Where Do You Look for Good and Great Books?
Where do you look for good and great books?
Have you ever heard a statistic to the effect that ninety-three percent of the time, we fail to take the best path only because we are uncertain how to do so?
Okay, I made that statistic up. But it was resonating pretty well until I told you that, wasn’t it?
The truth of the matter is, we all face situations where we would like to do better in our own lives, and in the lives of the children who we influence for eternity. If you have been following this blog for a little while, you will know that we place a huge emphasis on the power of good and great books.
Now, it’s an easy thing to say “Read good and great books.”
Going out and finding them, can be another matter. Where do you look for good and great books? Are there actually places where you can find them?
Books Don’t Grow on Trees!
These are perfectly valid questions, because the truth of the matter is that top-quality, Christ-centred literature seldom falls into our laps unasked. Good books are hard to find. Great books are hard to find. It usually requires energy and commitment to find reliable sources for books that are both good and great.
The encouraging news is, that such sources do exist. They may be difficult to find, but they are out there.
SAW Publishing: A Forum for Good and Great Books
At SAW Publishing it is our aim not only to print high-quality, godly literature, but also to encourage readers in their quest for good and great books.
Sheep Among Wolves Publishing seeks to provide a forum for locating, reviewing, and discussing good and great literature from a wide variety of sources.
Whether a book comes to you from our company, from another publisher, or from the public domain, we want to create dialogue about good and great reading. We can all benefit from discussing sources for good and great books.
What’s Your Experience?
I want to start that dialogue today by asking all of you about the book sources you are already familiar with.
- What books come to mind when you think of well-written, Christ-centred literature?
- What sources do you turn to when you are looking for worthwhile novels and storybooks?
- What companies do you rely on when you’re choosing school curriculum?
- Where do you look for non-fiction works?
- Where have you found good and great literature in the past, and where do you continue to look for it in the future?
Pretty well every Christian parent identifies with the North American literature problem. We have a free press, and religious liberty—we can print good and great books. We have an almost universal literacy rate—we have the skills to read good and great books. We have a superabundance of wealth when compared with the rest of the globe—we can afford good and great books.
We just don’t know where to find them!
That is why every single reader’s experience holds so much value.
Where Do You Look for Good and Great Books?
When I first wrote this post, I wasn’t planning to give an answer to the question, “Where do you look for good and great books?” I wanted to spark discussion rather than just give you the solutions I have found personally helpful, but on second thought, I decided to include some broad categories of resources which we at SAW Publishing have used in our quest for good and great books. Feel free to click through for more information on each category.
3) Homeschool Curriculum Companies
5) The Public Library’s Inter-Library Loan System
These five resources represent my attempt to answer the ongoing question “Where do you look for good and great books?”
Good and Great Books are Worth Sharing!
I’m hoping your own answer isn’t exactly the same as mine. I’m hoping that I am familiar with a few sources of high-quality, Christ-centred literature that will be new to you. And I’m hoping that you have a few that will be new to me.
Take a look at the list of questions I gave above, and join the discussion by sharing some of your answers in the comments section below. Good and great books are too precious to keep to yourself!
For a more detailed overview of the five sources just mentioned, please see our previous post:
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