If you read any of the "self-help" books, then you begin to analyze everything and end up thinking more and more about yourself and your problem(s) and not about God and other people. Whereas if you would just keep busy with helping others and reading other books (i.e. about real things and classic fiction) then you wouldn't have time to need the "self-help" books because you are too busy to think about yourself. Believe me, it works.
Recommended Summer...
Reading:
Fiction:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
The Sarah's Journey series by Wanda Luttrell.
Emma by Jane Austen.
Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.
The Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. (Including Carney's House Party.)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain.
The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Shakespeare's Plays and Poems.
The Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery.
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare.
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes.
The Liza, Bill, and Jed series by Peggy Parish.
Non-Fiction:
My Story by Ingrid Bergman and Robert Burgress.
Catherine the Queen by Mary M. Luke.
A Crown for Elizabeth by Mary M. Luke.
Gloriana: The years of Elizabeth I by Mary M. Luke.
Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson by Peter Kurth
All the Presidents Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Burnstein. Also the sequel, "The Final Days.". (There is some language in these but oh well.)
Paul Revere and the World He Lived In by Esther Forbes.
The Bible.
Various Autobiographies of Interesting People.
DVD Airings:
Casablanca
Chariots of Fire
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Little Women (1994)
The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew TV series from the 1970's.
Anastasia (starring Ingrid Bergman)
Ever After (great score (music) as well)
What a Girl Wants
Hairspray (2007)
Emma (with Gwyneth Paltrow)
The Original Star Wars Trilogy
Gone with the Wind
Enchanted
Follow Me Boys
Gummi Bears series
Summer Magic
Elizabethtown
And when you're done with all that...go hiking or something. :-D
I think that this is how people lived in the past...they kept very busy and didn't have time to analyze things. We could all learn a thing or two from them. :-)