Mid-year Spiritual Development Book Review

Have you heard of the mid-year book freak out tag? It's a set of questions to help you review what you have already read in the first six months of the year and to plan the next six months.  It's usually done for ALL reading (and I did that on my Creativity blog), but I thought it could be interesting to do for my spiritual development/leadership reading on this blog.

• Best book you've read so far - This is difficult, because I've read some good books this year so far.  Let's go with The Gospel of John by Amy-Jill Levine.
• New release you haven't read this year but want to - I don't know of anything yet, but will keep my eyes open
• Most anticipated release for the second half of the year - I've already pre-ordered Genesis: A Beginner's Guide to the Beginning by Amy-Jill Levine.  It's coming August 4
• Biggest disappointment - Two of the books I read this year have been disappointing.  I was not as engaged in Invest in Transformation by Tod Bolinger as I was in his other books.  I had to soft DNF Sacraments and Discipleship by Mark Stamm; I did go back and finish it, but it was disappointing.
• Biggest surprise - I was really impressed by Rachel Billups' book, An Unlikely Lent: Extraordinary People of the Easter Story.  I'm not sure why I found that surprising, but I did.
• Favorite new author - One of my favorite books this year was Between a Rock and a Holy Place by Rev. Tom Nolan. It is a series of sermons - just excellent.  I supposed we can also add Rachel Billups to this list - I would read another of her books if the opportunity arose.
• Books you want to read by the end of the year - Right now I'm reading The Hope of Glory: Reflections on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross by Jon Meacham. I hope to finish that in July.  In August, I'll work on reading the Amy-Jill Levine Genesis book.  Other than those two, I'm sure I'll pick something up during Advent to read. I purchased A Child is Born: A Beginner's Guide of Nativity Stories by Amy-Jill Levine but didn't find the time to read it. I think I'll add that to my Advent TBR.

My goal for 2026 was to read at least four Spiritual Development books.  I read five in the first half of the year, so maybe I can get to eight by the end of the year?

This link is to my online "Spiritual Development books" library - a list of the books I've read and reviewed (mainly) on the blog. I don't update it very often (although I do update it), so it might be behind.