Read The Anatomy of Peace!

And now for the perfect followup to yesterday’s rant:

As a favor to me, and for my July birthday each year, I invite my friends to read my favorite book: The Anatomy of Peace.

It’s helped me become better in some crucial ways (of course, I still need a lot of work—as evidenced by yesterday’s travesty—wait). In short, it teaches the virtue of godly love in a down-to-earth way.

This year I’m making my tech-writing students read it too. It may seem like a stretch to relate this to writing, but it’s not. In writing, the reader is the main thing. As Italo Calvino says (Invisible Cities 135),

“It is not the voice that commands the story; it is the ear.”

My birthday’s here again. I’d love to have you join us in reading. I even have a couple extra copies I’d loan out... Just sayin’...

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One of my favorite parts is the story of the Crusaders’ enemy Saladin, retold in this video (it’s worth 5 minutes):