perfect unwind to a pretty good day!

Leaders ARE Readers…

Came across this fascinating article in the New York Times about the libraries of CEOs. A couple of quotes that are sticking with me this morning…

Serious leaders who are serious readers build personal libraries dedicated to how to think, not how to compete. Ken Lopez, a bookseller in Hadley, Mass., says it is impossible to put together a serious library on almost any subject for less than several hundred thousand dollars.

Forget finding the business best-seller list in these libraries. “I try to vary my reading diet and ensure that I read more fiction than nonfiction,” Mr. Moritz said. “I rarely read business books, except for Andy Grove’s ‘Swimming Across,’ which has nothing to do with business but describes the emotional foundation of a remarkable man. I re-read from time to time T. E. Lawrence’s ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom,’ an exquisite lyric of derring-do, the navigation of strange places and the imaginative ruses of a peculiar character. It has to be the best book ever written about leading people from atop a camel.”

C.E.O. libraries typically lack a Dewey Decimal or even org-chart order. “My books are organized by topic and interest but in a manner that would make a librarian weep,” Mr. Moritz said. Is there something “Da Vinci Code”-like about mixing books up in an otherwise ordered life?

Could it be possible to read Phil Knight’s books in the order in which Mr. Knight read them — like following a recipe — and gain the mojo to see a future global entertainment company in something as modest as a sneaker? The great gourmand of libraries, the writer Jorge Luis Borges, analyzed the quest for knowledge that causes people to accumulate books: “There must exist a book which is the formula and perfect compendium of all the rest.”

The article refers to Sidney Harman…

Mr. Harman reads books the way writers write books, methodically over time. For two years Mr. Harman would take down from the shelf “The City of God” by E. L. Doctorow read the novel slowly, return it to the shelves, and then take it down again for his next trip. “Almost everything I have read has been useful to me — science, poetry, politics, novels. I have a lifelong interest in epistemology and learning. My books have helped me develop a way of thinking critically in business and in golf — a fabulous metaphor for the most interesting stuff in life. My library is full of things I might go back to.”