Christian Shelves

One of the thoughts that has been on my mind for several months now has been on the worldviews communicated in books when God is absent, namely in clean or closed door books that do not contain Christian content. Expanding on my earlier essay regarding clean versus Christian fiction books , I've taken a backseat in observing some of the shifts in Christian books since I first wrote my piece nearly a year ago. I haven't said too much since that time as I know it's not a very popular opinion, but I have seen some interesting trends in 2024, including: More and more Christian bookstagrammers share that they read any manner of Christian and clean books, with their accounts reflecting such activity. Not as many Christians take the time to differentiate between the two types of genres (clean versus Christian) when they're promoting books, making it challenging to know what type of content to expect. Christian publishers are now publishing books that are clean and written by C...

After juggling a very full month of family commitments, added work commitments, and other good things filling my time such as relationships, church, and volunteering, I am taking a brief break from posting reviews. Not to fear; I do have some coming soon! However, I need a little bit of a breather as it's been simultaneously discouraging to see some of the changes on Instagram  that are making it rather challenging for those creating content and also tiring to keep up with getting reviews out in a timely manner. I still think that three a week has been fairly manageable this past year, but with some personal transitions taking place, I need to catch up first 😅 Additionally, I've received a number of new ARCs in the past few weeks, bringing me back to double-digit numbers of titles to review. I want to make time for these and enjoy the stories without rushing through them. I'm extremely excited about a number of titles that will be releasing soon! If you're looking for ...

Happy Easter! Happy Resurrection Sunday! Christ is risen! What joy and delight we can have as believers, knowing that our Lord and Saviour has conquered death and made a way for us to have eternal life through His grace and boundless love. May you and your loved ones have a blessed Easter as we celebrate our risen Lord today ✝️ The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.” - Matthew 28:5-7 

I'm not sure why this thought came into my mind during church, but it's something I've been wondering about since then. Specifically, I've been trying to recall when I last saw characters in Christian fiction being described as godly, notably for the heroine. While I understand that godliness may be implied or that I may have even unknowingly glossed over this word while reading, I was thinking about what it means to have a main character who is more known for their godliness than for their beauty or intelligence. That's not to say that any of these attributes are mutually exclusive, but I'm questioning whether the appearance of godliness might be more elusive than I realize (or on the flip side, am I completely missing this when it is prevalent?). I recognize that there is usually a tension between making a character both relatable and yet aspirational. If a character is too aspirational, then I can see readers having a hard time connecting with them as the ch...

I'm not a huge proponent of personality tests or assessments, although I've had to undergo plenty of them for school and in the workplace. They can be limiting at best, and don't always account for changes in people's lives. A few of them even have dubious origins, which is why I've steered clear of them.  However, in a few of the ministries I've served with, I've been asked to take the Sacred Pathways inventory (also known as spiritual pathways on other websites) from Gary Thomas to determine how I best connect with God. I'm not necessarily advocating this book as I don't typically subscribe to this type of thinking, but I find it interesting that when I take a look at the options provided, I can easily see which one I gravitate toward without having to go through a questionnaire. The nine pathways that Thomas explores include: Nature Enthusiastic Worship Learning Tradition Asceticism Sensation Caregiving Social Justice Quiet Prayer While I'm f...

It seems that I opened up a can of worms with a story I shared yesterday regarding how I felt inundated by stories and posts featuring LDS authors on Christian Bookstagram. Since it's difficult to share on stories (IG has been quite glitchy for me recently), I'll share more here for context. Please don't read this if the topic isn't of interest to you or if you don't care too much about the theological background of the authors you're reading; that's absolutely fine with me if you don't read on 😀 Let me start off by saying that it's hard to convey things in a one-page story. I prayed that I would choose the words that would matter to summarize my thoughts, while acknowledging that they are imperfect and incomplete. If you met me in real life, you'd know that I'm fairly unassuming, very soft-spoken, and reticent to stir up controversy. I can see why people feel a little bit more bold online. That being said, I wrote this with a heart of conce...

I've always considered myself a pretty boring Christian and now that I'm online again, I can confirm that I am still very boring. By boring, I mean that I've typically been hesitant or suspicious about trends in general, even before I came to know the Lord. That's not to say that this is always a good thing, but in looking back over my life, I'm beyond grateful that God used my cautious nature to alert me to the notion that just because something is popular, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily good or right. As a result, I'm rarely the type to get on bandwagons. Where I think this suspicion has played out most has been in my Christian entertainment choices, funny enough. As I seldom consume secular entertainment, I suppose I'm already untrendy there. It's also not the focus of what I'll be writing about here as it doesn't play much of a part in my life. In thinking back to when I was a young Christian, I remember being excited about any...

This is a theme that isn't new if you've been following some of my musings over the past several months. You could even say this is the natural progression of taking this line of thinking to its conclusion. In evaluating which books to read, the refrain of Christian vs. clean has become so ingrained in my thinking that it's practically been on repeat for me. To be honest, I've never really held a view on Christian vs. clean books until the end of last year. Most of my reading since becoming a Christian has been all over the place, where I believed that acquiring knowledge, almost any knowledge, was worth it for the sake of becoming more learned. Being a voracious reader meant that I would consume most anything—especially if it was free as I didn't have a lot of books growing up (my parents preferred to take me to the library on a weekly basis as I would have cost them too much in books 😂). However, God has definitely been impressing upon me the conviction that I ca...

In looking back at 2023, I was initially going to pick my favourite books that I got to read this year. I actually had this all ready to share before I realized that something else was weighing heavier on my heart. During my brief time as a book reviewer and Bookstagrammer this year, I've been feeling both grateful and humbled by what's involved in promoting Christian books. As a result, I thought I'd share a few things I've learnt since starting this journey up earlier this summer. There are more books published than I'll ever be able to read.  This is so true, considering how many titles are released each week, and how many authors are emerging that I haven't heard of until more recently. Even until this early fall, I was in the mindset of accumulating as many Christian books as I could whenever I travelled. However, I now look at the sheer number of books to read, and feel like I need to be much more discerning of my TBR pile so that I can make the most of my...

I have to give full credit for the title of this post to Heather Wood who used this phrase in an Instagram story to promote the #ClearlyChristianReadathon . Thank you for using this term as it's been in my head ever since I saw it! In thinking about what it means to have Jesus as the Lord of my life, this clearly and obviously extends to how I fill my time and what content I consume. Although my reasons for being more intentional with my reading were initially pragmatic (as in if I die soon, did I waste a lot of time in my life reading things that weren't even that great?), I also see how it can both reflect my walk with God and shape what it becomes. Though I'm sharing a lot of content about the Clearly Christian Readathon , I'm encouraged to think of all of my entertainment choices in the light of eternity. While I've certainly struggled with this at different times in my life, it's been hitting me in a different way now. I confess that even quite recently, ...

I've always found it interesting that Christianity as its own genre can be used across music, film, books, and virtually most forms of artistic or creative expression. While most secular items tend to be labelled by their style, works produced by Christians tend to get labelled by the faith of the one producing it. I remember seeing an article years ago about how the Grammys  put Christian artists under the genre of Gospel and Contemporary Christian who would then be further separated out by their musical style, such as Gospel, Bluegrass, Rock, Pop, Country, etc. I can't recall the specifics of the article, but I believe that the author of the article thought it was both a little unfair that artists would be lumped together in a giant pool despite varying styles or backgrounds, and that it was also a label that didn't really tell audiences what they would be getting, other than Christian content. I wish I could remember a bit more, but as I read it in passing, the only thou...

This is a topic that has been resonating for me over the past few days, ever since I saw James Trevino's Instagram reel about why you shouldn't finish every book you start. In it, he breaks down the math of how many books we'd be able to read in a lifetime, based on reading a set number of hours per day and the average lifespan. He then compares this number to the number of books that are available worldwide. At first glance, it made me realize that I would have a lot of unread books, no matter whether my life is short or long. There's just too many books to read. Thinking about when my life might end led me to think about the types of books I read and how I'm currently filling my time. I don't think it's a coincidence that right after this crossed my mind, I was listening to  The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis where he espouses a simple but profound line that stopped me in my tracks: "If you don't read good books, you will read bad ones." Thi...

Today is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church . It's a reminder that global Christians in different parts of the world are likely facing persecution and even martyrdom for their Christian faith. Here are a few books that may help in learning more about their struggles and plight. As one part of the body of Christ hurts, so do the others. If you are interested in learning more, some of these resources come from Voice of the Martyrs . 📗 Jesus Freaks by dc Talk 📗 Live Like a Jesus Freak by dc Talk 📗 Killing Christians: Living the Faith Where It's Not Safe to Believe by Tom Doyle 📗 Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians by Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert, and Nina Shea 📗 Between Two Tigers: Testimonies of Vietnamese Christians compiled by Tom White 📗 Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand 📽 Tortured for Christ 📗 God's Double Agent by Bob Fu 📘 Safely Home by Randy Alcorn 📘 Across the China Sky by C. Hope Flinchbaugh 📘 Daughter of Chin...

Have you ever wondered about the theological background of authors? I am sometimes curious, especially if there are things that pop up in their books that make me pay attention (either positively or negatively). What I've found is that it's not always easy to find out. Some authors will openly share what church or denomination they belong to, whereas others don't seem to mention it—which for privacy concerns, I completely understand. In terms of how important this information may be for readers, or not at all for some, it does make me think about the role that this could play when deciding which books to read and buy. On the one hand, I think not specifically knowing which theological stream an author comes from but still being aware that they fall within the broader evangelical umbrella is fine with me. There's so much to learn as believers and I wouldn't want to be limited to only simply what I know. On the other hand, not knowing much beyond "Christian"...

If you've been following this blog for a little bit, you'll realize that I love bringing attention to Asian Christian authors. This mostly stems from being an Asian Christian myself, and celebrating that there seems to be more Christian authors now who are Asian than I have noticed in years past. Why does representation matter so much to me? When I first became a Christian, I feared that being Chinese would be a hindrance to being a disciple of Jesus Christ, especially coming from a non-Christian background. It may sound silly, but I was genuinely concerned about how to grow in my walk with God because I did not see a lot of Christian books at the time address the topic of reconciling Chinese or Asian identity and its cultural traditions with following Jesus (and avoiding the trap of syncretism that I initially and mistakenly fell into). I've since written one of my theses on how our ethnicity affects our faith, but at the time, I had so many questions as a young Christian....