Fiction and Nonfiction | Amanda Aucoin’s Summer Reading Recommendations

This summer, we want to help you craft the perfect Summer Reading List. We asked Southeastern Seminary professors what books they would recommend, and we’ve shared their recommendations all summer.

Today, Dr. Amanda Aucoin recommends two books for your summer reading list.

A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead Books, 2008)

For a fiction read, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is a book I just finished and would recommend. It’s a somewhat heartbreaking but informative story of two women whose lives intersect in Afghanistan from roughly the time of the Soviet occupation in the 1980s through the takeover of the Taliban and into the early 2000s. I would classify it as contemporary historical fiction and think it can really help keep our hearts tender towards the people of Afghanistan to see how much they have been through in the lifetimes of many people still living there now. This is especially true since we know the Taliban has taken control again since the book was published in 2007.

No Greater Love: Experiencing the Heart of Jesus through the Gospel of John
by A.W. Tozer (Bethany House Publishers, 2020)

I’ve also been reading No Greater Love: Experiencing the Heart of Jesus through the Gospel of John, by AW Tozer, edited by James Snyder.  This is a book that students have recommended over the years and I just finally picked it up this summer. It’s a compilation of Tozer’s writings dealing with how Jesus interacted with people, such as Nicodemus or the woman at the well, in John’s gospel. Even though the writing or context feels a little dated in parts, Tozer definitely has a way with words and interprets Jesus’s dealings with people in a way that’s relatable across time. Each of the short chapters starts with a prayer and short verse selection so it can be used a daily devotional also.